Pantène, le
sicilien
Père de l’Église, Saint
IIIe siècle
Pantène, digne des temps apostoliques, florissait
dans le second siècle de l'Église. Il était Sicilien de naissance et faisait
profession de la philosophie stoïcienne. Son éloquence l'a fait appeler, par
Clément d'Alexandrie, l’Abeille de Sicile. L'amour qu'il avait pour la
vertu lui inspira de l'estime pour les chrétiens, et il se lia étroitement avec
quelques-uns d'entre eux. Frappé de l'innocence et de la sainteté de leur vie,
il se désabusa des superstitions du paganisme et ouvrit les yeux à la lumière
de l'Évangile.
Après sa conversion, il étudia les livres saints, sous
les disciples des Apôtres. Pour en acquérir une plus parfaite intelligence, il
alla fixer sa demeure à Alexandrie, en Égypte. Il y avait dans cette ville une
célèbre école où l'on enseignait la doctrine chrétienne, et qui devait son
établissement aux disciples de saint Mare.
Pantène fit de rapides progrès dans la science des
saintes lettres; mais il cachait par humilité ses rares talents. On les
découvrit bientôt malgré lui, et on le tira de l'obscurité dans laquelle il
avait cherché à vivre inconnu. Il fut mis à la tète de l'école des chrétiens,
quelque temps avant l'an 179 de Jésus-Christ, qui était la première du règne de
l'empereur Commode. Sa capacité, jointe à l'excellente méthode qu'il suivait en
enseignant, lui acquit une réputation dont ne jouirent jamais les plus fameux
philosophes. Ses leçons, qui étaient un composé du suc des fleurs qu'il
ramassait dans les écrits des prophètes et dans ceux des Apôtres, portaient la
lumière de la science et l'amour de la vertu dans les âmes de tous ceux qui
venaient l'entendre. C'est le témoignage que lui rend Clément d'Alexandrie, un
de ses disciples.
Les Indiens que le commerce attirait à Alexandrie,
eurent occasion de connaître saint Pantène. Ils le prièrent de passer dans leur
pays pour y combattre la doctrine des brachmanes par celle de Jésus-Christ. Il
se rendit à leurs instances , quitta son école, et partit pour les Indes, avec
la permission de son évêque, qui l'établit prédicateur de l'Évangile pour les
nations orientales. En arrivant dans les Indes, il y trouva quelques semences
de la foi qui y avaient été jetées précédemment. Il y vit aussi un livre de
l'Évangile de saint Matthieu, en hébreu, qui avait été laissé dans le pays par
saint Barthélemy. Étant revenu à Alexandrie quelques années après, il y apporta
ce livre avec lui.
L'école de cette ville était alors gouvernée par le
célèbre Clément. Saint Pantène continua toujours d'enseigner; mais il ne le lit
plus qu'en particulier. Il exerça cet emploi jusqu'au règne de Caracalla, et,
par conséquent, jusqu'avant l'année 216. On lit sou nom sous le 7 de juillet
dans tous les martyrologes d'Occident.
SOURCE : http://nouvl.evangelisation.free.fr/pantene_le_sicilien.htm
Nominis
Commémoraison de saint Panthène d’Alexandrie, homme apostolique, rempli de science et de sagesse ; il eut tant de zèle et d’amour pour la parole de Dieu qu’il alla, dit-on, prêcher l’Évangile du Christ, dans l’ardeur de sa foi et de son dévouement, jusqu’aux extrémités de l’Orient; puis revenu à Alexandrie, il y reposa dans la paix, sous Antonin Caracalla, vers 215.
Martyrologe romain
Pantène ou Panthène :
Philosophe stoïcien, il se convertit au christianisme puis fonda le célèbre
centre d'enseignement de philosophie et de théologie connu sous le nom d'École
d'Alexandrie ( avec Saint Clément
d'Alexandrie et Origène ).
Commémoraison de saint Panthène d’Alexandrie, homme apostolique, rempli de science et de sagesse ; il eut tant de zèle et d’amour pour la parole de Dieu qu’il alla, dit-on, prêcher l’Évangile du Christ, dans l’ardeur de sa foi et de son dévouement, jusqu’aux extrémités de l’Orient; puis revenu à Alexandrie, il y reposa dans la paix, sous Antonin Caracalla, vers 215.
Martyrologe romain
Pantaenus
of Alexandria (RM)
Born in Sicily; died c. 216. Saint Pantaenus was a convert from Stoicism. He
became the head of the catechetical school of Alexandria, which reached the
height of its prestige under his direction. He is said to have ended his life
as a missionary in India, but it is more likely that he worked in Ethiopia
(Benedictines). In art, Saint Pantaenus is shown lecturing from the pulpit
(Roeder).
