Friday, July 23, 2021

Does Ode of Solomon 19 Evidence Early Christian Veneration of Mary?

In a previous post (link), we demonstrated an error that alleged veneration of Mary in Psalm 45.  The same author (link to post) argued that Ode of Solomon 19 provides an example of early Christian veneration of Mary.  On the other hand, while the Odes of Solomon are certainly "Christian" in some sense, they are not orthodox (nor Orthodox, for that matter).  They seem to have a Gnostic origin, as evidenced in Ode of Solomon 19, by statements about the Father having breasts that give milk and Mary giving birth "as if she were a man."  There are other reasons to identify the writing as Gnostic, as distinct from Christian, but suffice to say that it is a bizarre writing on a Christian theme.

Is it veneration of Mary?  It doesn't explicitly venerate Mary.  Nevertheless, it is a poem (presumably intended to be sung) partly about Mary.  It may have been intended to be used in worship, though presumably not in a Christian church (one is hard pressed to find early liturgies with space for human compositions). 

On the other hand, while the poem mentions Mary, and she's an important figure in it, it is not primarily about her, does not address her, nor otherwise exalts or extols her in any obvious way.  It seems to simply describe her and her actions with respect to Jesus' birth.

In short, if this is one of the supposedly best examples of early Christian veneration of Mary, it falls far short.

1 comment:

TruthisBeautiful said...

Is there evidence for Christian writers citing Odes of Solomon as true?