Pantænus, 3811 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
“the Sicilian bee,” that forsook
I. 3814
“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 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
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 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.”
Vol. ii. p. 342; Westcott, Canon, pp. 90, 381; Routh, R. S., vol. i. pp. 375–379.
776:3812Vol. ii. pp. 165, etc., and p. 301, note 9; also p. 342, Elucid. II., this series.
777:3813Vol. 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.
777:3814In Extracts from the Prophets, written probably by Theodotus, and collected by Clement of Alexandria or some other writer.
777:3815 777:3816Φασὶ τὸ σῶμα τοῦ Κυρίου ἐν τῷ ἡλίῳ αὐτὸν ἀποτίθεσθαι.
777:3817In the Scholia of Maximus on St. Gregory the Divine.
777:3818 777:3819Οἱ περὶ Πάνταινον. [Vol. ii. pp. 165–167, this series.]
777:3820 777:3821 777:3822
