'There is no trace of this "reserve'* or discipUna arcani in the writers of the New Testament, who never shun to declare unto us the whole counsel of God. AVe do not tind it either in the subapostolic Fathers ; and Justin has no hesitation in fully describing the observance of the Lord's Supper in writing to the heathen emperor. Yet he tells us that Baptism was already called (|)ujTia-/x6s (illumination) — the technical term for initiation in the mysteries. Clement speaks of Christianity as a mystery, and uses freely the language of the mysteries in the invitation to the heathen which is the peroration of his Protrepticus ' (H. M. Gwatkin, Early Church History, 2 vols., Loudon, 1909, i. 272 f.).
(2) We are also unable to subscribe to the possi- bility of a constant relation between the Odes and the Baptismal Hymns of St. Ephreni. The hymns of this Father, written exclusively for baptism, contain always in their tone allusions which un- mistakably refer to this sacrament, while the Odes are devoid of anything that would turn the thought of a reader in this direction.
There are two verses which might seem to point to baptismal practices. Ode xxiv. 1 : ' The Dove fluttered over the Christ, because He was her head ; and she sang over Him, and her voice was heard.' Ode vi. 17 : 'And in water they lived an eternal life.' But it is obvious that the first quotation refers to the baptism of Christ in the same manner as other Odes refer to the mysteries of the Incar- nation or of redemption ; and we are not entitled to infer from it that either this Ode or the whole collection has any special interest in the ritual of baptism. As to the second quotation, it is possible that it alludes to the grace of God, and by exten- sion, to Christian doctrine, the word ' water ' being frequently used in Syriac literature to express this idea. St. Ephrera, speaking of Judas, says : ' He drank living water' (Breviariicm Chaldaicuni, ii. 380). At all events, even if the word ' water ' be taken in its material sense, it attbrds no sup])ort for the notion that the forty-two Odes as a whole were written for baptismal purposes.
With regard to the third theory, the only passage that might suggest the work of a Jewish, or, more probably, a Jewish-Christian writer, is the follow- ing (Ode iv.) : ' 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 : becau.se he hath no power over it : for thy sanctuary Thou hast designed before Thou didst make places : that which is the elder shall not be altered by those that are younger than itself.' These sentences seem to allude to the Temple of Solomon, the principal place of worship for Judaism. No other verse points with any clearness to a Judaizing writer ; but tlie above statement is precise, and we cannot wholly ignore it. On the other hand, allusions to Chris- tian mysteries and Christian doctrine in general are, as we shall see, numerous and undoubted, and compel us not to exclude from our mind a Chris- tian author. Our Odes are separate hymns, ex- tolling sometimes special articles of faith, but ex- hibiting always a high ideal of mysticism. By
their outward form they are not linked closely together, and we could invert the order in the MS without doing the slightest injury to the sense. In this respect they resemble their prototype, the canonical Psalms of the propliet king, and there is no internal evidence to prevent us from holdin;^ that they are simply an attempt to imitate, in Christian circles, the Davidic I'salms.
3. The original language of the Odes. — The question of the original language of the Odes is very important, because it may furnish a good starting-point for the solution of many problems dealing with the country, the age, and the aim of the wliole collection. Critics here again have adopted three difl'erent views. The majoritj- (but we ought to say at once that some of them are not good Semitic scholars) hold to a Greek original. A second opinion, represented by Grimine, favours Hebrew, this theory being essential to the estab- lishing of a Jewish authorship. The present writer has ventured to suggest that Aramaic may have been the language in which they were originally written.*
Before we discuss this tangled question, a pre- liminary remark will not be out of place. After the invasion of Palestine, Syria, and neighbouring countries by the Hellenic troops, under the leader- ship of Alexander, the Greek language acquired a linn footing in these countries, and from the time of the Seleucids onwards it began to supersede, in great centres, the Canaanitish and Aramaic dia- lects which were doomed to disappear. Thousands of Greek words were introduced into Aramaic, which had come to be the vernacular of all the Semitic tribes, inclusive of the remnants of the once prosperous people of Jahweh. The ordinary population spoke Aramaic, and the sacred national documents were written also in Aramaic, but the official decrees and the general regulations of the State were worded, at least at the beginning of the Christian era, in Greek. This fact is not surpris- ing ; Hellenic culture had, with the glorious arms of the Macedonian hegemony, conquered the old civilized world, and in Rome it.self it was considered an honour to speak the language of Homer. The Aramseans were far more influenced by tliis current than any other Semitic people, and distinct traces of Hellenism are frequent in books originally written in Aramaic, or directly translated from tlie Hebrew. The OT Pesliitta is an irrefragable testi- mony to this assertion, and the literary composi- tions of Aphrahat and Ephrem, in which Greek words and Greek expressions are counted by hun- dreds, would not tend to weaken it. The instance of these two writers, who could not even under- stand Greek, may easily be extended to scores of poems and historical lucubrations, of which Edessa and the neighbouring countries are justly proud. But in this matter thereis adifl'erence between the style of a writer who knew Greek and that of one who did not. How deep, for instance, is the gap between the stylistic method adopted by Ephrem in his hymns, and that used by Narsai in his homilies. As concerns the style of the Odes, we may assume that it is not moulded on that of Ephrem, but it would be precarious to assert that it is completely foreign to that of Narsai, or of Bardesanes. The only conclusion that we can safely draw from the arguments of some critics for a Greek original of the Odes, is that their problematic author was a man of good Hellenic culture ; and, as a matter of fact, in Syria and in Palestine, from the 1st to the 8th cent., the writers were few who were without any Hellenic culture.