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11 - Poikilia

Theological Interpretation of a Miscellanistic Aesthetic

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 December 2020

J. M. F. Heath
Affiliation:
University of Durham
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Summary

Variety was the hallmark of miscellanism, and Clement draws attention to his participation in this miscellanistic aesthetic in programmatic passages on the literary form of his work. He privileges the vocabulary of poikilia,which not only captured the miscellanistic aesthetic of variety but was also a key term in reflection on the problems and possibilities of variety in aesthetic, ethical, theological and pedagogical spheres. Plato and Philo had also given it prominence in their own engagement with ethical and theological problems of variety. Clement addresses the challenge of variety in shaping his project: his three works, Protrepticus, Paedagogus and Stromateis,organise a pattern of Christian formation that cultivates ethical simplicity with a view ultimately to discerning God’s poikilic wisdom and even in the poikilia of Clement’s own text. Whereas previous studies of Clement have wrestled with the philosophical problem of the ‘many and the one’, this chapter shows that that problem also had a significant literary, aesthetic and ethical dimension, better captured by the terminology of poikilia.

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Clement of Alexandria and the Shaping of Christian Literary Practice
Miscellany and the Transformation of Greco-Roman Writing
, pp. 329 - 375
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2020

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  • Poikilia
  • J. M. F. Heath, University of Durham
  • Book: Clement of Alexandria and the Shaping of Christian Literary Practice
  • Online publication: 16 December 2020
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108918640.011
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  • Poikilia
  • J. M. F. Heath, University of Durham
  • Book: Clement of Alexandria and the Shaping of Christian Literary Practice
  • Online publication: 16 December 2020
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108918640.011
Available formats
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Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

  • Poikilia
  • J. M. F. Heath, University of Durham
  • Book: Clement of Alexandria and the Shaping of Christian Literary Practice
  • Online publication: 16 December 2020
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108918640.011
Available formats
×