On the Suffix εὺς in the Title "Κλήμης ὁ στρωματεὺς"

[Secret Alias]

A joke.

[billd89]

^Unsettled.


See Jennifer Otto, Pythagorean, Predecessor, and Hebrew: Philo of Alexandria and the Construction of Jewishness in Early Christian Writings [Ph.D. Diss., 2014], pp.75-8:

There is no satisfactory English translation or στρωματεύς, the word that Clement consistently uses in reference to the volumes of the
work.16 Claude Mondésert notes that στρωματεύς differs from στρῶμα, a rather straightforward word denoting a blanket, mattress, or anything else spread out for sitting upon, which also appears in Clement’s writings.17 A στρωματεύς is a patchwork, a quilt pieced together rather than spun from whole cloth. By the Hellenistic period, the plural of στρωματεύς, στρωματεῖς, took on the metaphorical sense of a literary work composed in a miscellaneous style.18 In addition to Clement, Origen and Plutarch are reported to have written στρωματεῖς, although these works no longer survive.19

The genre, intended audience, and purpose of the Stromateis, as well as their relation to the Protrepticus and the Paedagogus, have been the subject of intense scholarly debate over the past century.20 ...

16 Clement concludes book 1: “But let us conclude our first Stromateus, composed of gnostic reminiscences according to the true philosophy.” Books 2, 3, 5, and 7 end similarly. See also 4.2.4.3, “These Stromateis, these carpets of notes contribute without doubt to the memory and the manifestation of the truth for him who is capable of searching in a rational fashion.” According to Eusebius, the full title of the work is “Titus Flavius Clemens’ Stromateis: Gnostic Publications in the Light of the True Philosophy.” HE 6.13
17 Claude Mondesert, “Introduction,” Les Stromates: Stromate 1. SC 30 (Paris: Cerf, 1951), 7–9. See also the definitions in Liddell-Scott-Jones.
18 Eusebius describes the Stromateis: “In the Stromateis he has woven a tapestry combining Holy Writ with anything that he considered helpful in secular literature. He includes any view generally accepted, expounding on those of Greeks and non-Greeks alike, and even correcting the false doctrines of the heresiarchs, and explains a great deal of history, providing us with a work of immense erudition. With all these strands he has blended the arguments of philosophers, so that the work completely justifies the title Stromateis.” HE 6.13.
19 Joseph Trigg argues that Origen’s Stromateis may have been so named as an homage to his teacher. See Trigg, Origen: The Bible and Philosophy in the Third-Century Church, (Atlanta: J. Knox, 1983), 54. According to Aulus Gellius (Noctes Atticae, pref. 6–8), however, the title Stromateis was frequently given to miscellaneous works (Ferguson, FOTC 85, 10).
20 For a recent presentation of the status questionae, see Andrew Itter, Esoteric Teaching in the Stromateis of Clement of Alexandria (Leiden: Brill, 2009), 15–31; Bucur, Angelomorphic Pneumatology, 10–18; Eric F. Osborn, Clement of Alexandria (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008), 5–7.

Eusebius understood it as "weaving" or "tapestry" ergo, 'Clement the Quilter.'

[Secret Alias]

But here's the problem. There has to have been a definitive answer because TWO prominent Alexandrians gave the name to important works. Clement AND Origen gave this as a title to a masterwork. Two people can't have picked "stromateis" out of a hat. There HAS to be a significance. It doesn't matter if modern assholes can't figure it out. We aren't the arbiters of the truth. The ancients knew something we didn't. It has to be POW-erful. You don't give "pajamas" as the name of a masterwork. Here's something else I noticed. "Protector" seems to have been something like bishop or official in the early Church:

If that gospel which among us is ascribed to Luke—we shall see <later> whether it is <accepted by> Marcion—if that is the same that Marcion by
his Antitheses accuses of having been falsified by the upholders of Judaism (protectoribus Iudaismi) with a view to its being so combined in one body with the law and the prophets that they might also pretend that Christ had that origin, evidently he could only have brought accusation against something he had found there already.

The reference here is to the Jerusalem Church. The officials (= bishops, whatever) were "protectors." In the fourth century army it meant "officer" as opposed to enlisted men. https://www.persee.fr/doc/anata_1018-19 ... _16_1_1261

Again in Adversus Marcionem:

For just as no one brings a physician to people in health, neither does he bring one to people so alien as man is from Marcion's god, when that man has his own author and protector (auctorem et protectorem), and from him for preference that physician who is Christ.

