(5) Best. — iii. 6 ; ' And where His rest is, there also am I.' xi. 10 : 'And the Lord renewed me in His raiment, and possessed me by His light, and from above He gave me rest in incorruption.' See, further, xx. 8 ; xxvi. 13 ; xxviii. 4 ; xxx. 2 ; xxxvi. 1 ; xxxvii. 4 ; xxxviii. 4.
(6) Grace.— V. 2-3 : ' O most High, thou wilt not forsake me, for thou art my hope : freely I have received thy grace, I shall live thereby.' iv. 7 : ' For who is there that shall put on thy grace, and be hurt ? ' See, further, vii. 12, 25 ; ix. 5 ; xi. 1 ; XV. 8 ; XX. 7 ; xxi. 1 ; xxiii. 2 ; xxv. 4 ; xxxiii. 1 ; xxxiv. 6.
Many allusions are made to crowns or garlands (see i. 1 ; V. 10 ; ix. 8 ; xvii. 1 ; xx. 7) ; several passages are found also in which the Christian is compared to a harp on which the Spirit seeks to play (see vi. 1 ; xiv. 8 ; xxvi. 3). The idea of God being a helper of man is also expressed in many verses (see vii. 3 ; viii. 7 ; xxi. 1 ; xxv. 2). For the transfiguration of the face of the believer, see xvii.; xxi.; xl.; xii. For the offering to God of the fruit of the lips (He 13'*) see viii. ; xii. ; xiv. ; xvi. For the figure of mil/c from the breasts of God, see viii.; xiv.; xix.; xxx v.; iv. For the joy felt by good people, see xxxii.; vii.; xxxiii. On the rescue from bondu effected by Christ, see below. F'or the peace in which true believers shall live, see viii. ; ix. ; XXXV. 2 ; X. 2. On the good fruits to be offered to the Lord, see xiv. ; xi. ; viii. 3 ; xxxviii. 18. On the light of the Lord, see vii. ; viii. ; xii. 3 ; xxv. 7 ; xl. 6 ; X. 7. For the putting on of Christ, see vii. ; xii. ; xi. 10 ; xxxiii. 10. On the hope of the believer, see xxix.; v. 2, etc.
These are the ordinary themes that the Odist
102 ODES OF SOLOMON
ODES OF SOLOMON
emphasizes chietly, and it .8 d.thcult to d an Ode in which the above scheme is "ot exphu Iv developed. They constitute a kind of «l..r.tual mvstici^^n,. of which the Johannme writi..;^. and some I'auline doctrines convey a va-ue Init tiue idea We cannot lind in tliem any clear impl ca- tion of sacramental ism, or any special interest in
legal observances, either Judaic or Chn'^t''"' = ^ "'• as the reader has already surmised, all the foi ty.t« o
Odes are closelv joined together in a series whose
keynote is the Johannine t'>«V'."r'^\f '''n'JJ'';''i!'Vi?; the ideal of holiness, of which the Odist is the champion, is so marked in all the Odes that t appears very .lilhcult not to ascribe the Nvl'ole col- lection to a' sin^de man. . It seems tl>«'-ef;' «; '^'^^ the theory of interpolation launched by llainack has little to commend it. On the contrary , a study of the Syriac text makes it highly probable hat all the verses which have been bracketed as (..hris- tian interpolations of a Jewish composition are in spirit, thought, and vocabulary so intimately re- lated to the genuine passages that nothing shmt o identity of authorship can ^.'^tisfactorily account for them (cf. R. H. Connolly m JThl^t xui. [19UJ
^^Harnack's hypothesis postulates many things that even a priori are not to be easily admitted We have seen that the thread of the narrative is unmistakably one throughout the book ; to suppose that a second writer changed some verses that savoured of Judaism and gave them a Christian tone or to believe that he interpolated existmg passages with sentences altogether opposed m spirit to those he wished to modify, would imply tlmt this second writer was a consummate artist. He had to conform his thoughts and his phraseology, and sometimes to assimilate even his personalil^y, to that of the Jewish Odist ; both writers must have been deeply influenced by the f "i« J«'»an"ine atmosphere ; and the Christian interpolator must have lived in a milim not far removed from that of the original Jewish writer. All these are supposi- tions for which stronger evidence is demanded
The passages which Harnack considers as Chris- tian interpolations are the {"""^'"g l_">-„^. ' ^iV 4-8, U, 15, 18 ; viii. 23-26 ; ix. 2 ; x. 4-6, 8 ; xvii. 10-14, 15 ; xix.: xxiii. 16, 19 ; xxiv. 1 ; ,^"1.; xxix. 6-7 8 • xxxi. 3-11 ; xxxvi. 3 ; xxxix. 10 ; xli. 1-7, 11-17 xlii. 1-3, 17-25. We shall examine the last nassao-e (xlii. 17-25), which, according to ilar- nack! exhfbits the most distinct traces of interpola- tion :
hope to the souls which were boiind in Sheol . . . and who by His death rent asunder the tombs and ...;..i-„„„.i f l,„ .Una ' ( HrcvUirinm Cluildaicuvi, Pans,
ouickenedtliedead'(/ircji(«riH
1887, vol. ii. p. 370). Then follows on the same page
a hi" hymn in which all the good men of the Of