Odes of Solomon

Harris1911 source page 145

THE ODES OF SOLOMON lOi the Lord is with you : and He is your helper : ^and peace was prepared for you, before ever your war was. 9 Hear the word of truth, and receive the knowledge of the Most High. ""OYour flesh has not known what I am saying to you : neither have Cf. Is. your hearts! known what I am showing to you. ^^Keep my ''"^' ■*' secret^ ye who are kept by it: ^^j^ggp ^y f^ji-j^^ ^^ ^^1^^ ^^^ kept by it. ^^/^j-jj understand my knowledge, ye who know me in truth. ""^Love me with affection, ye who love: ^^for I do not turn away my face from them that are mine ; ^^ for I know them, and before they came into being I took knowledge of them, and on their faces I set my seal: ■''^I fashioned their members : my own breasts I prepared for them that they might drink my holy milk and live thereby. ^^I took pleasure in them and am not ashamed of them: ""^for my workmanship are they and the strength of my thoughts : 2° who then shall rise up against my handiwork, or who is there that is not subject to them ? ^U willed and fashioned mind and heart: and they are mine, and by my own right hand I set my elect ones : ^^and my righteousness goeth before them and they shall not be deprived of my name, for it is with them. ^^Ask, and abound* and abide in the love of the Lord, ^'*^and~' ye beloved ones in the Beloved : those who are kept, in Him that liveth : ^Sand they that are saved in Him that was saved ; ^^and ye shall be found incorrupt in all ages to the name of your Father. Hallelujah. Ode 8. This Psalm again is Johannine in many of its ideas and expressions. But, even when this is conceded, it is difficult to prove a direct dependence on the Fourth Gospel. The Psalm is, like a number of others, marked by a sudden transi- tion of personality from the Psalmist or Prophet to the Lord Himself: after the writer has addressed those who have been lifted up out of affliction and have found peace after war, he suddenly in prophetic manner, cries out, ' Hear the word of the Lord,' ' Receive the heavenly knowledge,' and then proceeds to speak in the person of the Lord. The same abrupt transitions are found in the canonical Psalter, and they appear to have characterized the Montanist inspirations. It will be remembered that Montanus describes his own spiritual exaltation m the words : ' Behold '. the man is as a lyre, and I sweep over him as the plectrum. The man sleeps and I wake. Behold ! it is the Lord, who 1 The MS. by an error of transcription reads, 'your raiment.' But perhaps the aiment means the human body ? - Clem. Horn. xix. 20; and Clem. Alex. Strom, v. lo, apparently from a lost Gospel. ^ Fl. : Bittet ohne Unterlass.