Clement of Alexandria, Miscellanies 15

These are the dates for the earliest Greek sages and philosophers. Yet since most of them were foreigners by birth and received their education among foreign peoples, there is little need to add more examples: Pythagoras is reported to have been Tyrrhenian or Tyrian, Antisthenes was Phrygian, and Orpheus was either Odrysian or Thracian. Most authorities even claim Homer was Egyptian. Thales, a Phoenician by birth, is said to have associated with the Egyptian prophets, just as Pythagoras did with those same men; through them he was circumcised so that he could enter the innermost sanctuaries and learn the Egyptians’ mystical philosophy. He also consorted with the foremost Chaldeans and Magi, and he alludes to the assembly now called the church, which served as his own gathering place. Plato does not deny that philosophy’s finest gifts were imported from foreign peoples, and he acknowledges his own journey to Egypt. In the Phaedo he writes that the philosopher can profit from every quarter: ‘Greece is wide, Cebes, and in it there are thoroughly good men; there are also many foreign nations.’ Thus Plato believes that some foreigners are philosophers, whereas Epicurus holds the opposite view—that only Greeks can philosophize. In the Symposium Plato praises the barbarians for their surpassing practice, saying they alone truly philosophize, and he notes that others, both among Greeks and barbarians, have already had many sacred rites performed for them because of such men. The barbarians plainly honored their own lawgivers and teachers by calling them gods. For they believed that good souls, leaving the heavenly realm, descended into this underworld, took on bodies, and shared in all the evils of mortal life out of concern for the human race—giving them laws and proclaiming philosophy, the greatest good that has ever come or will come from the gods to humanity. It seems to me that, sensing the magnitude of this benefit conferred through the wise, they revered those men and practiced philosophy publicly. The Brahmans, the Odrysians, the Getae, and the Egyptian people have all spoken precisely about these matters, as have the Chaldeans and the Arabs called happy, all who dwelt in Palestine, no small portion of the Persian people, and countless other nations besides. Plato is clearly found to honor the barbarians continually, recalling that he and Pythagoras learned their most numerous and noblest doctrines among them. For this reason he spoke of ‘barbarian races,’ knowing that there are races of barbarian men who are philosophers. In the Phaedrus he presents the Egyptian king as wiser than ourselves, identifying him as Hermes. And in the Charmides he shows knowledge of certain Thracians who are said to make the soul immortal.