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| Pantænus, the Alexandrian Philosopher.
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Pantænus,3811
| 3811 Vol. ii. p.
342; Westcott, Canon, pp. 90, 381; Routh, R. S., vol. i.
pp. 375–379. | the
Alexandrian Philosopher.
[a.d.
182–192–212.] The world owes more to Pantænus
than to all the other Stoics put together. His mind discovered
that true philosophy is found, not in the Porch, but in Nazareth, in
Gethsemane, in Gabbatha, in Golgotha; and he set himself to make it
known to the world. We are already acquainted with the great
master of Clement,3812
| 3812 Vol. ii. pp.
165, etc., and p. 301, note 9; also p. 342, Elucid. II., this
series. | “the
Sicilian bee,” that forsook the flowers of Enna, to enrich Alexandria
with what is “sweeter than honey and the honey-comb;” and
we remember that he became a zealous missionary to the Oriental
Ethiopia, and found there the traces of St. Matthias’ labours,
and those also of St. Bartholomew. From this mission he seems to
have returned about a.d. 192. Possibly he
was master of the Alexandrian school before he went to India, and came
back to his chair when that mission was finished. There he sat
till about a.d. 212, and under him this
Christian academy became famous. It had existed as a catechetical
school from the Apostles’ time, according to St. Jerome. I
have elsewhere noted some reasons for supposing that its founder may
have been Apollos.3813
| 3813 Vol. vi.
p. 236. St. Luke, in the company of Apollos, may have met a
catechumen of his in that “excellent Theophilus” of
his writings (St. Luke
i. 4, Greek), whose history
shows that catechetical teaching was already part of the Christian
system. | All
the learning of Christendom may be traced to this source; and blessed
be the name of one of whom all we know is ennobling to the Church, and
whose unselfish career was a track of light “shining more and
more unto the perfect day.”
I.3814
| 3814 In
Extracts from the Prophets, written probably by Theodotus, and
collected by Clement of Alexandria or some other writer. |
“In the sun hath He
set His tent.”3815
Some
affirm that the reference is to the Lord’s body, which He Himself
places in the sun;3816
| 3816 Φασὶ τὸ
σῶμα τοῦ
Κυρίου ἐν τῷ
ἡλίῳ αὐτὸν
ἀποτίθεσθαι. | Hermogenes,
for instance. As to His body, some say it is His tent, others the
Church of the faithful. But our Pantænus said:
“The language employed by prophecy is for the most part
indefinite, the present tense being used for the future, and again the
present for the past.”
II.3817
| 3817 In the Scholia
of Maximus on St. Gregory the Divine. |
This mode of speaking Saint Dionysius the
Areopagite declares to be used in Scripture to denote predeterminations
and expressions of the divine will.3818
In like manner also the followers of Pantænus,3819
| 3819 Οἱ περὶ
Πάνταινον.
[Vol. ii. pp. 165–167, this series.] | who became the preceptor of the great
Clement the Stromatist, affirm that they are commonly used in Scripture
for expressions of the divine will. Accordingly, when asked by
some who prided themselves on the outside learning,3820
in what way the Christians supposed God
to become acquainted with the universe,3821
their own opinion being that He
obtains His knowledge of it in different ways,—of things
falling within the province of the understanding by means of the
understanding, and of those within the region of the senses by means of
the senses,—they replied: “Neither does He gain
acquaintance with sensible things by the senses, nor with things
within the sphere of the understanding by the understanding: for
it is not possible that He who is above all existing things should
apprehend them by means of existing things. We assert, on the
contrary, that He is acquainted with existing things as the products of
His own volition.”3822
They
added, by way of showing the reasonableness of their view:
“If He has made all things by an act of His will (and no argument
will be adduced to gainsay this), and if it is ever a matter of piety
and rectitude to say that God is acquainted with His own will, and if
He has voluntarily made every several thing that has come into
existence, then surely God must be acquainted with all existing things
as the products of His own will, seeing that it was in the exercise of
that will that He made them.”
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