Another:

Now, by this answer of His, He (Jesus) both sanctioned (protexit) the provision of Moses, who was His own (servant), and restored to its primitive purpose the institution of the Creator, whose Christ He was.

Interesting use in 2:17

These facts thus expounded show how God's whole activity as judge is the artificer and, to put it more correctly, the protector of his all-embracing (protectorem catholicae) and supreme goodness (et summae illius bonitatis). The Marcionites refuse to admit in that same God the presence of this goodness, clear of judicial sentiments, and in its own state unadulterated.

"Protectorem Catholicae" seems to have some connection to a role within the Church.

[billd89]

Words have meaning(s), bro: you're right. Most likely, Clement was using an esoteric and literary term known in 2nd (and probably 1st C) Alexandria. The precise meaning is lost to us now because it wasn't recorded the way I'd like to know why New Yorkers call it a 'hero' but Bostons call it a 'sub' (in my mind, a 'grinder' is only an Italian sub with cold-cuts -- others disagree).

Elsewhere and awhile back, I mentioned a passage in Philo Judaeus that I suppose is suggestive here:

De Somniis, 1.215: The perceptible copy {of the Archetype or Second Son; i.e. human Actualized Man = A. A.} is not a mimic performing paternal prayers and sacrificial acts, but one allowed to put on the aforesaid tunic/mantle (i.e. exact replica of the entire Heaven), so both Cosmos with man and man with the Whole may synergistically realize a pious discernment and supra-rational accord (i.e. accomplishing sacrifices).

The 'framework' is the 'Cosmic Replica', as a 'tunic' is a 'veil' or 'covering'. This ritualistic garb combined different elements, a 'patchwork' indeed. The cult making/using this garment disappeared, or it was suppressed, and by Clement's day the term was merely evocative in the literary sense. Probably, the Therapeut (God's slave) known by Philo Judaeus had worn such a garment -- for what exact purposes we know not -- but I think Joseph's Coat of Many Colors is along the same lines.

A στρωματεύς is a patchwork, a quilt pieced together rather than spun from whole cloth. By the Hellenistic period, the plural of στρωματεύς, στρωματεῖς, took on the metaphorical sense of a literary work composed in a miscellaneous style.

[Secret Alias]

The point is the plain meaning "cover" + agent suffix "εὺς" (one who _______) = στρωματεὺς. Protector/coverer.

We on the other hand can show you a protector (At nos e contrario edimus protectorem), if the letters of the honoured emperor M. Aurelius be searched, in which he testifies that the famous drought in Germany was put a stop to by the rain which fell in answer to the prayers of the Christians who happened to be in his army. Thus, although he did not openly abolish punishment incurred by such men, yet in another way he openly neutralized it, adding also a condemnation, and indeed a more shocking one, for their prosecutors. Of what sort then are these laws, which are put into force against us by the impious, the unjust, the base, the cruel, the foolish, the mad, and by them alone ? Laws which Trajan made less effective by forbidding Christians to be sought out; to which no Hadrian, although an investigator of all curiosities, no Vespasian, although conqueror of the Jews, no Pius, no Verus ever set his mark. Certainly the worst of men would be more readily sentenced to death by all the best, as their enemies, than by their own accomplices. Now I should like these scrupulous champions and avengers of laws and ancestral institutions (paternorum institutorum protectores et ultores respondeant velim) to answer with regard to their own loyalty, respect and obedience towards the decrees of their ancestors, whether they have abandoned none, whether they have transgressed in none, whether they have not abolished what were the necessary and most appropriate elements of their rule of life. [Apology]

I've read all(most) that has been written. People have just opened a dictionary and looked for things called στρωματεὺς. That's where the ambiguity lies. Clement is saying something secret. If you want this to be pajamas. Fine it's pajamas. Or "servants of beds or bedding." Fine. But good luck with putting up a plausible argument.

