Note 540 — Chapter X · THE SYSTEM OF THE PISTIS SOPHIA AND ITS RELATED TEXTS[459]

This doctrine of ἑρμηνεία occurs all through the book. The author is trying to make out that well-known passages of both the Old and New Testaments were in fact prophetic utterances showing forth in advance the marvels he narrates. While the Psalms of David quoted by him are Canonical, the Odes of Solomon are the Apocrypha known under that name and quoted by Lactantius (Div. Inst. Bk IV. c. 12). For some time the Pistis Sophia was the only authority for their contents, but in 1909 Dr Rendel Harris found nearly the whole collection in a Syriac MS. of the 16th century. A translation has since been published in Cambridge Texts and Studies, vol. VIII. No. 3, Cambridge, 1912, by the Bishop of Ossory, who shows, as it seems conclusively, that they were the hymns sung by the newly-baptized in the Primitive Church.