ON ST. PANTAENUS THE CONFESSOR
AT ALEXANDRIA IN EGYPT.
In the year 216.
COMMENTARY.
Pantaenus, Confessor, at Alexandria in Egypt (S.)
BY THE AUTHOR J. B. S.
§ I. The praises, doctrine, writings, and cult of St. Pantaenus.
Of St. Pantaenus our Pierre Halloix has deserved excellently, who, as I noted long ago in the Observations on Usuard, in volume 2 On the Lives of the Fathers of the East from page 839, finding few examples of his life and virtues, in proportion to his degree of sanctity, nay scarcely a very few shadows of his acts, learnedly and elegantly enough composed from the ancient writers the shreds dispersed here and there, From ancient monuments the encomia of the Saint are gathered: the Acts of this Saint being distributed into three articles; whence we shall not unwillingly cull the things which shall seem to make for our purpose. For we do not here insist on digesting long and polished orations, but only on collecting those points which we judge proved from contemporary Fathers or those nearest to the age of the Saint; as we find was long ago done in a certain Utrecht manuscript, from almost the words of Eusebius and Jerome, but stitched together by a rude workmanship, just as also that compendium of the life is which was adorned by Pietro de' Natali, book 6 chapter 65, in which the things which he embraces in words however few do not everywhere stand. There have perhaps been others also who entered upon the same path; but we do not delay over them, since the sources lie open, which to reconcile and illustrate is proper to this work and our office. From the same drew Tillemont and, following him, the French Legendary, whose method is to weave the series of the deeds at their own discretion, but ours to render integrally and candidly the very texts and sentences of the ancients. Thence we go about to bring forth the true praises of St. Pantaenus.
[2] of which the first, that he was the teacher of Clement of Alexandria, If the most received proverb is true, that the glory of disciples redounds upon their masters, since through almost the whole East there shone forth excellently the most famous and most ancient writer Clement of Alexandria, there is no doubt that thence to St. Pantaenus, however famous otherwise, much splendor accrued. He therefore, Eusebius being witness, book 5 of the History, chapter 11, in the books of Institutions written by himself, plainly names Pantaenus as his teacher, which he repeats in nearly the same words book 6 chapter 13, alleging the same books of Hypotyposes or Institutions, in which he calls Pantaenus his master by name, and, if we believe Nicephorus Callistus book 4 chapter 33, Clement mentioned Pantaenus as the father of his books. Eusebius goes on in the former place: But also in the first book of the Stromata he seems to me to designate this same man, where he recounts the most excellent successors of the Apostolic doctrine, by whom he had been instructed, in these words: These books, in no wise elaborated for ostentation, but as a viaticum of old age and a remedy against forgetfulness, are laid up as commentaries set aside by me: that there may be for us a certain image and adumbrated likeness of that efficacious and living doctrine, which we deserved to hear from men blessed and truly most worthy of commemoration. Of these one was Ionic in Greece, the other in Great Greece: of whom the one indeed was born of Coelesyria, the other of Egypt. But others lived in the East, of whom one was an Assyrian, the other by origin a Hebrew in Palestine. But the last, although here in the merit of doctrine he was first of all, when by a certain chance I had lighted upon him, at last I rested in him: whom indeed, lying hidden in Egypt, like a hunter I had tracked down.
[3] Hence it is clearly given to understand how illustrious in fame of doctrine he must have been, sought in the hiding-places of Egypt on account of the great fame of his name. whom that blessed Clement, in the judgment of St. Jerome the most learned of all, sought with so great effort; and further how great was the humility of mind in our Saint, who hid himself in a manner in the hiding-places of Egypt, not only guarding the genuine tradition of the Apostolic doctrine, and inserting the ancestral and Apostolic seeds in the minds of the faithful, but also proposing to himself for imitation the virtues and examples of the Apostles, in the contempt of the world and of fleeting glory. Let this be the most illustrious laudation of St. Pantaenus, conceived nearly in the words of so illustrious a disciple. Another encomium, though a little briefer, the holy Bishop of Jerusalem Alexander composed for him, thus writing to Origen in Eusebius book 6 chapter 14: We acknowledge as fathers those blessed men who went the way before us, and whom we shall shortly follow, namely Pantaenus truly blessed and my lord. But also Origen himself, taunted by some, because he shook out the Greek disciplines, the opinions of the Philosophers, and the false dogmas of the heretics themselves, held nothing more important than to defend himself by the authority of St. Pantaenus. And this we did, he says in Eusebius book 6 chapter 19, following the example of that Pantaenus, who profited many before us, and who indeed was not moderately instructed in the knowledge of the same. Read the epistle of St. Jerome, the 83rd, on the same subject, to Magnus, a Roman orator, where he too adduces the example of St. Pantaenus among many others: Pantaenus, a Philosopher of the Stoic sect, on account of the glory of his eminent erudition, was sent by Demetrius, Bishop of Alexandria, into India, that he might preach Christ among the Brahmans and the philosophers of that nation.
