Odes of Solomon

Harris1911 source page 139

THE ODES OF SOLOMON 95 • the Virgin quoted by Lactantius\ as from the 19th Ode of Solomon. We have, however, shown elsewhere that Lactantius' quotation is really in our 19th Ode, so that Lactantius does not appear in the discussion, having been found in another quarter. And we have suggested that the supposed 19th Ode of the Coptic writer is the first of our collection, and that it followed on the eighteen Psalms of Solomon. The mistake can be traced, by comparing, in the Pistis Sophia, the text and the Gnostic comment upon it ; it will be found that a wrong Ode has been copied out for the text of the Gnostic comment, in consequence of two Odes, the first and the fifth, having some similar sentences. The difference can be exhibited thus : Coptic Ode 19 Syriac Ode 5. [=our Ode i] 'The Lord is on my head 'He is like a crown on my hke a crown, and I shall not be head and I shall not be moved, separated from Him : a ciown of Even if everything should be truth has been woven for me : my shaken, I stand firm : and if all branches were planted in me : for things visible should perish, I they did not bear a crown that shall not die : because the Lord was dried up, and without a shoot: is with me and I am with Him.' but thou livest upon my head : and thou growest upon me : thy fruits are full and perfect : they are filled with thy salvation.' The comment upon the foregoing Coptic Ode follows the text of the Syriac Ode, by an unconscious error of the writer who mistook one hymn for the other. It is clear, then, that the Coptic nineteenth Ode and the Syriac fifth Ode are two different Odes, as we have explained above. We thus recover the missing first Ode of our collection. Whether this fifth Ode is Christian or not, does not appear decisively at the first reading. It opens in a rather Jewish strain of praise, accompanied by prayer for the discomfiture of enemies. If there is a definite Christian feature, perhaps it is the garland upon the singer's head, which appears in several other Odes. In the 17th Ode, for example, we get the same figure, and here the theme is the praise of the Messiah for His triumph over Hades. This must, of course, be Christian. The crown is a crown of life, that is a living crown or garland : and this meaning is carefully brought out in the Coptic Ode, which explains 1 Psalms of Solomon, p. 160. 'Ode ii. [of the Coptic Odes] should be another fragment of that quoted by Lactantius, the i9lh Ode. Here alone is a number given. The Virgin, be it noted, is the reciter here, and the Virgin is the subject of Lactantius' quotation.'