This book explores the context and function of Clement's ‘miscellanism’, a literary practice exhibited in his Stromateis. The topic has occupied Clementine scholarship for over a century. The most thorough examination to date is A. Méhat's magisterial Étude sur les ‘Stromates’ de Clément d'Alexandrie (1966). Méhat (pp. 99–106) distinguishes three domains of miscellanist literature: history (including chronologies and catalogues), grammar (language and literature) and philosophy. In his view, works bearing the most obvious semblance to Stromateis (Gellius’ Attic Nights, Pliny's Natural History, Aelian's Historical Miscellany and Athenaeus’ Deipnosophists) shed only a dim light on its ‘intention and spirit’. Those employing the miscellanist style for philosophical purposes (Méhat mentions Seneca, Plutarch, Favorinus, Sextus and Diogenes Laertius, among others) are considered more relevant.

H.'s point of departure is the recent surge of interest in miscellanies among classical scholars. Noting that Clement has been largely neglected by them as being too different, she hopes to dissolve this prejudice by exploring Clement's miscellanism alongside Graeco-Roman parallels. She takes up three examples discarded by Méhat (Pliny, Gellius and Athenaeus) and one recommended by him (Plutarch's Table Talk), and attempts to show how Clement adopts and adapts the conventions they follow. H. isolates five common ‘miscellanic tropes’: (1) the author's self-presentation as a miscellanist; (2) a title characterising the miscellanic style and explicitly preferred over alternatives; (3) emphasis on the inspired character of the work, associated with the Muses; (4) the motif of hidden truth; and (5) the variegated character of the work. Each trope is discussed in turn in their respective contexts. Clement's use is then scrutinised in light of his literary project, which, apart from Stromateis, includes the Protrepticus, the Pedagogue and the promised continuation of Stromateis, unfinished or lost.

One of H.'s key insights is that the miscellanist style, permeating the whole of Clement's project, helps him engage his readers in ‘the economy of hiddenness and revelation’, as manifested by Scripture and the Christian tradition, and teach them, eventually, to become miscellanists themselves (p. 328). Being a miscellanist, then, involves the capacity to extract meaning (a ‘hidden pattern of coherence’, p. 151) from a variety of texts, whether those belonging within the tradition of the church or those constituting the cultural world at large. Clement's goal is to help this meaning, informed by faith, inhabit the social space of the empire. This is continuous with the goal of other miscellanists to cultivate their social space ‘with a view to building a relation to an idealised world, whether it was to a vision of the past (Athenaeus, Gellius) or an ordered relation to the cosmos (Pliny, Plutarch)’ and negotiate various social and cultural tensions (p. 381).

The book is refreshingly bold and ambitious in its attempt to bridge the gap between classical and early Christian studies. It covers a wide range of subjects competently without losing sight of the overall picture. The argument is expansive and not entirely free of verbosity and repetitiveness. But it is well structured, and each chapter is conveniently summarised at the end.

There is a tendency to exaggerate the study's merits by ascribing blindspots and ‘tropes’ to earlier scholars, sometimes on questionable grounds. For example, H. often mentions ‘the trope of Christian difference’. But the specific examples cited (p. 16) only describe distinctive features of Clement's agenda, which are hard to deny (emphasis on salvation; use of the genre for imparting a specifically Christian message; aim to compose an introduction to theology). Indeed, H. identifies a number of such differences herself (e.g. pp. 103, 111, 146, 167, 174–5, 328), and one could argue that they outweigh the detected similarities both in number and significance. Slightly exaggerated is also H.'s claim that classical miscellanies have been previously neglected by Clement scholars. As mentioned, Méhat considers many parallels, and his conclusions about their relevance are not merely negative.

Nonetheless, H. does an excellent job in describing the relevant features of the four comparanda in unprecedented detail. In particular, her discussion of the role of Muses in classical miscellanies and of the motif of hidden truth is a good starting point for further inquiry into Clement's literary context. And even though H.'s argument about the hidden presence of Muses in Stromateis does not strike this reader as particularly convincing, it usefully draws attention to Clement's notion of inspiration in teaching and exegesis, and its cultural background.

H.'s discussion of ‘miscellanism’ is interesting, but the concept is somewhat ambiguous. On the one hand, miscellanism is a literary practice consisting in a particular arrangement of texts; on the other hand, H. conceives of it as an exegetical practice. Thus, in the last part of Stromateis 7, where Clement deals with the objection from disagreement, prompted by the plurality of Christian sects, he discusses the criteria of scriptural interpretation. For H. this section is ‘Clement's most programmatic statement about scriptural miscellanism’ (p. 327). Apparently, ‘scriptural miscellanism’ is the same thing as scriptural exegesis; but its connection with miscellanism in the first sense – which does not search for, but conveys a particular message – is not obvious. At one point, H. characterises miscellanism as a ‘way of life’ (p. 290); this, too, would benefit from further elucidation.

H. addresses the perennial question of whether Stromateis corresponds to the didascalic mode of education mentioned in Paed. 1.1 and whether it follows a plan. H. works on the assumption that, in Paed. 1.1, Clement uses the word ‘Didaskalos’ as a title, but then suggests that it is not a title but a ‘non-title’, a rejected but instructive alternative to the accepted one (pp. 197–8, 202). What is it a non-title of? Not of Stromateis, H. argues, because this treatise, like Protrepticus and Paedagogus, is merely an invitation for the reader to the teaching by God himself; and the word ‘Didaskalos’ is a reminder of this didactic prospect of all three works (pp. 201–2). But if it does not refer to any particular text, it is unclear why it should be called a title or non-title. Indeed, there is no reason to think that Clement conceived of ‘Didaskalos’ as a title. But he does distinguish between the ‘pedagogic’ and the ‘didactic’ modes of education and makes the second follow the first. Now H. insists that Stromateis is part of Clement's educational programme, but argues that it does not correspond to the didactic mode. What mode does it correspond to then? H. does not tell us.

A neat solution, however, is suggested by exploring – as Méhat has done – the philosophical parallels to Paed. 1.1 in Stobaeus 2.7 and Seneca, Ep. 95. For Clement's two modes correspond to the distinction between the preceptive and the dogmatic, or practical and theoretical, philosophy (mentioned in passing on pp. 277–8). In view of the importance of dogmata in Stromateis and the fact that Clement refers to Strom. 2–7 as an ‘ethical account’, there are compelling reasons to think that these books are Clement's draft of theoretical ethics, i.e. the ethical part of the didactic mode. This also helps us reconstruct the thematic sequence of Stromateis more sharply than H. does (pp. 299–301). The connecting link between all parts of Clement's meandering argument (between Books 2 and 7.88.7, where the ‘ethical part’ ends) is their dealing with virtues and the goal of life, traditional subjects of theoretical ethics, from the Christian perspective. It is clear from Clement's plans for the continuation of Stromateis that the ethical part was to be followed by a Christian version of two other parts of theoretical philosophy, namely, physics and theology. Although H. is aware of this division (p. 278), she does not integrate it into her argument about Clement's programme. Her book is a major step in a direction that should be pursued by further study, taking into consideration a wider spectrum of comparative cases, with a particular focus on those dealing, in a miscellanic manner, with philosophical issues.