Imagine someone who grows up surrounded by Greek philosophy, poetry and mythology, and one day discovers that all of it points to something else. So it was with Clement of Alexandria, who exchanged his pursuit of Hellenic wisdom for faith in Christ, without abandoning the books he loved.
Born around 150, probably in Athens, he traveled through Greece, Asia Minor, Palestine and Egypt in search of teachers who could answer his deepest questions. Around 180, he arrived in Alexandria and found Pantaenus, head of the Catechetical School, who would become his teacher.
Ordained a presbyter before 189, Clement took over the direction of the school around 190. There he taught that Greek philosophy was not an enemy of the gospel, but a tutor that prepared the Hellenic mind, just as the law had prepared the Hebrews, to recognize Christ.
Between 195 and 203, he wrote his trilogy: the Protrepticus, an invitation to educated pagans to embrace the faith; the Paedagogus, a guide to everyday Christian living; and the Stromata, a miscellany weaving together philosophy, ethics and theology. Among his students was Origen, who would become the greatest theologian of the following period.
The persecution carried out by Emperor Septimius Severus, between 202 and 203, forced Clement to leave Alexandria. He apparently sought refuge in Cappadocia and later in Jerusalem, where Bishop Alexander received him and mentioned him with honor in a letter to the church at Antioch in 211.
Not everything about Clement met with agreement. In the ninth century, Patriarch Photius accused passages of his lost work Hypotyposes of containing problematic ideas, such as reducing Christ to a mere creature and admitting metempsychosis. Later, in the revision of the Roman Martyrology ordered by Pope Clement VIII, his name was removed on the advice of Cardinal Baronius, because of doctrines deemed suspect, among them an openness to the hope of universal restoration.
Even so, his legacy remains: Clement taught that every truth found outside Scripture ultimately belongs to Christ. That conviction still sustains missionaries today who engage in dialogue with different cultures and philosophies, without fear of losing their faith along the way.