[4] But the far chief praise of St. Pantaenus is to be fetched from Eusebius, His praise from the mission undertaken into India, where, speaking of him professedly, he writes thus book 5 chapter 10: About the same time (namely under Commodus, as Nicephorus Callistus more expressly noted, book 4, chapter 32) a man most famous for the sake of doctrine presided over the school of the faithful, by name Pantaenus, inasmuch as already from ancient times a school of sacred letters had been instituted in that city: which indeed perseveres even to our age, and is said to be held by men most fully instructed both in eloquence and in the study of the divine letters. But before all others at that time is reported to have flourished he whom we have named, Pantaenus, inasmuch as he had first been nourished on the precepts and institutes of the Stoic philosophy. So great an ardor of mind toward the word of God did the same man show, it is related, that he became a preacher of the Gospel of Christ to the nations of the East, having advanced even to India itself. For there were even then several Evangelists of the word of God, who, kindled by a certain divine emulation, hastened, after the example of the Apostles, to confer their zeal upon the edification of the faith and the increase of the Divine word. Of whose number Pantaenus is said to have penetrated even to the Indians, and there to have found the Gospel of Matthew, which had already anticipated his own coming, among certain persons imbued with the knowledge of Christ: to whom, namely, Bartholomew, one of the twelve Apostles, once, as report is, had preached, and had left the Gospel of Matthew, written in Hebrew letters: which indeed is recorded to have been preserved even to the aforesaid times. This Pantaenus therefore, after many things nobly done, at last presided over the Alexandrian school; where, partly by living voice, partly by writings, he set forth the treasures of the divine dogmas.
[5] and by the books written by himself, Rufinus adds that St. Pantaenus carried back the Gospel found by himself among those Indians, namely on his return to Alexandria; thus continuing and interpreting the last period of Eusebius with an added sense: But a teacher moreover in many other things, in ecclesiastical studies at Alexandria he concluded a life famous enough and noble with a most excellent and admirable end, both instructing disciples by living voice, and by the monuments of his books leaving to posterity also the treasures of knowledge. That the mind of Eusebius is thus explained a little more clearly, we shall say again below. Things equal to what has been said St. Jerome hands down, On Writers chapter 36: Pantaenus, a Philosopher of the Stoic sect, according to a certain ancient custom at Alexandria, where from Mark the Evangelist there were always ecclesiastical teachers, was of such prudence and erudition, both in the divine Scriptures and in secular literature, that he was sent into India also, being asked by the legates of that nation, by Demetrius Bishop of Alexandria: where he found that Bartholomew, one of the twelve Apostles, had preached the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ according to the Gospel of Matthew, which, written in Hebrew letters, he carried back with himself, returning to Alexandria. Of him indeed there exist many commentaries on holy Scripture, but he profited the churches more by living voice: and he taught under the Emperor Severus and Antoninus, surnamed Caracalla. Thus Jerome, whose other words concerning St. Pantaenus to Magnus we have also reported above.
[6] Concerning those commentaries on holy Scripture, or, as Rufinus speaks, the monuments of his books, from which a modest fragment is reported. although many, that none anywhere now survives, Halloix rightly observed, and yet Eusebius calls them treasures of the divine dogmas. It will be worthwhile, from the praised Halloix, concerning the great treasures of so great a man, to report not a fragment of his words, but a very brief document, indicated by the words of someone, either Clement or Theodotus, which he affirms was presented to him by chance, but nevertheless fortunate. Among the opinions and sentences of various men concerning that verse of Psalm 18, He has set his tabernacle in the sun, also the judgment and authority of the blessed Pantaenus, though briefly, is set forth with a useful document. Thus the words have, rendered from Greek into Latin: Some therefore say that the body of the Lord was deposited in itself; as Hermogenes; and they call his body the tabernacle. Others the Church of the faithful. But our Pantaenus said that prophecy for the most part utters its voices indefinitely, and uses the present time for the future, and again the present for the past. Which also now appears; for HE HAS SET is arranged both in the past and in the future. And in the future indeed, because, this time of the present state being completed, the Lord is to come, and to raise up the faithful just, in whom as in a tabernacle he rests (for they are all one body of the same kind, having followed the same faith and justice), to the same unity. But others as a head; others as eyes; others as hands; others as breasts; others as feet shall be placed shining in the sun. He explains therefore, says Halloix, that to be placed in the sun is to be set in God, and as it were to become God, and to shine like the sun. But of his writings let enough be said.
