The Lost Scriptures – Wisdom Literature and Poetry

The Odes of Solomon

Ode 1

The Lord is on my head like a crown, and I shall never be without Him.

Plaited for me is the crown of truth, and it caused Your branches to blossom in me.

For it is not like a parched crown that blossoms not;

For You live upon my head, and have blossomed upon me.

Your fruits are full and complete; they are full of Your salvation….

Ode 3

… I am putting on the love of the Lord.

And His members are with Him, and I am dependent on them; and He loves me.

For I should not have known how to love the Lord, if He had not continuously loved me.

Who is able to distinguish love, except him who is loved?

I love the Beloved and I myself love Him, and where His rest is, there also am I.

And I shall be no stranger, because there is no jealousy with the Lord Most High and Merciful.

I have been united to Him, because the lover has found the Beloved, because I love Him that is the Son, I shall become a son.

Indeed he who is joined to Him who is immortal, truly shall be immortal.

And he who delights in the Life will become living.

This is the Spirit of the Lord, which is not false, which teaches the sons of men to know His ways.

Be wise and understanding and awakened.
Hallelujah.

Singing hymns of praise and thanksgiving has deep roots in Judaism, and the early Christian church. As people of faith, they also followed a familiar pattern in preparing and even adapting various songs of the faith for worship in the Christian community. One of the oldest surviving collections of sacred hymns sung in the early churches that exist outside of the New Testament is the late first or second century collection known as the Odes of Solomon. There were originally forty-two hymns in this collection, but Ode 2 and part of Ode 3 in the collection are now lost. The rest of the Odes have been recovered from the various manuscripts that have survived antiquity. The Odes survive in fragmentary condition in Greek and Syriac and may have originated in Syria or even Palestine.

The authorship attributed to Solomon is not explained anywhere and may have been attributed to him because he was well known for wisdom teachings. Because there are clear references to Christian beliefs in the Odes, the author obviously wanted to reflect Christian views of Jesus (his birth, death, resurrection, humanity, and others), as well as his praise of G-d. There is still much that we do not know about these spiritual songs such as the identity of the author and their specific provenance, but there is a broad consensus today that they are Christian hymns reflecting the faith of early Jewish Christians at the end of the first century or early second century of the Common Era.

What is an ode, and how does it differ from a Psalm? That is my question. An Ode is “a lyric poem in the form of an address to a particular subject, often elevated in style or manner and written in varied or irregular meter” according to our friend Google. It is a poem that is meant to be sung. A Psalm is a sacred song or hymn. There are five kinds of Psalms in the Bible:

Hymns, Communal Laments, Individual Laments, Royal Psalms, and Thanksgiving Psalms.

The Psalms we have in the Bible were meant to be sung – they were words for worship put to music. The Odes of Solomon  were also meant to be sung, in worship. Singing was a part of worship way before Christianity found its voice. We can thank Martin Luther for reconnecting with this most important part of worship for Lutherans.

Pastor Dave