Clement of Alexandria

A cultured convert who traveled the Mediterranean in search of teachers, Clement settled in Alexandria and led its famous catechetical school, where Origen was likely among his students. He believed the best of Greek philosophy was, like the Law for the Jews, a schoolmaster leading to Christ. His great trilogy — the Exhortation to the Greeks, the Instructor, and the sprawling Miscellanies — sketches the Christian life as a progress from conversion through discipline to true knowledge rightly understood. Urbane, allusive, and endlessly quotable, he shows the gospel conversing confidently with classical culture. He left Alexandria during the persecution around 202.

He argued that Greek philosophy was given to the Greeks as the Law was to the Jews — a schoolmaster to bring them to Christ.