Pantænus
Head of the Catechetical
School of Alexandria about 180 (Eusebius, Church History V.10), still alive in 193 (Eusebius, "Chron." Abr.,
2210). As he was succeeded by Clement
who left Alexandria about 203,
the probable date of his death would be about 200. He
was trained in the Stoic philosophy;
as a Christian missionary, he reached India (probably South Arabia),
and found there Christians possessing
the Gospel of St.
Matthew in Hebrew,
which they had received from St. Bartholomew.
All this is given by Eusebius as what was "said" (Church History V.11). Eusebius continues: "In his 'Hypotyposes' he [Clement]
speaks of Pantænus by name as his teacher. It seems to me that he
alludes to the same person also in his 'Stromata'." In the passage of the
"Stromata" (I.1), which Eusebius proceeds to quote, Clement
enumerates his principal teachers, giving their nationality but not their
names. The last, with whom Eusebius would identify Pantænus, was "a
Hebrew of Palestine, greater
than all the others [in ability], whom having hunted
out in his concealment in Egypt, I found rest." These teachers
"preserving the true tradition
of the blessed doctrine from the Holy
Apostles Peter
and James, John
and Paul . . . came, by God's will,
even to us" etc. Against Eusebius's conjecture it may be suggested that a Hebrew
of Palestine was not likely to be trained in Stoic philosophy.
In its favour are the facts that the teacher was met in Egypt, and that Pantænus endeavoured to
press the Greek philosophers into the service of Christianity. It may well be that a mind
like Clement's "found
rest" in this feature of his teaching.
Eusebius (VI, xiii) says again that Clement
in his "Hypotyposes" mentioned Pantænus, and further adds
that he gave "his opinions and traditions".
The inference commonly drawn from this statement is that, in the extant
fragments of the "Hypotyposes" where he quotes "the
elders", Clement had Pantænus
in mind; and one opinion or tradition
in particular, assigned to "the blessed
elder" (Eusebius, Church History VI.14), is unhesitatingly ascribed to Pantænus.
But this is incautious, for we cannot be sure that Clement
would have reckoned Pantænus among the elders; and if he did so,
there were other elders whom he had known
(Church
History VI.13). Origen, defending his use of Greek
philosophers, appeals
to the example of Pantænus, "who benefited many before our time
by his thorough preparation in such things" (Church History VI.19). That Pantænus anticipated Clement
and Origen in the study of Greek
philosophy, as an aid to theology, is the most important fact we know concerning him. Photius
(cod. 118) states, in his account of the "Apology for Origen" by Pamphilus and Eusebius (see SAINT
PAMPHILUS OF CÆSAREA), that they said Pantænus
had been a hearer of men who had
seen the Apostles, nay, even had
heard them himself. The second statement may have been a conjecture based upon
the identification of Pantænus with one of the teachers described in Stromata I.1, and a too literal interpretation of what is
said about these teachers deriving their doctrine direct from the Apostles. The first statement may well have been made
by Clement; it explains why he
should mention Pantænus in his "Hypotyposes", a book
apparently made up of traditions
received from the elders. Pantænus is quoted;
- (a) in the "Eclogæ ex Prophetis" (Migne, "Clem. Alex.", II, 723) and
- (b) in the "Scholia in Greg. Theolog."
of St. Maximus Confessor.
But
these quotations may have been taken from the "Hypotyposes". The last
named in his prologue to "Dionys. Areop."
(ed. Corder, p. 36) speaks casually of his writings, but he merely
seems to assume he must have
written. A conjecture has been hazarded by Lightfoot (Apost. Fathers,
488), and followed up by Batiffol ("L'glise naissante", 3rd ed., 213
sqq.), that Pantænus was the writer of the concluding chapters
of the "Epistle to Diognetus". The chief, though not the only
ground for this suggestion, is that Anastasius
Sinaita in two passages (ed. Migne, pp. 860, 892) singles out Pantænus
with two or three other early Fathers
as interpreting the six days of Creation
and the Garden of Eden as figuring Christ and the Church — a line of thought pursued in the fragment.
Sources
BARDENHEWER,
Gesch. der altkirch. Lit., II, 13 sqq.; HARNACK, Altchrist.
Lit., 291 sqq.; TILLEMONT, Hist. ecclés., III, 170 sqq.;
CEILLIER, Hist. des aut., II, 237 sqq.; ROUTH, Relig.
sac., I, 237 sqq.
Bacchus, Francis
Joseph. "Pantænus." The Catholic Encyclopedia. Vol. 11. New York: Robert
Appleton Company, 1911. 7 Jul. 2015 <http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/11446b.htm>.
Copyright © 2020
by Kevin Knight. Dedicated to the Immaculate Heart
of Mary.
St.