[7] The arguments of sacred cult and ecclesiastical veneration are not to be sought from the Greek Fasti, The memory of St. Pantaenus in the sacred Fasti. since in them no memory of our Saint is found. In the observations on Usuard on this seventh of July I long since declared more expressly that he is no less unknown in the Hieronymian Martyrologies. The codex of Bede of Dijon does not lack an addition, for from the genuine Bede, Florus, and Rabanus he is plainly absent. The Plantin Bede, compiled from Ado, reads: At Alexandria, St. Pantaenus, an Apostolic man. For the rest, we have shown that he was first consigned by the collector of the Rufinian Saints or the Little Roman; thence adopted by Ado, Usuard, Notker, and their whole progeny. That Ado's elogium was contracted from Eusebius and Jerome will appear to the eye to one who compares, and that from this flowed the announcement of Usuard, and from this of the modern Roman, of this kind: At Alexandria, St. Pantaenus, an Apostolic man, and adorned with all wisdom: whose zeal and love toward the word of God was so great, that, kindled with the warmth of faith and devotion, he set out even to preach the Gospel of Christ to the nations which are hidden in the farthest retreats of the East; and at last, returned to Alexandria, under Antoninus Caracalla he rested in peace. The little verse of Wandelbert is not to be passed over: On the Nones shine the merit and the faith of Pantaenus. The Brussels codex anticipated the Saint's festivity by one day: in all the more recent Martyrologies, which I forbear to enumerate, the present-day is kept as his proper day. Now from the recited words of Clement, Eusebius, and Jerome some historical-chronological series is to be arranged, as far as it can be done.
§ II. The age, race, fatherland, offices, apostolate of India, and death of St. Pantaenus.
The age of Pantaenus not certainly, Besides some notes of time, marked in the preceding paragraph by Eusebius and Jerome, that is not to be passed over which in the Chronicle of each, though often not accurate enough, is expressed at the year 195 in these words: Clement, presbyter of the Alexandrian church, and Pantaenus the Stoic Philosopher, are held most eloquent in the disputation of our dogma. Another version of Eusebius's words Halloix adduces: nor is it necessary here to weigh more scrupulously the year defined in the Chronicle; nor do I so take the words that in that precise year both Saints must have stayed at Alexandria; for St. Pantaenus could have been sent away into India even from the year 190, and yet be held most eloquent at Alexandria, equally with Clement, who is to be judged to have discharged the office of his then absent master, with no less fame and esteem of erudition, and for that reason perhaps named in the first place. In this all authorities agree, that we understand St. Pantaenus to have flourished under the last times of Marcus Aurelius, but chiefly under Commodus, then under Severus and Antoninus Caracalla; in the last years of Agrippinus, the Alexandrian Patriarch, as Eusebius sufficiently hints, and then, the same church being governed by Julian, and after him by Demetrius; by which reckoning is made up that nobler part of the age of St. Pantaenus which he passed, both in teaching, and in strenuously laboring in the Indian apostolate, and finally after his return thence at Alexandria.
[9] it can at least be determined to some extent, The death of Agrippinus in our Chronological treatise on the Alexandrian Patriarchs before volume 5 of June we referred to the year of Christ 179; and hence we believe it can be safely asserted that before that year St. Pantaenus was drawn to the Alexandrian school, urged, without doubt, by Clement of Alexandria, who, having pursued him reluctant and in a manner fugitive, had, as he himself speaks, hunted him out as he lay hidden. He administered the illustrious province diligently through the whole time of Julian, who ceased to live in the year 189, and had Clement as a disciple, or as the chronicle just now asserted, an equal, and no less than the master, most eloquent in the disputation of our dogma, a little after his successor, namely while Demetrius sat as Patriarch, to whom those legates, excited by the fame of St. Pantaenus, came from the farthest East, and by whom therefore he was destined for India, spent some years in Apostolic labors, and, returning to Alexandria, perhaps about the year 205, where, resuming his lectures either publicly or privately, prolonged his life up to the times of Antoninus Caracalla, who, since he reigned after his father from the year 211 to 219, one will not improbably determine that St. Pantaenus died about the year 216, Demetrius surviving, who occupied the Alexandrian see up to the year 231.
