This article argues that Clement’s gender-reversal language in this passage may also fulfil a broader set of purposes. In addition to the gendered connotations Buell focuses on, Clement’s argument draws on contemporary medical connotations and terminology to fulfil the strategy he employs in this chapter, so as to counter charges that Christian education was rudimentary. This article provides a contextual reading of the passage in question both with reference to this section of the Paedagogus and in relation to relevant contemporaneous texts, taking special note of medical terminology.