Section 221
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190 ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY. CHAPTER IX. The bishops under Commodus. ANTONINUS having held the empire nineteen years, Commodus received the government. In his first year Julian undertook the superintendance of the churches of Alexandria, after Agrippinus had filled the office twelve years. CHAPTER X. OfPantcenus the philosopher. ABOUT the same time, the school of the faithful was governed by a man most distinguished for his learning, whose name was Pantaenus. As there had been a school of sacred learning esta blished there from ancient times, which has continued down to our own times, and which we have understood was held by men able in eloquence, and the study of divine things. For the tradition is, that this philosopher was then in grnat eminence, as he had been first disciplined in the philosophical principles of those called stoics. But he is said to have displayed such ardour, and so zea lous a disposition, respecting the divine word, that he was con stituted a herald of the gospel of Christ to the nations of the east, and advanced even as far as India. There were even there yet many evangelists of the word, who were ardently striving to em ploy their inspired zeal after the apostolic example, to increase and build up the divine word. Of these Pantaenus is said to have been one, and to have come as far as the Indies. And the re port is, that he there found his own arrival anticipated by some who there were acquainted with the gospel of Matthew, to whom Bartholomew, one of the apostles, had preached, and had left them the gospel of Matthew in the Hebrew, which was also preserved until this time. Pantaenus, after many praiseworthy deeds, was finally at the head of the Alexandrian school, com menting on the treasures of divine truth, both orally and in his writings.