Sunday, April 16, 2023

The Odes of King ๐Ÿ‘‘ Solomon [Ode 8 ]

The Odes of King ๐Ÿ‘‘ Solomon [Ode 8]

Ode 8

ODE 8.

Note the sudden transition from the person of the Psalmist to the person of the Lord (v. 10). This is like the canonical Psalter in style.

1 Open ye, open ye your hearts to the exultation of the Lord:
2 And let your love be multiplied from the heart and even to the lips,
3 To bring forth fruit to the Lord [fruit], holy [fruit], and to talk with watchfulness in His light.
4 Rise up, and stand erect, ye who sometime were brought low:
5 Tell forth ye who were in silence, that your mouth hath been opened.
6 Ye, therefore, that were despised, be henceforth lifted up, because your righteousness hath been exalted.
7 For the right hand of the Lord is with you: and He is your helper:
8 And peace was prepared for you, before ever your war was.
9 Hear the word of truth, and receive the knowledge of the Most High.
10 Your flesh has not known what I am saying to you neither have your hearts known what I am showing to you.
11 Keep my secret, ye who are kept by it:
12 Keep my faith, ye who are kept by it.
13 And understand my knowledge, ye who know me in truth.
14 Love me with affection, ye who love:
15 For I do not turn away my face from them that are mine;
16 For I know them, and before they came into being I took knowledge of them, and on their faces I set my seal:
17 I fashioned their members: my own breasts I prepared for them, that they might drink my holy milk and live thereby.
181 took pleasure in them and am not ashamed of them:
19 For my workmanship are they and the strength of my thoughts:
20 Who then shall rise up against my handiwork, or who is there that is not subject to them?
21 I willed and fashioned mind and heart: and they are mine, and by my own right hand I set my elect ones:
22 And my righteousness goeth before them and they shall not be deprived of my name, for it is with them.
23 Ask, and abound and abide in the love of the Lord,
24 And yet beloved ones in the Beloved: those who are kept, in Him that liveth:
25 And they that are saved in Him that was saved;
26 And ye shall be found incorrupt in all ages to the name of your Father. Hallelujah.

Saturday, April 15, 2023

The Odes of King ๐Ÿ‘‘ Solomon (Ode 7)

The Odes of King ๐Ÿ‘‘ Solomon (Ode 7)

Ode 7

ODE 7.

A wonderfully, simple and joyful psalm on the Incarnation.

1 As the impulse of anger against evil, so is the impulse of joy over what is lovely, and brings in of its fruits without restraint:
2 My joy is the Lord and my impulse is toward Him: this path of mine is excellent:
3 For I have a helper, the Lord.
4 He hath caused me to know Himself, without grudging, by His simplicity: His kindness has humbled His greatness.
5 He became like me, in order that I might receive Him:
6 He was reckoned like myself in order that I might put Him on;
7 And I trembled not when I saw Him: because He was gracious to me:
8 Like my nature He became that I might learn Him and like my form, that I might not turn back from Him:
9 The Father of knowledge is the word of knowledge:
10 He who created wisdom is wiser than His works:
11 And He who created me when yet I was not knew what I should do when I came into being:
12 Wherefore He pitied me in His abundant grace: and granted me to ask from Him and to receive from His sacrifice:
13 Because He it is that is incorrupt, the fulness of the ages and the Father of them.
14 He hath given Him to be seen of them that are His, in order that they may recognize Him that made them: and that they might not suppose that they came of themselves:
15 For knowledge He hath appointed as its way, He hath widened it and extended it; and brought to all perfection;
16 And set over it the traces of His light, and I walked therein from the beginning even to the end.
17 For by Him it was wrought, and He was resting in the Son, and for its salvation He will take hold of everything;
18 And the Most High shall be known in His Saints, to announce to those that have songs of the coming of the Lord;
19 That they may go forth to meet Him, and may sing to Him with joy and with the harp of many tones:
20 The seers shall come before Him and they shall be seen before Him,
21 And they shall praise the Lord for His love: because He is near and beholdeth.
22 And hatred shall be taken from the earth, and along with jealousy it shall be drowned:
23 For ignorance hath been destroyed, because the knowledge of the Lord hath arrived.
24 They who make songs shall sing the grace of the Lord Most High;
25 And they shall bring their songs, and their heart shall be like the day: and like the excellent beauty of the Lord their pleasant song: p. 124
26 And there shall neither be anything that breathes without knowledge, nor any that is dumb:
27 For He hath given a mouth to His creation, to open the voice of the mouth towards Him, to praise Him:
28 Confess ye His power, and show forth His grace. Hallelujah.

