Pantaenus the Philosopher

Pantaenus was a philosopher of the Stoic school. In keeping with an old custom of Alexandria, where from the time of Mark the evangelist the churchmen had always been teachers, he was a man of such wisdom and learning, both in Scripture and in secular literature, that at the request of envoys from that nation Demetrius, bishop of Alexandria, sent him to India. There he found that Bartholomew, one of the twelve apostles, had preached the coming of the Lord Jesus according to the Gospel of Matthew, and on his return to Alexandria he brought this Gospel back with him, written in Hebrew letters. Many of his commentaries on Holy Scripture do survive, but his living voice was of still greater benefit to the churches. He taught in the reigns of the emperor Severus and of Antoninus, surnamed Caracalla. [a]