Odes of Solomon

Harris1911 source page 152

lo8 THE ODES OF SOLOMON are they that have come to know Him. Here, perhaps, we are nearer to Gnostic ideas, such as the doctrine of the Word and the Silence, than in any other part of the Psaher: yet there is nothing that can fairly be called Clnostic. We are also very close to the doctrine of the Logos as we have it in John, where the Lo^'os becomes flesh and dwells amongst us: but it is not the Johannine thought of the Incarnation that is imitated or reproduced. The dwelling of the Logos with man is personal and not collective; and we cannot infer from this Psalm a direct statement of the doctrine of Incarnation, for the writer does not go beyond Inspiration; but his thought is noble, even if, as we have said, it is sometimes obscure, at least in a translation. ODE 13. "•Behold ! the Lord is our mirror' : open the e)es and see them in Him : and learn the manner of your face : ^and tell forth praise to His spirit: and wipe off the filth from your face: and love His holiness, and clothe yourselves therewith : ^and be without stain at all times before Him. Hallelujah. Ode 13. This strange little Psalm is an exhortation to holiness: we are to behold the Lord in the beauty of His holiness, but we are also to see ourselves reflected in God as in a mirror ; then we shall behold our natural face in an unexpected glass and know what manner of men we are: and in that glass we shall cleanse the dirt from off our faces, and attain to purity. We are reminded of St Paul's statement that we behold, as in a mirror, the glory of our Lord and are transfigured into the same image; though here the thought is not as high as in Corinthians, where holiness is found by the Vision of God rather than by the scrutiny of ourselves. We may also in this connexion refer to a remarkable passage which is found in a tract falsely ascribed to Cyprian, and known as De Moutibus Sina et Sion. We are reminded in this passage first that Christ is the Unspotted Mirror of the I'ather, as is said of Wisdom in the book called the \\'isdom of Solomon". Hence the Father and the Son see one another by reflexion. The writer then continues as follows: 'And even we who believe in Him see Christ in us as in a mirror, as He Himself instructs and advises us in the Epistle of His disciple ' Cf flcni. Alex. PaeJ. i. 9, ji. 172 TA (aoirTpov t^j aiaxpi^ ov Ka^bv, in. duKvim ain'ov oZ6f ianv. Cf. Jac. i. 24. Clfiii. Horn. xiii. 16 (caX(|5 iabirrpi^ bpq. [ij ffii'<ppii}v '' Sa/>. So/, vii. 26.