a river of Asiatic Russia, which falls into the Niznei Tunguska. Long. 102. 24. E. Lat. 64. 40. N.

PANTENUS, a Stoic philosopher, born in Sicily about the beginning of the reign of Commodus. He presided over the celebrated school of Alexandria, where, from the time of St Mark, the founder of that church, they had always a divine who was eminent for his learning and piety to explain the Holy Scriptures, and to instruct them in human learning. This employment he was obliged to leave; for when the Indians required of Demetrius, bishop of Alexandria, to send them one to instruct them in Christianity, he sent Pantenus, who undertook the mission with joy, and behaved himself very properly in it. It is said that the Indians had been tinctured with Christianity by St Bartholomew the apostle; and that Pantenus met with the Hebrew original of St Matthew's gospel, which the apostle had left there. St Jerome says that Pantenus brought it with him, and that in his time it was preserved in the library of Alexandria. But we suspect that St Jerome is mistaken in this respect. When Pantenus returned to Alexandria he re-assumed the government of the school of that city, which he had probably during his absence committed to the care of St Clement, a presbyter of Alexandria. He explained the Scriptures publicly, under the reign of Severus Antoninus Caracalla, and, in St Jerome's opinion, was more serviceable to the church by his discourses than by his writings. He published some commentaries upon the Bible, which are lost. That the prophets often express themselves in indifferent terms, and that they make use of the present time instead of the past and future, is a rule of Pantenus, which has been followed by all succeeding interpreters. Theodorus has related this rule; but he speaks of it as if Pantenus had rather said than written it. We may have some notion of Pantenus's manner of explaining the Scriptures by the similar performances of St Clement of Alexandria, Origen, and others who were brought up in that school.