Harnack on the Recently Discovered Odes of Solomon.1 by the REV

444 Gospel narratives that he had read. St. Lul;e had reopen the question of the date of the Lucan much to record. He certainly did not wish to repeat writings and of St. Mark. See his Acts c f the the anti-Jewish polemic which occupies so large a Apostles, pp. 294 and 296. I think it probable place in the First Gospel, and he already had in that critical opinion will shortly move in the other forms most of the Lord’s sayings which are direction of, say, 60 A.D., as suggested by Harnack, in the First Gospel and which were adapted to the for the Third Gospel, and 50 A.D., or shortly purpose of his own worlc. before, for the first publication of a Greel; Second It may be noted that Harnack seems inclined to Gospel. Harnack on the Recently Discovered Odes of Solomon.1 BY THE REV. H. A. A. KENNEDY, M.A., D.Sc., D.D., PROFESSOR OF EXEGETICAL THEOLOGY IN THE NEW COLLEGE, EDINBURGH. IT is not many months since Dr. Rendel Harris That would push back their origin, at latest, published the editio princeps of the Odes of to the middle of the second century. But an Solomon which he was fortunate enough to dis- allusion in Ode 4 to the Temple, in which refer- cover in a late Syriac MS. from the neighbourhood ence is also made to a rival sanctuary (perhaps of the Tigris. A perusal of the book was bound several?), justifies Harnack in assuming that the to convince scholars that a remarkable addition Temple was still standing when the Ode was had been made to ancient religious literature. written. This seems more probable than the sug- And now Professor Harnack, speaking with un- gestion of Rendel Harris that it was the destruction rivalled knowledge of the facts, declares that since of the rival Temple of Onias at Leontopolis in the discovery of the Didllclte, thirty years ago, Egypt, in 73 A.D., which called forth the protest of nothing so valuable as this has come to light the fourth Ode. Accordingly, the termimts ad (p. v). The editio princeps, it need scarcely be quem must be placed somewhere before 70 A.D. said, was an admirable piece of work, but it was On the other hand, according to the PistiJ inevitable that further study of the Syriac text .5’~y~, the Synopsis Sczractcze Scrrh~TSrac of Pseudo- would elucidate difficulties both of translation and Athanasius (cent. 6), the Str~~aonretr_l~ of Nice- ef interpretation. Such is unquestionably the result phorus (cent. 9), and Harris’s Syriac MS., the Odes of the new edition. Flemming’s translation has formed one book with the famous Psalms of brought clearness into many obscure places, and, Solomon, which are placed before them by all in our judgment, Harnack has made as important but the last-named authority. We know that the a contribution towards the true estimate and Psalms of Solomon belong to the time of the explanation of the Odes, as that which he gave Roman invasion of Judaea under Pompey. Hence, to the world many years ago in his classical edition the terminus a quo for the Odes is probably about of the Z’/~7~. 50 l~.c. It is universally agreed that the Psalms The absence of historical allusions in the Odes of Solomon are products of Palestinian Judaism. makes the question of the date a difficult one. This, at least, raises the presumption that the But two or three facts are clear. A quotation Odes, which have been combined with them to from Ode 19 in Lactantius and the presence of form a single collection, are of Jewish and five of the Odes in the Pistis Sophia mal;e it Palestinian origin also. evident that they were regarded as canonical con- At this point there emerges an important differ- siderably before the middle of the third century. ence of opinion between the two editors. Rendel Harris holds that ‘the while not a was 1 writer, Jew, Ein Jüdisch-Christliches Psalmbuch aus dem ersten a member of a community of Christians, who were Jahrhundert. Aus dem Syrischen übersetzt von J. Flemming. for the most of extraction and Bearbeitet u. herausgegeben von Adolf Harnack. Leipzig: part. Jewish beliefs, J. C. Hinrichs, I9I0. Pp. vi, I34. and the apologetic tone which is displayed in the Downloaded from ext.sagepub.com at The University of Auckland Library on March 15, 2015 445 1 _ _ , , , Odes towards the Gentiles, as a part of the Chris- mystic individualism. And this character belongs tian Church, is only consistent with the very earliest not only to the Jewish original, but to the Christian ages, and with communities like the Palestinian revision. That is to say, there are marked affinities Churches where Judaism was still in evidence