Exhortation to the Heathen

Titus Flavius Clemens (Greek: Κλήμης ὁ Ἀλεξανδρεύς; C. 150 - C. 215), known as Clement of Alexandria to distinguish him from the earlier Clement of Rome, was a Christian theologian who taught at the Catechetical school of Alexandria. A convert to Christianity, he was an educated man who was familiar with classical Greek philosophy and literature. As his three major works demonstrate, Clement was influenced by Hellenistic philosophy to a greater extent than any other Christian thinker of his time, and in particular by Plato and the stoics His secret works, which exist only in fragments, suggest that he was also familiar with pre-Christian Jewish esotericism and Gnostism. In one of his works he argued that Greek philosophy had its origin among non-Greeks, claiming that both Plato and Pythogoras were taught by Egyptian scholars.