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The Stromata (Στρώματα), a mistake for Stromateis (Στρωματεῖς, "Patchwork," i.e., Miscellanies), attributed to Clement of Alexandria (c. 150 – c. 215), is the third of a trilogy of works regarding the Christian life. The oldest extant manuscripts date to the eleventh century. The work is titled Stromateis ("patchwork”) because it deals with such a variety of matters. It goes further than its two predecessors and aims at the perfection of the Christian life by initiation into complete knowledge. It attempts, on the basis of Scripture and tradition, to give such an account of the Christian faith as shall answer all the demands of learned men, and conduct the student into the innermost realities of his belief. The contents of the Stromateis, as its title suggests, are miscellaneous. Its place in the trilogy is disputed – Clement initially intended to write the Didascalus, a work which would complement the practical guidance of the Paedagogus with a more intellectual schooling in theology. The Stromata is less systematic and ordered than Clement's other works, and it has been theorized by André Méhat that it was intended for a limited, esoteric readership. The sole authority for the Stromateis is preserved at the Laurentian Library in Florence. How it came to Florence is unknown. The editio princeps was published by Piero Vettori in 1550. In the 19th century, Percy Mordaunt Barnard and Otto Stählin posited that this manuscript was copied out in the 910s for Arethas of Caesarea, the remainder of whose extant library is held by the Bibliothèque nationale de France. Their theory is generally accepted today. As with the library of Arethas held at Paris, the Laurentian manuscript contains numerous misspellings, omitted words and sentences and even marginalia integrated into the text. However, Frederic G. Kenyon argued that this is not the fault of the copyist, but that an ancestral manuscript had caused the damage, perhaps even a papyrus. The first book written c. 198 AD starts on the topic of Greek philosophy.

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Stromata

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