From these hints we may construct an outline of the psalmody of the early Church, to which we may probably add a very interesting collection of private psalms recently discovered by Rendel Harris and published by him in 1909 — the Odes of Solomon (q.v.). He found them with the Psalms of Solomon in a MS of the 15th or 16th cent, from the neighbourhood of the Tigris. He thinks that they were written in Palestine about the year A.D. 100 (Batittbl \_Les Odes de Salomon, Fr. tr. by Batiffol and Labourt, 1911] gives the date as 100- 120). On the other hand, Harnack [TU, 3rd ser. V. 4 [1910]) regards all the Christian allusions as interjjolations of the date c. A.D. 100 in an earlier Jewish collection of c. A.D. 70. He calls the find- ing of the Odes the most important discovery since the Didache, and epoch-making for the higher criticism of the Gospel of John, because these Jewish Odes {not only the Christian edition) con- tain all the essential elements of the Johannine theology, together with its religious tone. F. C. Burkitt, however {JThSt xiii. [1912-13] 374), who has found a Nitrian MS of the 15th cent, in the British Museum, regards them as later, as ' part of the literary activity of the Syriac Monophysite community in Egypt.' He attributes absence of direct references to Baptism and the Eucharist to tlie fact that the author was ' writing in the style appropriate for pseudepigrapiiical composition.' One feels that superhuman skill would be required by a writer who attempted to reconstruct the un- developed theology of the Odes without betraying his later standpoint.
Harnack, with justice, calls the writer an original poet, whose metaphors and similes are excellently chosen and arrest attention by their beauty and strength. His mystical teaching on peace and joy and light and living water is thoroughly Johannine.
Ode 4 opens with a historical allusion to some attempt to alter the site of the Lord's Sanctuary, probably a reference to the closing and dismantling of the temple of Onias, at Leontopolis in Egypt, by the Romans in a.d. 73 : ' No man, O my God, changeth thy holy place ; and it is not [possible] that he should change it and put it in another place : because he hath no power over it.'
As a specimen of the style Ode 7 may be quoted : ' As the im- pulse of anger against evil, so is the impulse of joy over what is lovely, and brings in of its fruits without restraint. My joy is the Lord and my impulse is towards Him : this is my excellent path : for I have a helper, the Lord. He has caused me to know Himself, without grudging, by His simplicity : the greatness of His kindness has humbled me. He became like me, in order that I might receive Him : He was reckoned like myself in order that I might put Him on ; and I trembled not when I saw Him : because He is my salvation. Like my nature He became that I might learn Him, and like my form, that I might not turn back from Him . . . and the Most High shall be known in His saints, to announce to those that have Songs of the Coming of the Lord ; that they may go forth to meet Him, and may sing to Him with joy and with the harp of many tones. The seers shall come before Him and they shall be seen before Him, and they shall praise the Lord for His love : because He is near and beholdeth, and hatred shall be taken from the earth, and along with jealousy it shall be drowned : for ignorance has been destroyed, because the knowledge of the Lord has arrived.'
It would be easy to multiply quotations, but this is impossible here. There are many phrases which arrest attention, like the first words of Ode 34, which Harnack calls the ' pearl of the collection ' : ' No way is hard when there is a simple heart.' But even more attractive than the phrases and the metaphors is the consistent spirit of joyful-
ness : ' Grace has been revealed for your salvation. Believe and live and be saved.' Thus the last words of Ode 34 lead up to the triumphant ' Hallelujah ' which closes each hymn. Whatever may be the final verdict of critics as to the date, the beauty of the thoughts is an abiding posses- sion for all who are interested in early Christian hymns.*
Literature.— H. Leigh Bennett, art. 'Greek Hymnody,' in Julian's Diet, of Hymnology^, 1907 ; F. Cabrol, art. ' Cantiques,' in his Diet, d'arclii'ologie ehritienne et de liturgie, 1909; E. A. Abbott, Light on the Gospel from an ancient Poet, 1912 ; see also the series of artt. on ' Hymns (Christian) ' in ERE.
A. E. Burn.
HYPOCRISY (vir6Kpi(ns). — The noun viroKpirris does not occur after the Synoptic Gospels, but vTTOKpcais is found in Gal 2i», 1 Ti 4^, 1 P 2^, and the compound verb a-vvvTroKpiveadai, ' to dissemble along with another,' is used in Gal 2'^.
The development of the meaning of imoKpCvecrOai. can be clearly traced. In Homer and Herodotus it meant ' to reply,' e. g. ' to give an oracular answer ' (Herod, i. 78, 91) ; then ' to answer on the stage,' 'to speak in dialogue,' 'to plaj'apart' (Arist. Pol. V. xi. 19) ; then 'to be an actor in real life,' 'to dis- semble,' ' to feign,' ' to pretend.' The last is probably the only meaning of the word in the NT, though E. Hatch (Essays in Biblical Greek, 1889, p. 92) thinks that among Greek-speaking Jews iiTTOKpto-ts had come to mean ' irreligion,' ' impiety.'