[10] yet not to be extended to the times of St. Mark. From the words of the aforesaid chronicle, reported above, Halloix here rightly argues: If in the year of the Lord 195 or 196 not only Pantaenus, but also Clement, his hearer, was famous, since Pantaenus must have been already advanced in age, it follows that he was born at least about the middle of that century; against which what can be objected, I altogether do not see; for since we have attached the Saint's death to the year 216, if he be supposed born in the year 150, he would not have reached the seventieth of his age, to which that he came, there is nothing that forbids affirming. A most kindly interpretation is needed, that the words of the Bishop of Equilino may be explained, when in book 6 chapter 65 he says that St. Pantaenus was a disciple of Mark the Evangelist at Alexandria, which are tolerable only in this sense, in which the followers of the holy Augustine, Thomas, and other Doctors are called their disciples; such a disciple of St. Mark we shall allow St. Pantaenus to be called; nay, by a far nearer right, if Photius has rightly handed down that he used as masters those who had seen the Apostles, nay, had heard some of these very ones. For our Saint could have known the disciples of Mark, at least those who lived very long, and from them learned the institutions of the most holy Evangelist, which in the Catechetical Chair, formed by himself, he set forth to his hearers with so great praise: for otherwise he would have to be called a hundred whole years older than we have shown him to have been from the authors alleged, and so to have exceeded the age of a century and a half, which to obtrude without a suitable witness would seem altogether inept, as among his notes Halloix also weighs, to whose opinion in this part we willingly subscribe.
[11] But indeed we do not so readily assent to another opinion of his, He was a Sicilian by race, not a Hebrew; that St. Pantaenus was a Hebrew by race. This he himself tries to prove by many things, wresting into his own sense the words of Eusebius, recited above, concerning the last of the masters of St. Clement; contending that that Hebrew was the same whom Clement testifies above at number 2 that he heard in Palestine; namely from the connection of the constructions, which are taken by Valesius as distinct, and so seem they ought to be taken. The words sound in Greek: Ὁ δὲ ἐν τῇ παλαιστίνῇ ἑβραῖος ἀνέκαθεν. ὑστάτῳ δὲ περιτυχὼν … ἀνεπαυσάμην. ἐν Αἰγύπτῳ, θηράσας λεληθότα. These Hervetus had thus rendered: But the other in Palestine, of an origin drawn from on high. But when I had lighted upon that last one; manifestly confounding the last master of St. Clement with the Hebrew. Nor does the interpretation of Halloix differ much: but when I had lighted upon the last, by which manner also the reference to the Hebrew appears clear enough. The interpretation of Valesius so distinguishes that latest teacher of St. Clement, that in his notes pages 95 and 96, enumerating and discerning the several masters, he by no means will have the last to have been a Hebrew, but Pantaenus, by nation a Sicilian, by origin a gentile, by profession a Stoic philosopher, and at last by far the most excellent interpreter of Christian dogmas. Thus speaks Valesius: There follow certain things in Clement, which Eusebius ought not to have omitted. For from these it seems to be gathered that Pantaenus was born of Sicily. Do not these words of Clement openly hint it? Σικελικὴ τῷ ὄντι ἡ μελιττα, etc. For since by the preceding words Clement designates Pantaenus, as Eusebius testifies, these too must necessarily be referred to the same Pantaenus. Clement therefore names him the Sicilian bee, because he was born of Sicily. For why should he call him rather the Sicilian bee than the Attic? Pierre Halloix, in the life of Pantaenus, says that he was a Hebrew by race,
and this he gathered from the words of Clement. But Clement plainly hints the contrary. For the Hebrew indeed he says was heard by him in the East; but Pantaenus in Egypt.
[12] However these things may be, from the preceding paragraph it is manifest that St. Pantaenus adhered to the Stoic sect before he was initiated in the Christian mysteries, and then, most fully instructed in the other disciplines, deserved to be set over the Alexandrian school, nor did he teach at Alexandria after, but before the Indian apostolate. at which time that Clement was his hearer and afterward the successor to the school, all antiquity hands down and the opinion of the learned is concordant. We have already said that he set the beginning of his teaching about the death of Agrippinus, which he continued through the whole time of Julian, until he was sent into India by Julian's successor Demetrius, the second century verging to its end, the Church not yet disturbed by the persecution of Severus, which he himself thereafter shook with terrible movements, urging the persecution by his presence about the year 202, at which time they will have it that Clement withdrew from Egypt, not so much from fear of punishments as that he might more happily provide for the affairs of the Church in Cappadocia, which will be more opportunely examined on the fourth of December. Meanwhile this can be noted, that St. Jerome did not rightly say of Clement that after the death of Pantaenus he held the ecclesiastical school at Alexandria; nor is the series of the Life of St. Pantaenus arranged fittingly enough by Halloix, when in the first chapter he follows out the Indian journey, but to the second prefixes this title: The renown and glory of doctrine of Pantaenus returned from India in the Alexandrian gymnasium; as if he then first became famous by teaching, when it does not seem doubtful that Origen had succeeded Clement, however young, before St. Pantaenus returned from India. Halloix indeed connects the times, joining those who followed St. Pantaenus before or after, but even this very thing we judge to be disapproved, since it is most probable that during that time he by no means presided over the gymnasium, but at most privately instructed those who came to him of their own accord.
