The ekphrastic play with verbal and iconic representations reveals that not only literature but also pictures can effect apatē. Chapter 9 is devoted to a piece of early Christian apologetic writing that cashes in on the ambiguity of apatē for an assault against pagan idolatry. Clement’s Protrepticus, an interesting document for the multifaceted attempts of the early Christians to negotiate the relation of their faith with pagan culture, is couched in the language and imagery of the culture it is criticizing; it not only takes up specific theories of perception, but also knowingly transfers the aesthetics of deception from poetry to pictures. While other apologetes assume that demons instrumentalize statues for their deception, Clement makes the capacity of iconic representation for deception itself a cornerstone of his deconstruction of pagan modes of viewing.

Clement’s title, Stromateis, is his most explicit genre marker; it is a miscellanistic cliché, by which he positions his work squarely within the culture of Classical miscellany- making. Classical miscellanists often invented clever titles and drew attention to them; on the surface, Clement’s Stromateis appears to be, by contrast, dull and prosaic. On closer inspection, we find that he uses his sequence of titles creatively to guide his readers into a deepening relation to God. Protrepticus and Paedagogus become scripturally authorised ways of figuring the Lord as the one who is addressing the reader, while Clement as author oscillates between accompanying his readers and sharing the Lord’s voice. In the Stromateis,Clement emphasises that the title is a miscellanistic cliché and does not endeavour to discover it in Scripture, but that in itself turns out to have significance. His point is that what is strewn (διεστρωμένα) is strewn in the world more widely than in Scripture, and the work has its telos in something that lies beyond the words on the page.