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Odes
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[One] thing that puzzles scholars about the Odes is their point of view. Who is speaking in the Odes? An Ode that begins from a human point of view suddenly changes to the point of view of Christ. The translators at that point supply a heading–“(Christ Speaks)”–to let the reader know that the point of view has changed. But has it really changed, or has the Odist entered into the very mind of Christ or himself become “Christ” through mystical union with Him. This has especially caused problems in the translation and interpretation of Ode 36 in which the writer explicitly describes his own experience of elevation and transformation into Christ.
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In the Odes, there is not a sad note, and there is hardly a vindictive note in the whole collection. And on the theological side, the leading characteristic is experience, and not dogma : and experience is much harder to date than dogma, and shows fewer of the weather marks of evolution. Sometimes, the expressions of the Odists rise to such a height that they catch from the object of their Faith something that is everlasting rather than evolutionary. It is difficult to date a man who has disclosed the fact that he is supremely happy and that God has made his face to shine with the light of heaven. The only way in which we could date such a phenomenon would be to say thet, if he is not an isolated specimen, the songs must proceed from some time of spiritual elevation ; and since it is historically verifiable, that the experimental time of the bloom of Church life is the first age, then these hymns or odes must belong to the first days of the Church.
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The date of the Odes has caused considerable interest. H. J. Drijvers contends that they are as late as the 3d century. L. Abramowski places them in the latter half of the 2d century. B. McNeil argued that they are contemporaneous with 4 Ezra, the Shepherd of Hermas, Polycarp, and Valentinus (ca. 100 C.E.). Most scholars date them sometime around the middle of the 2d century, but if they are heavily influenced by Jewish apocalyptic thought and especially the ideas in the Dead Sea Scrolls, a date long after 100 is unlikely....
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Odes celebrated beloved objects, events or people. The Greek odes were arranged in stanzas patterned in sets of three. During the Renaissance the ode was revived in Italy and France. In the 19th-century, Romantic poets such as Keats, Shelley, and Coleridge wrote odes that tended to be freer in form and subject matter than the classical style. In the modern era the irregular ode that has no set pattern has emerged. Writers as diverse as Gary Soto and Pablo Neruda have published books of odes dedicated to people, places and things that were dear to them.
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Technically the Odes are anonymous, but in many ancient manuscripts, the Odes of Solomon are found together with the similar Psalms of Solomon, and Odes began to be ascribed to the same author. Unlike the Psalms of Solomon... Odes is much less clearly Jewish, and much more Christian in appearance. Odes explicitly refers not only to Jesus, but also to the ideas of virgin birth, harrowing of hell, and the Trinity. However, many have doubted the 'orthodoxy' of the Odes, suggesting that they perhaps originated from a heretical or gnostic group. This can be seen in the extensive use of the word 'knowledge' (Syr.
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James Charlesworth writes: "Attempts to discern the historical importance of the Odes have been published in hundreds of scholarly articles and monographs, but it seems possible to summarize the discussion of their importance. First, the early concepts and images in the Odes, which were a shock and disappointment to many of the scholars who worked on them during the beginning of the century, preserve precious reminders of the first attempts to articulate the unparalleled experience of the advent of the Messiah. The Odist portrayed God with breasts that were milked by the Holy Spirit and from which came salvific milk that is described as the Son (Odes 19). The early and strong Jewish tone of the Odes, like some passages in the Synoptic Gospels (cf. especially Mt 10:5f.), portray the gentiles in unattractive terms (cf. 10:5; 23:15 [N]; 29:8).
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Odes