Revisiting Christian Oeyen: "The Other Clement" on Father, Son, and the Angelomorphic Spirit

AbstractThis article contributes to research on Clement of Alexandria's pneumatology by revisiting and expanding upon Christian Oeyen's oft-neglected study Eine frühchristliche Engelpneumatologie bei Klemens von Alexandrien, published in 1966. It argues, first, that a study of Clement's Pneumatology cannot ignore the surviving portions of Clement's Hypotyposes (especially the Excerpta ex Theodoto, Eclogae Propheticae, and Adumbrationes), because these appear to have included treatises "On Prophecy" and "On the Soul." Secondly, it reaffirms Oeyen's thesis that Clement of Alexandria's Pneumatology is best understood within the framework of early Jewish and Christian speculation on the "first created" angelic spirits (πρωτó;κτιστoι). The article advances the discussion by providing a context for Clement's "angelomorphic Pneumatology": this phenomenon is part of a larger theological articulation, occurring in tandem with Spirit Christology and a marked binitarian orientation.