Clement of Alexandria and Sola Scriptura

A Protestant would like us to believe that Clement of Alexandria believed in sola Scriptura. To that end, she has provided (in a post titled, "Early Church Fathers on Sola Scriptura") the following quotation:

But those who are ready to toil in the most excellent pursuits, will not desist from the search after truth, till they get the demonstration from the Scriptures themselves (Stromata, VII, 16).

But at the very outset of the book, Clement writes:

"Thou, therefore, be strong," says Paul, "in the grace that is in Christ Jesus. And the things which thou hast heard of me among many witnesses, the same commit thou to faithful men, who shall be able to teach others also." And again: "Study to show thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth" (Stromata, I, 1).

What does he mean by these two quotations?

If, then, both proclaim the Word - the one by writing, the other by speech - are not both then to be approved, making, as they do, faith active by love? (ibid.)

Here, then, Clement shows that both the oral transmission of the truth, and the written transmission of it, are of equal value. Hence Sacred Tradition is by no means to be rejected in favor of Sacred Scripture, even though in some cases Scripture may have greater utility: they both contain the truth.

And more:

Now this work of mine in writing is not artfully constructed for display; but my memoranda are stored up against old age, as a remedy against forgetfulness, truly an image and outline of those vigorous and animated discourses which I was privileged to hear, and of blessed and truly remarkable men.

Of these the one, in Greece, an Ionic; the other in Magna Græcia: the first of these from Cœle-Syria, the second from Egypt, and others in the East. The one was born in the land of Assyria, and the other a Hebrew in Palestine.

When I came upon the last (he was the first in power), having tracked him out concealed in Egypt, I found rest. He, the true, the Sicilian bee, gathering the spoil of the flowers of the prophetic and apostolic meadow, engendered in the souls of his hearers a deathless element of knowledge.

Well, they preserving the tradition of the blessed doctrine derived directly from the holy apostles, Peter, James, John, and Paul, the sons receiving it from the father (but few were like the fathers), came by God’s will to us also to deposit those ancestral and apostolic seeds (ibid.; emphasis added).

What is he saying here? He is saying that he is writing down traditions that he heard from others - others who preserved the tradition of the blessed doctrine derived directly from the holy apostles. Far from denigrating Sacred Tradition, he writes it down to preserve it (not that this is necessary, strictly speaking: for as he noted earlier, If, then, both proclaim the Word - the one by writing, the other by speech - are not both then to be approved, making, as they do, faith active by love?).

And so we see that Clement too accepts the validity of Sacred Tradition.