Clement’s title, Stromateis, is his most explicit genre marker; it is a miscellanistic cliché, by which he positions his work squarely within the culture of Classical miscellany- making. Classical miscellanists often invented clever titles and drew attention to them; on the surface, Clement’s Stromateis appears to be, by contrast, dull and prosaic. On closer inspection, we find that he uses his sequence of titles creatively to guide his readers into a deepening relation to God. Protrepticus and Paedagogus become scripturally authorised ways of figuring the Lord as the one who is addressing the reader, while Clement as author oscillates between accompanying his readers and sharing the Lord’s voice. In the Stromateis,Clement emphasises that the title is a miscellanistic cliché and does not endeavour to discover it in Scripture, but that in itself turns out to have significance. His point is that what is strewn (διεστρωμένα) is strewn in the world more widely than in Scripture, and the work has its telos in something that lies beyond the words on the page.

Clement of Alexandria’s Stromateis have long been recognised as a Christian version of the Greco-Roman genre of the miscellany. But how Clement shaped the Classical literary form for Christian formation deserves closer attention. In general, Classicists have studied miscellanies but not Clement, while Theologians have studied Clement but not miscellanies. By situating Clement's literary project in relation to Roman miscellanies, this book argues that Clement consistently reinterprets topoi and tropes of the Classical form through a Christian theological vision. His Christianisation of the genre is deeper and more interesting than has been recognised, as he seeks to enable his readers at once to delight in the variegated beauty of God and to become ever more focused on the contemplation of the one, hidden and transcendent Teacher, into whose likeness they are growing.