Clement of Alexandria (150-215) lived and taught in the most vibrant intellectual centre of his day. This book offers a comprehensive account of how he joined the ideas of the New Testament to those of the classical world, as represented by Plato. Clement taught that God was active from the beginning to the end of human history and that a Christian life should move on from simple faith to knowledge and love. Clement perceived a sequence of relationships flowing from the transcendent deity: first God and his word, the Son, secondly God and the world, and finally human beings and their neighbours. No part of Plato’s ordered universe was closed to the light of Christ, the saviour and lord of all.