Pantænus, Father of the Church
See
St. Jerom, Catal. Clem. Alex. and Eusebius. Also Ceillier, t. 2, p. 237
THIS
learned father and apostolic man flourished in the second age. He was by birth
a Sicilian, and by profession a stoic philosopher. For his eloquence he is
styled by St. Clement of Alexandria the Sicilian Bee. His esteem for virtue led
him into an acquaintance with the Christians, and being charmed with the
innocence and sanctity of their conversation he opened his eyes to the truth.
He studied the holy scriptures under the disciples of the apostles, and his
thirst after sacred learning brought him to Alexandria in Egypt, where the
disciples of St. Mark had instituted a celebrated school of the Christian
doctrine. Pantænus sought not to display his talents in that great mart of
literature and commerce; but his great progress in sacred learning was after
some time discovered, and he was drawn out of that obscurity in which his
humility sought to live buried. Being placed at the head of the Christian
school some time before the year 179, which was the first of Commodus, by his
learning and excellent manner of teaching he raised its reputation above all
the schools of the philosophers, and the lessons which he read, and which were
gathered from the flowers of the prophets and apostles, conveyed light and
knowledge into the minds of all his hearers, as St. Clement of Alexandria, his
eminent scholar, says of him. The Indians who traded to Alexandria, entreated
him to pay their country a visit, in order to confute their Brachmans. Hereupon
he forsook his school, and was established by Demetrius, who was made bishop of
Alexandria in 189, preacher of the gospel to the Eastern nations. Eusebius
tells us that St. Pantænus found some seeds of the faith already sown in the
Indies, and a book of the gospel of St. Matthew in Hebrew, which St.
Bartholomew had carried thither. He brought it back with him to Alexandria,
whither he returned after he had zealously employed some years in instructing
the Indians in the faith. The public school was at that time governed by St.
Clement, but St. Pantænus continued to teach in private till in the reign of
Caracalla, consequently before the year 216, he closed a noble and excellent
life by a happy death, as Rufinus writes. 1 His name is inserted in all western martyrologies on
the 7th of July
The
beauty of the Christian morality, and the sanctity of its faithful professors,
which by their charms converted this true philosopher, appear no where to
greater advantage than when they are compared with the imperfect and often
false virtue of the most famous sages of the heathen world. 2 Into what contradictions and gross errors did they
fall, even about the divinity itself and the sovereign good! To how many vices
did they give the name of virtues! How many crimes did they canonize! It is
true they showed indeed a zeal for justice, a contempt of riches and pleasures,
moderation in prosperity, patience in adversities, generosity, courage, and
disinterestedness. But these were rather shadows and phantoms than real
virtues, if they sprang from a principle of vanity and pride, or were infected
with the poison of interestedness or any other vitiated intention, which they
often betrayed, nay sometimes openly avowed, and made a subject of their vain
boasts.
Note 2. Socrates in all
things he said, used to add this form of speech, “By my Demon’s leave.” Just
upon the point of expiring, he ordered a cock to be sacrificed to Esculapius.
(Plato’s Phædo sub finem.) And in his trial we read one article of his
impeachment to have been a charge of unnatural lust. Thales, the prince of
naturalists, being asked by Crœsus what God was, put off that prince from time
to time, saying, “I will consider on it.” But the meanest mechanic among the
Christians can explain himself intelligibly on the Creator of the Universe.
Diogenes could not be contented in his tub without gratifying his passions. And
when with his dirty feet he trod upon Plato’s costly carpets, crying that he
trampled upon the pride of Plato, he did this, as Plato answered him, with
greater pride. Pythagoras affected tyranny at Thurium, and Zeno at Pyrene.
Lycurgus made away with himself because he was unable to bear the thought of
the Lacedæmonians correcting the severity of his laws. Anaxagoras had not
fidelity enough to restore to strangers the goods which they had committed to
his trust. Aristotle could not sit easy till he proudly made his friend Hermias
sit below him; and he was as gross a flatterer of Alexander for the sake of
vanity, as Plato was of Dionysius for his belly. From Plato and Socrates the
stoics derived their proud maxim, “The wise man is self-sufficient.” Epictetus
himself allows “to be proud of the conquest of any vice.” Aristotle (Ethic ad
Nicom. l. 10, c. 7,) and Cicero patronize revenge. See B. Cumberland of the
Laws of Nature, c. 9, p. 346. Abbé Batteux demonstrates the impiety and vices
of Epicurus mingled with some virtues and great moral truths. (La Morale
d’Epicure, à Paris, 1758.) The like blemishes may be found in the doctrine and
lives of all the other boasted philosophers of paganism. See Theodoret. De
curandis Græcor. affectibus, &c. [back]
Rev. Alban
Butler (1711–73). Volume VII: July. The Lives of the Saints. 1866
