Journal: Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society
Volume: JETS 17:4 (Fall 1974)
Article: The Odes Of Solomon And The Acts Of Thomas: A Comparative Study
Author: Eugene H. Merrill

The Odes Of Solomon And The Acts Of Thomas:
A Comparative Study

Eugene H. Merrill*

*Professor of Old Testament, Berkshire Christian College.
Lenox, Massachusetts 01240

The Odes of Solomon and the Acts of Thomas are two of the most important apocryphal documents of the early Syrian church. As significant as each is in its own respect, of special interest to this study is whether or not they possess anything in common as regards provenance, content, or even authorship.

The Odes of Solomon, as they now exist, are found principally in Syriac texts, the most important one being that edited by J. Rendel Harris in 1909.1 They consist of forty-two separate psalms not including the eighteen which constitute the Psalms of Solomon and which are found attached to the Odes as either a preface or an appendix.2 The Psalms are a Jewish product originating at ca. 70-40 B.C.3 They evidently formed a prophetic substratum upon which the later Christian Odes rested and with which they are invariably associated in the MSS and traditions. A.F.J. Klijn and Berthold Altaner date the Odes in the second century, whereas Harris would place them as early as A.D. 70.4

Nearly all scholars are agreed that the Syriac texts represent an original Greek composition, though how and when they became part of the Syriac literature is impossible to tell. And equally obscure is the matter of authorship. W. R. Newbold argued that the author was none other than Bardaisan,5 but the fact that it was written in Greek and that the date of composition seems to be too early for Bardaisan renders this hypothesis well nigh inconceivable. Ahaner flatly states that Bardaisan “is certainly not the author.”6 Burkitt argues that any resemblances between the content of the Odes and the thought of Bardaisan are superficial and that

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the stylistic differences observable through a careful study of the Syriac texts themselves would rule out Bardaisan authorship.7

Of special interest is the alleged Gnostic atmosphere of the Odes of Solomon as maintained, for example, by Harnack.8 He says that this can be demonstrated by the fact that Ode 6, which to him was essentially Gnostic, was incorporated into the celebrated Pistis Sophia, an Egyptian Gnostic production.9 Harris...