CESAREA di FILIPPO. - City at the southern foot of Mount Hermon, where Ba'al Gādh stood in the time of Joshua. In antiquity the city and the region were called Paneas (a name surviving in the present-day Banyās), in honor of the god Pan, to whom the cave from which the eastern source of the Jordan sprang was dedicated. In honor of Augustus, Herod the Great built a temple there, and his son Herod Philip, tetrarch of Iturea and Trachonitis, enlarged and embellished the city, calling it C. To distinguish it from the city of the same name on the Palestinian coast, it was called C. Paneas, or C. d. F.; it is recalled under this name in the Gospels. Herod Agrippa II gave it the name Neronias, which was soon forgotten.
Near this city Peter pronounced his profession of faith, receiving in return the promise of primacy: “You are Peter, and upon this rock I will build my Church”
(Mt. 16:13-20). It does not appear that Jesus entered this pagan city. An ancient Christian legend reported by Eusebius (Historia ecl., VII, 18) places near C. the healing of the woman with the issue of blood (Mt. 9:20 and parallels), to whom the name Veronica was later attributed.
Traces remain of ancient Paneas and of the temple built by Herod. In the cave there are inscriptions and votive niches. From the 4th century it was the seat of a suffragan diocese of Tyre, briefly renewed with the Latin rite during the Crusades. It was definitively reconquered by Nûr ed-dîn in 1165. It is currently a Latin titular diocese. In 1886 a Melkite bishopric was established there, with 30 churches and parishes, 2,710 Catholics out of a population of 50,000.