Clement of Alexandria ’ s Exegesis of Old Testament Theophanies

The interpretation of Old Testament theophanies was crucial for early Christianity’s theological appropriation of the sacred history of Israel, and igured signiicantly in the antiJewish, anti-dualistic, and anti-monarchian polemics of the second and third centuries. A Christian continuator of Philo’s “noetic exegesis,” Clement of Alexandria inaugurates an approach to theophanies that is different from that of some of his predecessors and contemporaries, but no less important from a receptionhistorical perspective, inasmuch as it laid the groundwork for the valorisation of theophanies for Christian spirituality. Despite being an understudied topic in biblical or patristic scholarship, the exegesis of Old Testament theophanies is a crucial element in early Christianity’s process of theological self-deinition. It igured signiicantly in a catechetical manual such as Irenaeus’ Demonstration; it contributed significantly to Justin Martyr’s articulation of the Christian faith in opposition to contemporary Judaism; it was part of the anti-dualistic arsenal deployed by Irenaeus and Tertullian; it was the crucial argument used by Tertullian and Hippolytus against Monarchians, and later by Eusebius against Marcellus, and by Homoians against the “modalistic” theology of Photinus. The exegesis of theophanic texts such as Genesis 18, 28 and 32, Exodus 3, 19, 24, 33, Isaiah 6, Ezekiel 1, or Habakkuk 3:2 LXX was, by the end of the irst millennium, 1 See my article, ‘Justin Martyr’s Exegesis of Old Testament Theophanies and the Parting of the Ways Between Christianity and Judaism,’ Theological Studies 75 (2014) 34-51. PHRONEMA, VOL. 29(1), 2014, 61-79