Theological Library of Caesarea Maritima

Through Origen and especially the scholarly presbyter Pamphilus, an avid collector of books of Scripture, the theological school of Caesarea gained a reputation for having the most extensive ecclesiastical library of the time, containing more than 30,000 manuscripts: Gregory Nazianzus, Basil the Great, Jerome and others came to study there.

Saint Pamphilus searched out and obtained ancient texts which he collected in the library that Jerome was later to use, and established a school for theological study.

Jerome's De Viris Illustribus (75) says that Pamphilus "transcribed the greater part of the works of Origen of Alexandria with his own hand," and that "these are still preserved in the library of Cæsarea."

Jerome knew of this copy of the so-called "Hebrew" or Aramaic text of the Gospel of Matthew and Eusebius[2] refers to the catalogue of the library that he appended to his life of Pamphilus.

[7] It was noted in the 6th century, but Henry Barclay Swete[8] was of the opinion that it probably did not long survive the capture of Caesarea by the Saracens in 638, and this claim is repeated, without citation, in a modern reference: the “large library survived at Caesarea until destroyed by the Arabs in the 7th cent.”[9] O'Connor says of this library, "The tradition of scholarship ... was continued by Pamphilius (d. 309).