[7] Although no writings by Pantaenus are extant,[8] his legacy is known by the influence of the Catecheticaar in the early debates on the interpretation of the Bible, the Trinity, and Christology.

In addition to his work as a teacher, Eusebius of Caesarea reports that Pantaenus was for a time a missionary,[9] traveling as far as India where, according to Eusebius, he found Christian communities using the Gospel of Matthew written in "Hebrew letters", supposedly left them by the Apostle Bartholomew (and which might have been the Gospel of the Hebrews).

The ancient seaport Muziris on the Malabar Coast (modern-day Kerala in India) was frequented by the Egyptians in the early centuries AD.

[14] Saint Jerome (c. 347 – 30 September 420), apparently relying entirely on Eusebius' evidence from Historia Ecclesiastica, wrote that Pantaenus visited India, “to preach Christ to the Brahmans and philosophers there.”[15] It is unlikely that Jerome has any information about Pantaenus' mission to India that is independent of Eusebius.

The Universalist Church of America historian J. W. Hanson, and Catholic patristic scholar Illaria Ramelli argued that Pantaenus taught universalism to Clement of Alexandria and Origen[20][21] However, scholar Andrew C. Itter argues that Clement of Alexandria's supposed "universalism" had tension between salvation and free will,[22] and that he may have not embraced a strict apokatastasis.