Clement of Alexandria — Stromata 15

These are the times of the oldest wise men and philosophers among the Greeks. And that the most of them were barbarians by extraction, and were trained among barbarians, what need is there to say? Pythagoras is shown to have been either a Tuscan or a Tyrian. And Antisthenes was a Phrygian. And Orpheus was an Odrysian or a Thracian. The most, too, show Homer to have been an Egyptian . Thales was a Phœnician by birth, and was said to have consorted with the prophets of the Egyptians ; as also Pythagoras did with the same persons , by whom he was circumcised , that he might enter the adytum and learn from the Egyptians the mystic philosophy . He held converse with the chief of the Chaldeans and the Magi ; and he gave a hint of the church, now so called, in the common hall which he maintained.

And Plato does not deny that he procured all that is most excellent in philosophy from the barbarians; and he admits that he came into Egypt . Whence, writing in the Phœdo that the philosopher can receive aid from all sides, he said: Great indeed is Greece, O Cebes, in which everywhere there are good men, and many are the races of the barbarians. Thus Plato thinks that some of the barbarians, too, are philosophers . But Epicurus , on the other hand, supposes that only Greeks can philosophise. And in the Symposium , Plato , landing the barbarians as practising philosophy with conspicuous excellence, truly says: And in many other instances both among Greeks and barbarians, whose temples reared for such sons are already numerous. And it is clear that the barbarians signally honoured their lawgivers and teachers, designating them gods.

For, according to Plato , they think that good souls , on quitting the super-celestial region, submit to come to this Tartarus; and assuming a body, share in all the ills which are involved in birth, from their solicitude for the race of men; and these make laws and publish philosophy , than which no greater boon ever came from the gods to the race of men , or will come. And as appears to me, it was in consequence of perceiving the great benefit which is conferred through wise men, that the men themselves were honoured and philosophy cultivated publicly by all the Brahmins, and the Odrysi, and the Getæ.

And such were strictly deified by the race of the Egyptians , by the Chaldeans and the Arabians, called the Happy, and those that inhabited Palestine, by not the least portion of the Persian race, and by innumerable other races besides these. And it is well known that Plato is found perpetually celebrating the barbarians, remembering that both himself and Pythagoras learned the most and the noblest of their dogmas among the barbarians. Wherefore he also called the races of the barbarians, races of barbarian philosophers , recognising, in the Phœdrus, the Egyptian king, and shows him to us wiser than Theut, whom he knew to be Hermes. But in the Charmides, it is manifest that he knew certain Thracians who were said to make the soul immortal .