8 - Muses in the Miscellanists’ Frame

Summary

Pliny, Gellius, Plutarch, and Athenaeus each give a religious frame to their miscellanies, and the most consistently cited deities are the Muses. This is no empty rhetorical convention but an attempt to connect their work to a tradition where the Muses preside over revelation of things hidden. Different strands of the Muse tradition are taken up, including revelation to the studious, solitary lucubrator and philosophical revelation where philosophy is the highest form of mousikê. The miscellanists develop forms of social and ascetic discipline to participate more deeply in the spirituality of this tradition, by refraining from sleep, food, or certain kinds of talk and by practising their labours by night or alone. Clement shows his intention to respond to this Classical tradition by framing his project in Christian paideia with allusions to the Classical tradition of mousikê. But he displaces Apollo (Muse-leader) with Christ, the bee (symbol of the Muses) with the Christ-Logos and either omits or debunks the Muses at every opportunity.