Let Cybele see to it, if she learned to love the city of Rome as the memorial of the Trojan race, her own native race forsooth, which she had guarded (protecti) against the arms of the Greeks, if she had the forethought to desert to the avengers, who, she knew, would subdue Greece, the vanquisher of Phrygia. [ibid]

So he asked in the case of the apostles likewise an opportunity to tempt them, having it only by special allowance, since the Lord in the Gospel says to Peter, "Behold, Satan asked that he might sift you as grain; but I have prayed for you that your faith fail not; "7 that is, that the devil should not have power granted him sufficient to endanger his faith. Whence it is manifest that both things belong to God shaking of faith as well as the shielding (protectionem) of it, when both are sought from Him----the shaking by the devil, the shielding (protectio) by the Son. And certainly, when the Son of God has faith's protection (protectionem) absolutely committed to Him, beseeching it of the Father, from whom He receives all power in heaven and on earth, how entirely out of the question is it that the devil should have the assailing of it in his own power! But in the prayer prescribed to us, when we say to our Father, "Lead us not into temptation "8 (now what greater temptation is there than persecution?), we acknowledge that that comes to pass by His will whom we beseech to exempt us from it. For this is what follows, "But deliver us from the wicked one," that is, do not lead us into temptation by giving us up to the wicked one, for then are we delivered from the power of the devil, when we are not handed over to him to be tempted. [Flight in the Time of Persecution]

Strange conduct, is it not, to honour God in the matter of flight from persecution, because He can bring you back from your flight to stand before the judgment-seat; but in regard of witness-bearing, to do Him high dishonour by despairing of power at His hands to shield you (protectionis) from danger? Why do you not rather on this, the side of constancy and trust in God, say, I do my part; I depart not; God, if He choose, will Himself be my protector (ipse me proteget) ? It beseems us better to retain our position in submission to the will of God, than to flee at our own will. [ibid]

[billd89]

If you want Joseph's coat to be just fancy pajamas, that's your choice. (Coverer as Protector is way off-base, tho.)

I think there's more to that story. Or, why are we singing about that trippy coat +2200 years later? Why was it a meme in the 1700s?

[Secret Alias]

How can it be off base when it's the plain meaning of the term. A noun + a suffix for agency. I don't get this. I've provided you with the examples. They're incontrovertible.

ἱερεὺς "holy man" ἱππεὺς "horseman" αλιεύς "fisherman" ὑπογραφεὺς also σχαφεῖον ‘a digging-tool,’ while derived from σχαφεύς ‘a digger,’ could be connected with the abstract σχαφή ‘ digging.’ κῆπος garden κηπεὺς gardener. συλλογεὺς "gatherer." υἱδεὺς "grandson = son's son"συγγραφεὺς "historian." φόνος "to kill" φονεὺς "killer." ἀροτρεὺς "ploughman," innkeeping (πανδοκείαν)/the innkeeper (πανδοκεὺς).

Why would BOTH Clement and Origen choose the same obscure title? It's "cover" + agency suffix. It has to be. Maybe that's what's behind the bed servants idea. But στρωμα ("cover") + τεὺς (agent noun suffix).

[billd89]

A garment worn by the Judeo-Egyptian Asaphim, to channel God. And why the Edelsteins should cryptically introduce terms like "thread" "weave" "fabric" etc., I think, knowing their work was a Stromateis likewise: "Of necessity there will have to be discussion of matters medical, psychiatric, social, and religious."

In minor digression, let us consider Jewish quilts.

Back to Philo, via Yonge, because I am lazy:

III. Therefore, from what has here been said it is plain, that they make the halting-place of the irrational faculties, which are in them, in the plain. But Joseph is sent unto them because he is unable to bear the somewhat austere knowledge of his father; that he may learn, under gentler instructors, what is to be done and what will be advantageous; for he uses a doctrine woven together from divers foundations, very variegated and very artfully made, in reference to which the law-giver says, that he had "a robe of many colours made for him;" signifying by this that he is an interpreter of labyrinth-like learning, such as is hard to be explained; for as he philosophises more with a regard to political wisdom than to truth, he brings into one place and connects together the three kinds of good things, namely, external things, the things concerning the body, and those concerning the soul, things utterly different from one another in their whole natures; wishing to show that each has need of each, and that everything has need of everything; and that that which is really the complete and perfect good, is composed of all these things together, and that the parts of which this perfect good is compounded are parts or elements of good, but are not themselves perfect goods. In the same way, as neither fire, nor earth, nor any one of the four elements, out of which the universe was created, are the world, but the meeting and mixture of all the elements together; in the same way also happiness ought not peculiarly to be sought for either in the external things, or in the things of the body, or in the things of the soul, taken by themselves; for each of the aforementioned things has only the rank of parts and elements, but it must be looked for in the combination of them all together.

[Secret Alias]

But the title has the added suffix to make Clement the agent of "cover(s)"

"Κλήμης ὁ στρωματεὺς"

Can't fucking be "quilt" or "miscellania." It is what Clement is known by forever

[billd89]