and between the piety of the reviser and that of the in control’ (p. S7). It is plain to every reader circle or author (Harnack, like Harris, inclines, on, that the Odes, as they stand, contain distinctly the whole, to one main source) from whom the Christian elements. Reference is made to the Odes have come. ‘’1’here speaks in them a mystic,. Son, to the Incarnation, to the Virgin-Birth, to the who sees his Ego redeemed ... and raised to the Cross, to the Dt’s(ells/lS ad illferos. But a careful eternal through the revelation and knowledge of examination shows that several of the Odes God and by means of the most intimate relation- (notably 4 and 6) are certainly Jewish. A second ship of love towards Him, a man also who feels large group reveals no essentially Christian features. that it is his function, as a messenger of God, to How are the facts to be accounted for ? Harnacl;, communicate to others that which he has ex- with real insight, as it appears to us, argues for the perienced’ (p. 86). Harnack makes a most hypothesis that the original collection of Odes was impressive collection of characteristic features. purely Jewish, and that it was worked over by a from the Odes which sets in clear light the Christian interpolator, who introduced Christian religious individuality of the Psalmist (p. 91 f.). references and terms of thought, but in such a He finds the keynote of his thought in such an. fashion that the insertions, as a rule, can be more utterance as that of Ode 26. r o : ivho may so. or less plainly detected. His acute investigation rest in the Highest, as to speak directly out of His of Ode 7 is an excellent illustration of how the mouth ?’ (p. 59). Harnack justly discovers fore- interpolations may be removed from the text shadowings of the singer’s religious attitude in without seriously affecting the progress of the some of the Canonical Psalms (p. 92). In view thought. Indeed, again and again, it is this of these, it is surely an exaggeration to say (in an operation alone which makes the context intel- important note denying the existence of Gnostic ligible. But he frankly admits that Odes I9 and elements in the Odes, p. 103) that this real par- 27 are purely Christian, probably the work of the ticipation in the being of God through union with interpolator, although he is not certain that all Him is not a deduction drawn from the ordinary the Christian elements spring from one source (p. Jewish religion, but springs from foreign influence.&dquo; 118). Of course everything here turns on the precise Harnack’s hypothesis is not a mere daring specu- meaning of ’the ordinary Jewish religion,’ but the lation, but one which is supported by a very re- intimate fellowship with God which finds expres- markable parallel in the literature of later Judaism. sion in many of the Psalms is surely at least a The Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs present legitimate development in the light of experience the same phenomena. Here also a fundamentally of prominent elements in the religion of the Jewish work has been revised and Christianized in Prophets. When we examine the remarkable parts by a Christian interpolator. In both cases expressions of the religious self-consciousness of- the interpolations are sometimes obscure, because this ’mystic prophet’ in the Odes, we are not they are clothed essentially in the style of the surprised that a Christian of later date (Harnack original (p. 77). But not only does the form of argues for ’about 100 A.D.’) should have inter- the Testaments afford a striking parallel to the preted them in a Christian (Messianic) sense, and Odes, but also the character of their thought. inserted additions to emphasize that interpreta- The Odes reveal a more fully developed phase tion. of a strain of religious thought in later Judaism, Of quite peculiar interest are the leading con- whose earlier stages may be traced in the Testa- ceptions of the Odes in their original form. Among ments. Harnack, from this standpoint, would them occur x4plS, ~~QTEUELY, yv‘u~iS, dhij0eca, ocag, place them between the lT~isdo~~a of Solomon and ua~p ~w, «yd~rr~, ’w~, of course in a Syriac dress the ,jnlaa~mai~a~ literature. We must dwell for a (although Harnack gives reasons for holding that little on this point. The Odes, and in a lesser they go back, through a Greek translation, to a degree the Testaments, do not belong to the main Hebrew or Aramaic original, p. 105). Here we stream of Jewish religion. They embody a sort of are at once reminded of the Johannine writings.

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