The Shelves · Miscellaneous writings
Stromata (Miscellanies, 'Patchwork Carpets')
Στρωματεῖς
Known · Attestedin Alexandria?Conjectured · Our reconstructionour placement
I · The entry, in his form
In the table of Miscellaneous writings
Conjectured · Our reconstructionour placementc. 150–215 CE. Taught a Christian gnosis steeped in Greek philosophy until the persecution of 202/203 drove him out. His Stromata quote hundreds of lost authors, among them the Gnostics Basilides, Valentinus and Epiphanes, and describe the 42 books of Hermes carried in Egyptian processions.
Stromata
Στρωματεῖς
Opening words not preserved.
Length: not counted
Above, his entry form, filled from what we know. Below, ours.
II · Does it survive? Where to read it
Survives whole
Seven books and a fragmentary eighth.
Was it in Alexandria?
Known · AttestedWritten in Alexandria.
On the table: written in Alexandria; no evidence it was in the Library.
Read it today
- Greek text (Scaife Viewer) · the original · link checked 31 Oct 2026
- Ante-Nicene Fathers vol. 2 (CCEL) · a translation · link checked 31 Oct 2026
III · In the show
- Heresiologists and early Christian doctrine, episode 2, at 43 secondsTranscriptHeresiologists and early Christian doctrine: why we know the early schools from their opponents.Known: attested
- Heresiologists and early Christian doctrine, episode 2, at 2 minutes 2 secondsTranscript“Clement of Alexandria was a little bit more um he was a little bit more amunable to you know particularly the Gnostic schools”Fair: Clement's 'true gnostic' and his careful quotation of Valentinian and Basilidean sources.Known: attested
- Baptism, anointing, and the Holy Spirit, episode 2, at 23 minutes 50 secondsTranscript“Basalian gnostics did not celebrate the incarnation of the Lord on or around the winter solstice”Clement is the source: the Basilideans kept the feast of the Baptism, on 15 or 11 Tybi, around 10 or 6 January (Stromata I.21.146).Known: attested
+ 8 more
- Path: Martinism and Reintegration, station 4Understand the anointing. The Basilidian feast of the Baptism, connected with the anointing at the Jordan.Known: attested
- Early Spread of Christianity & Esotericism, episode 17, at 48 minutes 34 secondsTranscriptEarly spread of Christianity and esotericism; Plotinus' hypostases and the Trinity.Known: attested
- Alexandria as Esoteric Crossroads, episode 17, at 47 minutes 57 secondsTranscript“the evangelist Mark brought Christianity there in 42 CE”Church tradition, which the speaker labels 'legend… or tradition' (Eusebius, Church History 2.16); Eusebius' Chronicle, in Jerome's version, puts Mark's mission in the early 40s.Known: attested
Correction
- What was said
- The Hermetic tracts were "all found outside of Alexandria".
- What the sources say
- Near Nag Hammadi in Upper Egypt, some 600 km south of Alexandria (about 615 km in a straight line, farther by the river). Codex VI holds three Hermetic texts (the Discourse on the Eighth and Ninth, the Prayer of Thanksgiving, an extract of the Asclepius) and an extract of Plato's Republic.
- Christian Mysticism · Chronology: Origen reads the SongOrigen reads the Song.Known: attested
- Christian Mysticism · Chronology: The desert withdrawalThe desert withdrawal; Athanasius' Life of Antony.Known: attested
- Symbolism · Origen's three sensesKnown: attested
IV · Sources and the living entry
Ancient references
- Clement, Stromata 1.15.66-73; 6.4.35-37
Modern scholarship (2)
- E. Osborn, Clement of Alexandria (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005).
- A. van den Hoek, 'The "Catechetical" School of Early Christian Alexandria and Its Philonic Heritage', Harvard Theological Review 90.1 (1997): 59-87.
Entry checked 31 Oct 2026 · no corrections · Suggest a correction ›
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