Friday, April 14, 2023

The Odes of King ๐Ÿ‘‘ Solomon [Ode 5 & Ode 6]

The Odes of King ๐Ÿ‘‘ Solomon [Ode 5 & Ode 6]

Ode 5

ODE 5.

This Ode has strangely appeared in a speech by Salome in another ancient work called the Pistis Sophia.

1 I will give thanks unto thee, O Lord, because I love thee;
2 O Most High, thou wilt not forsake me, for thou art my hope:
3 Freely I have received thy grace, I shall live thereby:
4 My persecutors will come and not see me:
5 A cloud of darkness shall fall on their eyes; and an air of thick gloom shall darken them:
6 And they shall have no light to see: they may not take hold upon me.
7 Let their counsel become thick darkness, and what I have cunningly devised, let it return upon their own heads:
8 For they have devised a counsel, and it did not succeed:
9 For my hope is upon the Lord, and I will not fear, and because the Lord is my salvation, I will not fear:
10 And He is as a garland on my head and I shall not be moved; even if everything should be shaken, I stand firm;
11 And if all things visible should perish, I shall not die; because the Lord is with me and I am with Him. Hallelujah.

ODE 6.

First century universalism is revealed in an interesting way in verse 10.

1 As the hand moves over the harp, and the strings speak.
2 So speaks in my members the Spirit of the Lord, and I speak by His love.
3 For it destroys what is foreign, and everything that is bitter:
4 For thus it was from the beginning and will be to the end, that nothing should be His adversary, and nothing should stand up against Him.
5 The Lord has multiplied the knowledge of Himself, and is zealous that these things should be known, which by His grace have been given to us.
6 And the praise of His name He gave us: our spirits praise His holy Spirit.
7 For there went forth a stream and became a river great and broad;
8 For it flooded and broke up everything and it brought (water) to the Temple:
9 And the restrainers of the children of men were not able to restrain it, nor the arts of those whose business it is to restrain waters;
10 For it spread over the face of the whole earth, and filled everything: and all the thirsty upon earth were given to drink of it;
11 And thirst was relieved and quenched: for from the Most High the draught was given.
12 Blessed then are the ministers of that draught who are entrusted with that water of His:
13 They have assuaged the dry lips, and the will that had fainted they have raised up;
14 And souls that were near departing they have caught back from death:
15 And limbs that had fallen they straightened and set up: p. 123
16 They gave strength for their feebleness and light to their eyes:
17 For everyone knew them in the Lord, and they lived by the water of life for ever. Hallelujah.

Thursday, April 13, 2023

The Odes of King ๐Ÿ‘‘ Solomon [Ode 4]

The Odes of King ๐Ÿ‘‘ Solomon [Ode 4]

Ode 4

ODE 4.

This Ode is important because of the historical allusion with which it commences. This may refer to the closing of the temple at Leontopolis in Egypt which would date this writing about 73 A. D.

