The mention of the name of Clement of Alexandria demands a few words as to the atmosphere in which this writer lived and labored. Alexandria had been more or less from the time of Philo-contemporary with Gamaliel -a center of learning and dialectics employed upon scripture, which was compared with the philosophical, chiefly Eastern systems. What was a sort of Jewish Academy became under Christian influences a Catechetical School, inheriting in past the perturbed ideas of Jewish thinkers. Where fable, fancy and mysticism entered largely into men's thoughts, we cannot be surprised if " Apocryphal " writings, whether of the Old or of the New Dispensation, exerted considerable influence, and obtained undue consideration from a man of even Christian principles such as Clement. He was of heathen parentage, and born about the middle of the second century. For ten years after his conversion he presided over the Catechetical School. According to Eusebius, Clement must have used all our canonical books. The work that has rendered this Alexandrian Father famous is his Stromata, in which he has quoted largely from the New Testament books, without reference however to James, Second Peter, Second and Third John. His testimony to the apostolic authorship of the Apocalypse of John is marred by his also regarding as apostolic the Letters of Clement of Rome and Barnabas, besides the Shepherd of Hermas, and the Apocalypse of Peter. (Cf. Euseb. Eccl. History, 4. 13.)