CH. I. THE TITLE STROMATEIS.

...[works entitled] Flowery (Anthērōn), and similarly another [titled] Discoveries (Heurēmatōn). There are also those who have inscribed [their works] Lamps (Lychnous); and there are those [who have used] Stromateis, etc." He mentions as his aim to select from his reading "only those things which might lead ready and quick minds to a desire for honorable learning and to the contemplation of useful arts by a swift and easy shortcut, or etc."; but he warns off the frivolous and the idle. It was the fashion of the time to publish such miscellanies; compare the works of Aelian, some of Plutarch, and the Deipnosophists of Athenaeus. Origen published ten books of Stromateis in which he is said to have aimed, like Clement, at showing the agreement between Greek philosophy and the Christian religion. (Jerome Ep. 70. 4: "Origen wrote ten stromateas"; just before he had said, "Clement wrote eight books of stromata.")

What do we learn from Clement regarding the relationship of the Stromateis to his earlier writings? The Protrepticus Exhortation to the Greeks was written as an independent work; but the Paedagogus The Instructor looks back to it and forward to the Stromateis, or rather to the Didaskalos The Teacher, which is the name he commonly assigns to the final teaching of the Logos. Cf. Paed. I. 1: "Since there are three things concerning man—morals, actions, and passions—the Protrepticus has taken up his morals... the Word, lying beneath like a foundation for the building up of faith... The heavenly leader, the Word, when he called to salvation, was named 'Exhortatory' (Protrepticus)... but now, being both therapeutic and advisory, he encourages [the reader] toward the aforementioned chapter, promising the healing of the passions within us. Let him be called for us... Paedagogus, being practical rather than methodical, inasmuch as his goal is to improve the soul, not to teach. § 2: Although the same Word is also didactic, it is not so now. For the Word, when it is in the dogmatic [stage], is revelatory and explanatory—the 'didactic'—but the Paedagogus, being practical, first exhorted [us] to the disposition of morality, and now calls [us] to the action of the things required. § 3: Just as those who are sick in body need a physician, in the same way those who are weak in soul need a Paedagogus to heal our passions, and then a Didaskalos who will lead [us] toward the purity of knowledge." He sums up by saying that the "all-philanthropic Word" seeks our perfection, "exhorting from above, then instructing, and finally teaching thoroughly." Towards the end of the third book (§ 97) he...