This book sets out to offer a sustained comparison of Clement of Alexandria's literary oeuvre with the Greek and Latin miscellanistic works of the early Roman empire. It has long been recognized that Clement's longest work, the Stromateis, belongs to the ill-defined genre of the miscellany. Yet, as Heath shows (chap. 2), the perceived “Christian difference” of the work has led theologians and classicists alike to avoid detailed comparison of his work with these other miscellanies. Heath thus undertakes this comparison, in part, to bridge this gulf between “Classics” and “Early Christian Studies.” Here the author is aided by recent scholarly attention to the miscellanies of the early Roman empire. After two introductory chapters that lay out this project and the history of scholarship, the book is divided into roughly three parts.
The first part (chaps. 3–4) introduces the four miscellanies that form the basis of the comparison with Clement's work, as well as some of the social context of these works. The miscellanies themselves are Pliny the Elder's Natural History (pre-79 CE), Aulus Gellius's Attic Nights (ca. 180 CE), Plutarch of Cheronaea's Table Talk (ca. 99–116 CE), and Athenaeus’ Deipnosophists (late 2nd C CE). In fact, these are more than mere introductions: Heath offers helpful, in-depth descriptions of each of these works for scholars of early Christianity yet uninitiated in them. Although the miscellany was not identified as a genre in its own right until the late fifteenth century, Heath demonstrates that this diverse group of works does in fact cohere around a cluster of textual and paratextual markers. However, because no two miscellanies are truly alike, the gulf that separates Clement's work from these others is no greater than the gulfs separating these early imperial miscellanies from one another.
The second part (chaps. 5–7) discusses how Clement's works align with the miscellanistic genre, pointing to a set of common genre markers: Clement's authorial self-identification as a miscellanist (chap. 5), the title that Clement chooses for his miscellanistic work (Stromateis; chap. 6), and the titles that Clement declines to choose (chap. 7). Having already laid out the differences among the other miscellanies, here Heath introduces Clement's own particular take on the miscellany. She argues not only that Clement's several works (Protepticus, Paedagogus, and Stromateis) fit within the category, but also that—like the other miscellanists—Clement deploys the genre creatively and according to his own interests and ends. Particularly productive is Heath's argument that Clement deploys the titles that he chooses not to use—especially “Honeycomb” and “Meadow”—imagistically to indicate the pedagogical telos of his miscellanistic works: namely likeness to Christ, “the bee.” As in many other cases throughout the book, Heath astutely gathers up the hints and allusions that Clement disperses throughout his works.
The third part (chaps. 8–10) focuses especially on the theological theme of hiddenness. Chapter 8 shows convincingly that the Muses function not only as a convenient topos in the imperial miscellanists, but also as a theological counterpoint to the divine Logos in Clement's work. The following chapters, however, bring the reader a little further from the miscellanies so far discussed, introducing theological themes that are (sometimes only loosely) related to miscellanism. Chapter 9 discusses “listening in a hidden way” to God whose providential presence is hidden in the cosmos, while chapter 10 focuses on the language of the mystery cults and initiation in Clement's works. Throughout these chapters there are many generative readings, especially Heath's larger argument regarding Clement's “esoteric” language: his goal is not to hide things from the unworthy but to lead the unworthy person to worthiness of, and likeness to God. Finally, chapter 11, which stands on its own, discusses the aesthetics of poikilia (variegation/ multicoloredness) in Clement's work, drawing especially from a deep background of Plato and Philo. While this is a fascinating discussion, the miscellanistic aesthetics of Gellius or Athenaeus, for example, are—somewhat strangely—not discussed.
As I have mentioned, throughout the book one can find truly interesting and generative readings of Clement's works, as well as of the Roman miscellanists. However, as I have alluded to, I was surprised to find that in the later chapters dedicated to Clement's literary project there is little mention of the miscellanistic works described with such clarity in the first part of the book. For example, while many pages are devoted to “hiddenness” (chaps. 9–10) in Clement's theology, similar themes were hardly mentioned in the discussion of the imperial miscellanies, and, in the discussion of hiddenness in Clement's works, the other miscellanists are conspicuously absent. Relatedly, the first part of the book on the other imperial miscellanies introduced themes that certainly are relevant for Clement's own work; however, these receive little or no attention in the discussion of the form or content of Clement's miscellanistic work. For example, the miscellanies’ symposiastic elements are ripe for extended comparison with Clement's focus on real and metaphorical feasting (these are briefly touched on at 74–78). Likewise, Heath hints here and there that there is an ascetic aspect to Pliny and Gellius’ lucubratio (“burning the midnight oil”), but this is not developed in any significant way in the discussion of Clement's asceticism (see 104, 257–258). Such discussions would have been not only welcome but also highly relevant to the comparative task at hand. Despite these criticisms, the readings of Clement that Heath does offer are not—as Pliny says about his own work—mere nugae (trifles) but convincingly show both that the imperial miscellanists express their various theological convictions through miscellanism and that Clement, in turn, chooses a literary form that, in its allusiveness, is meant to form his readers morally and spiritually.