1 No man, O my God, changeth thy holy place;
2 And it is not (possible) that he should change it and put it in another place: because he hath no power over it:
3 For thy sanctuary thou hast designed before thou didst make (other) places:
4 That which is the older shall not be altered by those that are younger than itself.
5 Thou has given thy heart, O Lord, to thy believers: never wilt thou fail, nor be without fruits:
6 For one hour of thy Faith is more precious than all days and years.
7 For who is there that shall put on thy grace, and be hurt?
8 For thy seal is known: and thy creatures know it: and thy (heavenly) hosts possess it: and the elect archangels are clad with it.
9 Thou hast given us thy fellowship: it was not that thou wast in need of us: but that we are in need of thee:
10 Distill thy dews upon us and open thy rich fountains that pour forth to us milk and honey:
11 For there is no repentance with thee that thou shouldest repent of anything that thou hast promised:
12 And the end was revealed before thee: for what thou gavest, thou gavest freely:
13 So that thou mayest, not draw them back and take them again:
14 For all was revealed before thee as God, and ordered from the beginning before thee: and thou, O God, hast made all things. Hallelujah.

Wednesday, April 12, 2023

The Odes of King ๐Ÿ‘‘ Solomon [Ode 2 & Ode 3]

The Odes of King ๐Ÿ‘‘ Solomon [Ode 2 & Ode 3]

Ode 2

ODE 2.

(No part of this Ode has ever been identified.)


Ode 3


ODE 3.


The first words of this Ode have disappeared.


1 .    .    .   I put on:

2 And his members are with him. And on them do I stand, and He loves me:

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

4 For who is able to distinguish love, except the one that is loved?

5 I love the Beloved, and my soul loves Him:

6 And where His rest is, there also am I;

7 And I shall be no stranger, for with the Lord Most High and Merciful there is no grudging.

8 I have been united to I-run, for the Lover has found the Beloved,

9 And because I shall love Him that, is the Son, I shall become a son;

10 For he that is joined to Him that is immortal, will also himself become immortal;

11 And he who has pleasure in the Living One, will become living.

12 This is the Spirit of the Lord, which doth not lie, which teacheth the sons of men to know His ways.

13 Be wise and understanding and vigilant. Hallelujah.



Tuesday, April 11, 2023

The Odes of King ๐Ÿ‘‘ Solomon [Ode 1]

The Odes of King ๐Ÿ‘‘ Solomon [Ode 1]

Ode 1

ODE 1.

1 The Lord is on my head like a crown, and I shall not be without Him.
2 They wove for me a crown of truth, and it caused thy branches to bud in me.
3 For it is not like a withered crown which buddeth not: but thou livest upon my head, and thou hast blossomed upon my head.
4 Thy fruits are full-grown and perfect, they are full of thy salvation.

The Odes of King ๐Ÿ‘‘ Solomon [Introduction]

The Odes of King ๐Ÿ‘‘ Solomon :-

Introduction

THE ODES OF SOLOMON.

HERE are some of the most beautiful songs of peace and joy that the world possesses. Yet their origin, the date of their writing, and the exact meaning of many of the verses remain one of the great literary mysteries.

They have come down to us in a single and very ancient document in Syriac language. Evidently that document is a translation from the original Greek. Critical debate has raged around these Odes; one of the most plausible explanations is that they are songs of newly baptized Christians of the First Century.

They are strangely lacking in historical allusions. Their radiance is no reflection of other days. They do not borrow from either the Old Testament or the Gospels. The inspiration of these verses is first-hand. They remind you of Aristides' remark, "A new people with whom something Divine is mingled." Here is vigor and insight to which we can find parallels only in the most exalted parts of the Scriptures.

For these dazzling mystery odes, we owe our translation to J. Rendel Harris, MA., Hon. Fellow of Clare College, Cambridge. He says about them: "There does not seem to be anything about which everyone seem agreed unless it be that the Odes are of singular beauty and high spiritual value."

Holy Trinity is Unmade, Unborn, Immortal and Uncreate

Holy Trinity is Unmade, Unborn,  Immortal and Uncreate 1. Introduction In classical Christian theology, the Holy Trinity—God the Father, God...