Clement of Alexandria — Stromata 23

Moses , originally of a Chaldean family , was born in Egypt , his ancestors having migrated from Babylon into Egypt on account of a protracted famine. Born in the seventh generation, and having received a royal education, the following are the circumstances of his history. The Hebrews having increased in Egypt to a great multitude, and the king of the country being afraid of insurrection in consequence of their numbers, he ordered all the female children born to the Hebrews to be reared ( woman being unfit for war ), but the male to be destroyed, being suspicious of stalwart youth. But the child being goodly, his parents nursed him secretly three months, natural affection being too strong for the monarch's cruelty.

But at last, dreading lest they should be destroyed along with the child, they made a basket of the papyrus that grew there, put the child in it, and laid it on the banks of the marshy river. The child's sister stood at a distance, and watched what would happen. In this emergency, the king's daughter, who for a long time had not been pregnant, and who longed for a child, came that day to the river to bathe and wash herself; and hearing the child cry, she ordered it to be brought to her; and touched with pity, sought a nurse. At that moment the child's sister ran up, and said that, if she wished, she could procure for her as nurse one of the Hebrew women who had recently had a child. And on her consenting and desiring her to do so, she brought the child's mother to be nurse for a stipulated fee, as if she had been some other person.

Thereupon the queen gave the babe the name of Moses , with etymological propriety, from his being drawn out of the water, — for the Egyptians call water mou, — in which he had been exposed to die. For they call Moses one who who breathed [on being taken] from the water. It is clear that previously the parents gave a name to the child on his circumcision ; and he was called Joachim. And he had a third name in heaven, after his ascension, as the mystics say — Melchi. Having reached the proper age, he was taught arithmetic, geometry, poetry, harmony, and besides, medicine and music, by those that excelled in these arts among the Egyptians ; and besides, the philosophy which is conveyed by symbols , which they point out in the hieroglyphical inscriptions.

The rest of the usual course of instruction, Greeks taught him in Egypt as a royal child, as Philo says in his life of Moses . He learned, besides, the literature of the Egyptians , and the knowledge of the heavenly bodies from the Chaldeans and the Egyptians ; whence in the Acts Acts 7:22 he is said to have been instructed in all the wisdom of the Egyptians . And Eupolemus, in his book On the Kings in Judea , says that Moses was the first wise man, and the first that imparted grammar to the Jews , that the Phœnicians received it from the Jews , and the Greeks from the Phœnicians. And betaking himself to their philosophy , he increased his wisdom, being ardently attached to the training received from his kindred and ancestors, till he struck and slew the Egyptian who wrongfully attacked the Hebrew.