1. Manuscripts and principal editions of the Odes. — The MS * from which Rendel Harris pub- lished his first and second editions is not very ancient. It cannot be older than the 15th cent. ; but apart from occasional passages which point to a corruption of some words by careless copyists, it exhibits generally a text which can be relied upon for critical purposes. It is written in Syro-Occi- dental letters, and its editor tells us that it came from the valley of the Tigris, in Northern Meso- potamia. It is truncated at the beginning and at the end. Odes i. and ii. and some lines of Ode iii. are missing ; these stood, with the title of the
• This MS has been recently acquired by the Governors of the John Rylands Library of Manchester, and is at present found there as Cod. Syriac, 9.
book, on the three leaves which are lost at the
beginning.
In l'.)l 1 Harris published a second edition, revised and enlarged, of the text, with a facsimile of Odes xxvi. 13-14, xxvii. 1-4. In the same year H. Grimme edited the Syriac text at Heidelberg, and translated it into Hebrew, with the intention of showing that the Syriac version was dependent on a Hebrew original. In 1914 Kittel published, at the close of a (liscussion of the Odes, a glossary of the words used in the text.*
At the moment of writing we are informed that a third edition is being publislied at Oxford for the Ryhinils Library, witli a complete reproduction in facsimile of all the pages of the MS. We expect that this publication will answer a legitimate desideratum felt everywhere for a critical e</itin princeps, which, so far as tlie text and its literal translation are concerned, will be a safe guide to all students of Christian antiquities and a solid ba.sis for subsequent researches.
Besides the Syriac text, five Odes are preserved in Coptic in a fantastic bouk entitled Pist is Sophia. These are Odes i., v., vi., xxii.,and xxv., which are not only quoted and given a Gnostic interpretation in that book, but cited as Solomon's and com- mented on in extenso as if they were canonical portions of the Bilde. The sentence which intro- duces them is irpoicpTp-evire per Salomonem, the subject being vis luminis.
In April, 1912, F. C. Burkitt published in the JThSt some variants, from a MS of the Nitrian collection in the British Museum, previously de- scribed by the skilled hand of W. Wright (Cod. Mus. Brit. Add. 14, 538). This new MS, dating probably from the 10th to the 13th cent., is very important, but it frequently exhibits a truncated text, as many words are quite illegible, and it begins only at Ode xvii. 7. Being more ancient than Cod. H, it occasionally exhibits readings which, for critical reasons, have commended them- selves to scholars.
As to the modern versions made upon these texts, besides the works that we have mentioned concomitantly with the editions of the original, the following publications appear to be the most important. (1) ' Ein jiidisch-christlich Psalmbuch aus dem ersten Jahrhundert,' in TU, new ser., v. 4 [1910]. The translation is by J. Flemming, and the critical study by A. Harnack. (2) G. Diet- trich, ' Eine jiidisch-christliche Liedersammlung aus dem apostolisehen Zeitalter,' in Die Reforma- tion, ix. [1910]. (3) Les odes de Salomon : separate edition of articles printed in RB vii. [1910] 483 ff., viii. [1911] 5il'., 161 ft'. The translation is due to J. Labourt, and the critical study to P. Batiffol. (4) F. Schulthess, 'Textkritische Bemerkungen zu den syrischen Oden Salomos,' in ZNTW xi. [1910]. This study contains some valuable remarks, its author being a good Semitic scholar. (5) A. Ungnad and W. Stark, * Die Oden Salomos,' in Kleine Tcxte fiir theol. und phil. Vorlesungen und Ubungen, Ixiv. [1910]. (6) J. H. Bernard, 'The Odes of Solomon,' in TS viii. 3 [1912].
In addition, hundreds of useful articles are to be found in theological magazines of Germany, Great Britain, and France ; and all of them testify to the importance of these beatitiful Odes for Christian dogma. No book, not even the Teaching of the Apostles, has excited so keen an interest among Christian students ; and its discovery is to be placed, from a theological point of view, among the events of which .the 20th cent, may justly be proud. So far as the text is concerned, few amend- ments worth noticing have been suggested, and the very few linguistic ditticulties that the original oilers will remain for a long time insoluble, owing * G. Kittel, Die Oden Salomos, Leipzig, 1914.
ODES OF SOLOMON
ODES OF SOLOMON
101
to the scarcity of MSS and the lack of exact Patristic quotations.
2. Character of the Odes. — Three principal theories as to tlie nature of the Oiles have been launched by scholars since their publication, (a) The first tlieory, put forward by Harnack, and fully endorsed by Grimnie, considers them a Jewish composition, interpolated towards the end of the 1st cent, by a Christian hand. (6) Tlie second theory regards them as entirely Christian hymns, and Bernard, a well-known holder of this view, goes so far as to believe them to be hymns recited by new proselytes, for baptismal purposes.
' The conclusion which seems to the present writer to emerge most clearly from an examination of the Odes is, . . . that they are baptismal hymns intended for use in public worship, either for catechumens or for those who have recently been baptized. ... A few parallelisms here and there might be set down to chance, but when we find that this scheme of inter- pretation, applied to every Ode, provides a consistent explana- tion of their phraseoloj^y in every case, and in some cases illuminates obscure phrases for which no other explanation has been suj^^^rested, we are entitled to claim for it serious considera- tion ' (op. cit. p. 42). 'The Odes do not differ in this respect from Ephraim's baptismal hymns' iib. p. vi).