Odes of Solomon

tr. Harris, 1911

Chapter 8

¹Open ye, open ye your hearts to the exultation of the Lord: ²and let your love be multiplied from the heart and even to the lips, ³to bring forth fruit to the Lord, living ⌜fruit⌝, holy ⌜fruit⌝¹, and to talk with watchfulness in His light. ⁴Rise up, and stand erect, ye who sometime were brought low: ⁵tell forth ye who were in silence, that your mouth hath been opened. ⁶Ye, therefore, that were despised, be henceforth lifted up, because your righteousness hath been exalted. ⁷For the right hand of the Lord is with you: and He is your helper: ⁸and peace was prepared for you, before ever your war was. ⁹Hear the word of truth, and receive the knowledge of the Most High. ¹⁰Your flesh has not known what I am saying to you: neither have your hearts² known what I am showing to you³. ¹¹Keep my secret⁴, ye who are kept by it: ¹²keep my faith, ye who are kept by it. ¹³And understand my knowledge, ye who know me in truth. ¹⁴Love me with affection, ye who love: ¹⁵for I do not turn away my face from them that are mine; ¹⁶for I know them, and before they came into being I took knowledge of them, and on their faces I set my seal: ¹⁷I fashioned their members: my own breasts I prepared for them that they might drink my holy milk and live thereby. ¹⁸I took pleasure in them and am not ashamed of them: ¹⁹for my workmanship are they and the strength of my thoughts: ²⁰who then shall rise up against my handiwork, or who is there that is not subject to them? ²¹I willed and fashioned mind and heart: and they are mine, and by my own right hand I set my elect ones: ²²and my righteousness goeth before them and they shall not be deprived of my name, for it is with them. ²³Ask, and abound⁵ and abide in the love of the Lord, ²⁴⌜and⌝ ye beloved ones in the Beloved: those who are kept, in Him that liveth: ²⁵and they that are saved in Him that was saved; ²⁶and ye shall be found incorrupt in all ages to the name of your Father. Hallelujah.

Notes

Ungnad-Stärk, a holy life.
The MS. by an error of transcription reads, ‘your raiment.’ But perhaps the raiment means the human body?
Cf. Is. lxiv. 4.
Clem. Hom. xix. 20; and Clem. Alex. Strom. v. 10, apparently from a lost Gospel.
Fl.: Bittet ohne Unterlass.