[13] An involved question could be moved, what grade in the Church St. Pantaenus held, What grade he held in the Church, and to what Indians he set out. whether while he acted as prefect of the Alexandrian school, or while he was destined for India by Demetrius. Halloix cites, page 851, a text of Anastasius Sinaita, in which Pantaenus is called an Alexandrian priest. But against this makes the not obscure exclusion of Origen, who in the epistle cited above, associating Heraclas with Pantaenus, says that he held the grade of the presbyterate at Alexandria, which he does not predicate of Pantaenus; as also the chronicle, cited at the beginning of this paragraph, expresses; where Clement is called a presbyter, Pantaenus simply a Stoic Philosopher. Hence I think Halloix wrote, page 842, that he was endowed neither with the priesthood nor with ecclesiastical order. Tillemont grants our Saint the title of Apostolic Bishop, or of an uncertain place, not unwillingly, but in the silence of the more ancient, who would dare safely enough to define the matter? Equally uncertain are several other points; as for instance: What part of India properly did Pantaenus enter? Who were the legates who, of whom Jerome speaks, importuned Demetrius for him? How long did he tarry there? How much did he profit among the Brahmans? and other things of this kind. Eusebius, nearest to those deeds, only hints that St. Pantaenus set out to those parts in which St. Bartholomew the Apostle had cast the first seeds of the faith, where he found the Hebrew Gospel of St. Matthew, left there by the Apostle, which Rufinus, Jerome, and from them Ado, affirm more expressly to have been brought back to Alexandria by the Saint than the genuine text of Eusebius bears. I shall not fear for a while to opine that here that India is understood to which St. Athanasius afterward directed Frumentius, which is Ethiopia itself, subject to the Alexandrian see up to this century by an uninterrupted continuation.
[14] It has now been abundantly shown that St. Pantaenus, returned to Alexandria from India, A most excellent end of life. did not interrupt his old custom of teaching, although the young Origen had occupied his former chair, after St. Clement, to whom the Saint without doubt would not have wished to yield, judging himself, by reason of old age, unequal to such an office, and being most far removed from all jealousy, inasmuch as he cherished Origen, so that Alexander of Jerusalem, in Eusebius book 6 chapter 14, confesses that Origen became known to him through St. Pantaenus. The life of the Saint we have judged altogether should be brought down to the times of the reigning Caracalla, from Jerome, so that it could reach the sixteenth year of the third century; when, after many labors undertaken by him at home and abroad, in preaching the Gospel, in elucidating the Scriptures, in drawing the gentiles from superstition, and finally in recalling the heretics from error, he ended a life conspicuous by venerable gray hairs, with a most happy end; which Rufinus above thus expressed: But a teacher moreover in many other things, in ecclesiastical studies at Alexandria he concluded a life famous enough and noble with a most excellent and admirable end: which are nearly the last words of book 5 chapter 10, brought to a clearer sense than are those which are exhibited to us in Eusebius: This Pantaenus therefore, after many things nobly done, at last presided over the Alexandrian school; from which it would be given to understand that our Saint first began to teach toward the end of his life, which seems to fight with the beginning of the chapter. I would therefore rather explain the Greek words τελευτῶν ἡγεῖται διδασκαλείου in that sense which Rufinus, and many centuries after Nicephorus Callistus, gave them, so that he be judged to have been up to the end of his life, by his excellent fame of erudition, the pillar of the Alexandrian school, and thus to have passed by a blessed death to the deserved crown of his labors.
[15] The conclusion of Halloix. The Life of St. Pantaenus, composed by himself laboriously enough, Halloix thus concludes, and we with him this our commentary: And these are the things which, concerning the life and monuments of the most holy Pantaenus, in the great scarcity of writers about him, I have been able to find; if anyone shall have been able to obtain more, let him, I pray, bring them forth into public, and confer his own contribution to the increasing of the honor of so great a man. And let this be the wish of all hagiophiles.