Stromata

The Stromateis gives the impression of a rambling series of jottings, as the meaning of its title (Miscellanies or Patchwork) suggests. Clement himself calls attention to this, and suggests that the impression of aimless rambling is intentional, and that there is a plan to his work, even a Greek literary genre that he is consciously following. He speaks of it, indeed, as ‘systematic’ (Strom. 1.1.14.2). He has adopted this form, he says, to hide the truth from all but those who truly seek it, and who are worthy of it (Strom. 1.1.13.3; 8.1.1.3–2.2).

Ronald E. Heine, “The Alexandrians,” in The Cambridge History of Early Christian Literature, ed. Frances Young, Lewis Ayres, and Andrew Louth (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004), 118.