PAMMACHIUS, saint. – Roman senator descended from the Furii, born about the middle of the 4th century and died in 409, during the siege of Rome by Alaric. Cousin of St. Marcella, he was a disciple of St. Jerome and a friend of St. Paulinus of Nola and of St. Augustine. In 585 he married Paolina, daughter of the celebrated Paola, who was likewise a disciple of Jerome.
Probably in 390 he joined with other Christian nobles in bringing the question of Jovinian before Pope Siricius. But in 392, when Jerome sent his books against the condemned heretic to Rome, P. showed himself opposed to the violent reaction of the Stridonian and tried to withdraw the copies that had been circulated. After the premature death of his wife in 397, P. embraced the ascetic life, not disdaining to appear in the senatorial assembly in the neglected garb of a monk. Paulinus of Nola recalls that on this occasion P. gathered all the poor of Rome for a banquet in the basilica of St. Peter, which was not large enough to contain them all, so that the poor also occupied the atrium and the square; for this reason he calls P. «Ecclesiae munerarius» (Ep., 13: PL 61, 213). He distributed his possessions to the poor and, Fabiola (v.), built a large hospice for pilgrims at Porto, at the mouths of the Tiber (Jerome, Epist., 66, 77). Recent excavations have brought to light the plan of the building and various remains. He founded on the Caelian the «titulus Pammachii»; in fact, an inscription on the door read: «quis tantas venerandas condidit aedes, si quaeris, cultor Pammachius fidei» (G. B. De Rossi, Inscr. chr., II, Rome 1888, p. 150). H. Grisar pointed out that the expression «cultor fidei» occurs in the canon of the Mass. In the subscriptions of the Roman Synod of 499, two priests of the «titulus Pammachii» are found, distinguished from two others of the «titulus Bizantis» (today SS. Giovanni e Paolo). In 399 he urged
