The Odes of Solomon
The Odes, a collection of forty-two hymns, constitute perhaps the earliest Christian hymnal as well as the earliest nonbiblical book in Syriac. It may, however, have first been composed in Greek. Although dates ranging from the first to the third century are given, the second century seems right. Both Antioch and Edessa are proposed as the place of origin, with the latter preferred. . . . [Ode 42] is the last hymn of the collection, chosen because its undergirding theme is Christ’s death, burial, descent into Sheol, and resurrection, which together make of baptism a saving event. From his entombment Christ descends into Sheol, the very place of death, to liberate the just there immersed—the celebrated “Harrowing of Hell” first broached in 1 Peter 3:10 and addressed repeatedly in Syriac literature and in Cyril of Jerusalem’s fourth and tenth prebaptismal instructions. Just so, Christ descends into the tomb of the baptismal waters in which the candidates are immersed. In liberating them, he seals them on the head with the mark of his ownership. (Thomas M. Finn, Early Christian Baptism and the Catechumenate: West and East Syria [Message of the Fathers of the Church 5; Collegeville, Minn.: The Liturgical Press, 1992], 115-16)
Odes of Solomon reads as follows (taken from Charlesworth, Old Testament Pseudepigrapha, 2:770-71):
Ode 42
1 I extended my hands and approached my Lord,
because the stretching out of my hands is his sign.
2 And my extension is the common cross,
that was lifted up on the way of the Righteous One.
Christ Speaks
3 And I became useless to those who knew me [not],
because I shall hide myself from those who possessed me not.
4 And I will be with those
who love me.
5 All my persecutors have died,
and they who trusted in me sought me, because I am living.
6 Then I arose and am with them,
and will speak by their mouths.
7 For they have rejected those who persecute them;
and I threw over them the yoke of my love.
8 Like the arm of the bridegroom over the bride,
so is my yoke over those who know me.
9 And as the bridal feast is spread out by the bridal pair’s home,
so is my love by those who believe in me.
10 I was not rejected although I was considered to be so,
and I did not perish although they thought it of me.
11 Sheol saw me and was shattered,
and Death ejected me and many with me.
12 I have been vinegar and bitterness to it,
and I went down with it as far as its depth.
13 Then the feet and the head it released,
because it was not able to endure my face.
14 And I made a congregation of living among his dead;
and I spoke with them by living lips;
in order that my word may not fail.
15* And those who had died ran toward me;
and they cried out and said, “Son of God, have pity on us.
16 “And deal with us according to your kindness,
and bring us out from the chains of darkness.
17* “And open for us the door
by which we may go forth to you,
for we perceive that our death does not approach you.
18 “May we also be saved with you,
because you are our Savior.”
19 Then I heard their voice,
and placed their faith in my heart.
20 And I placed my name upon their head,
because they are free and they are mine.
Doxology
Hallelujah.
