The language of the Odes of Solomon recalls partly the OT and partly the NT, though it never quotes from the latter. The Divine righteousness succours the elect (viii. 22) and their righteous cause triumphs over spiritual evil (viii. 6f.); in this OT sense, 'righteousness can be spoken of as man's as well as God's. It is even personified, like Victory, and represented as conferring the ever- lasting crown of truth upon the pious (ix. 7-10). The allusion in xxix. 5 is obscure ; if verse 6 (' For I believed in the Lord's messiah . . .') is a (Chris- tian) interpolation, then the words ' He brought me up out of the depths of Sheol : and from the mouth of death He drew me : and thou didst lay my enemies low, and He justified me by His grace ' might denote, as in viii. 6, the vindication of the Christian or of Messiah (cf. above, p. 373), but probably the Ode is a unity and refers to the ex- jierieuce of spiritual victory (see Kendel Harris s ed., Cambridge, 1911, p. 61, and E. A. Abbott's Light on the Gospel from an Ancient Poet, do., 1912, p. 247 f.), like the still more obscure refer- ence to justification in xxxi. 5. The singer, in xvii. 2, is 'justified in my Lord,' i.e. freed from the bondage of vanity and error ; the expression is Pauline hut not the content, and in xxv. 10 the more congenial OT significance recurs (' I became holy by thy righteousness ; and all my adversaries were afraid of me . . . and I was justified by His gentleness '), righteousness being the saving strength of God exerted on behalf of His own. One of the repeated sources of ambiguity in the interpretation of the Odes is the uncertainty as to who is the speaker— the soul of man. Truth, or the Christ. In xli. 13 Christ is distinctly described, however, as 'exalted by His own righteousness,' and the Divine title of ' The Righteous One ' occurs in connexion with the Crucifixion in xlii. 3 (though not in Frankenberg's reconstruction of the text), but it is not so clear whose Heart pours out 'as^it were a gushing stream of righteousness' (xxxvi. 7). In the only ethical allusion (xx. 3), the OT colour- ing leaves' it uncertain whether the hymn-writer, in saying that ' the sacrifice of the Lord is right- eousness, and purity of heart and lips,' meant by ' righteousness' works of mercy and charity (see above, p. 371), or, in the more general sense, good- ness inspired by the Golden Rule.
Ignatius quotes Mt 3"' in Smyrn. i. 1, but the term and the idea have no place in his theology.t Polycarp uses the word more frequently ; he quotes Mt 5'" in ad Phil. 2 and 2 Co 6' in iv. 1, he employs
• Noah is ' the herald of righteousness ' (2'), as in the Jewish tradition of ./")ji7«.s (vii. 20 f.) and SihuUuie Oracles (cS. p. 4S3) e.q. he preaclies to his wicked conteniporiiries.
"t The phrase in ad Phil. viii. 2 (• that I may be justified by your prayers') seems to refer to martyrdom.
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SiKaioffOvtitohring out the general idea of Cliristiiin goodness (iii. 1, 3, ix. 1 f.), he echoes St. Paul in speaking of Cliiist as 'our righteousness' (viii. 1 : ' let us hold fast by our hope and the pledge of our righteousness, that is, of Christ Jesus who bore our sins in his own body on the tree, who did no sin, neither was guile found in his mouth, who endured all things for our sakes, that we might live in him'), and onc-e sneaks of God's righteous- ness, though not in the Pauline sense (v.- : ' like- wise the deacons must be blameless before his righteousness,* as servants of Cod and Christ, not of men '). (Jod's righteonsness here probably means His searching presence, before wiiich Christians must eschew sin, just as in E71. ci. 1-9 it denotes the Presence which ought to inspire fear and reverence in men ('Observe the heaven, ye children of heaven, and every work of the Most High, and fear ye him and work no evil in his |)resence. If he sends his anger upon you because of your deeds, ye cannot petition him ; for ye spake proud and insolent words against his righteousness : therefore ye shall have no peace. And see ye not the sailors of the ships, how their ships are tossed to and fro by the waves, and are shaken by the winds, and are in sore trouble ? ... Do not the sailors of the ships fear the sea? Yet sinners fear not the Most High ! '). On the other hand, St. Paul's very language is echoed, and his ideas reproduced, in the Epistle to Diognetus, 9— one of the passages in the so-called Apostolic Fathers which send the surge of genuine religious feeling straight into the mind of a modern reader. ' So, having himself planned everything together with his Son, he per- mitted us during the time before to be swept along by disorderly impulses just as we chose, carried away by pleasures and passions — not at all because he delighted in our sins, but because he was forbear- ing [dj/exofifos ; cf. avoxv in Ko 3-° : below, p. 38S], not because he approved of that period of iniquity, but because he was fashioning [oi}ixiovpywv] this present period of righteousness in order that we, whose very actions then proved us unworthy of life, may now be [made? counted?] worthy of it by God's goodness, and may be enabled by God's power to enter the Kingdom of God after we had made it plain that by ourselves we could not. When our iniquity was full, and when it had be- come perfectly plain that the recompense of punish- ment and death was awaiting it [this corresponds to the Pauline philosophy of history in Gal 4^, Ko 5" ; see below, p. 389], and when the time came which in God's purpose was to manifest his good- ness and power (O the surpassing kindness and love of God !), instead of hating us, rejecting us, or bearing malice against us, he was long-sutl'ering, he bore with us, he took our sins upon himself in pity, and gave his own Son to be a ransom for us, the holy for the wicked, the innocent for the evil, the just for the unjust, the incorru|>tible for the corruptible, the immortal for the mortal. What else but his righteousness could cover our sins? By whom, save only by the Son of God, could we be justified [Std-aiuffTji-ai : either 'made just' or ' acquitted '], wicked and impious as we were ? Oh sweet exchange ! O inscrutable ci-eation [Stj^ui- ovpyia] ! O benefits unlooked for ! That the wick- edness of many should be hidden by [ei-] a single righteous One, that the righteousness of One should make many wicked righteous [Si/caiiiffi; as above ] ! ' The use of SiKaioevvt] in this fine outburst of faith recalls both senses of the term. On the one hand, it denotes generally the Christian religion, and this is repeated at the close of the next chapter, wliere the writer tells Diognetus that, when he sees what the real fire of hell is like, he will count