4tA i wion, 9»-1060. E. eats of the herbs in the Beld ol Ardat,* and sees a vision of a woman mourning for her son, who died on his marriage day. The woman, he is told, is Sion lamenting the fall of her city, and her tliirty years* sterility re- presents the 3000 years before Solomon iiuilt the city. The city in building, which appears after the woman vanishes, is the heavenlv Jerusalem whicii is to replace the earthlv.
bth V'im>n, 111-1239. Of the Eagle (Rome) with 12 wings and 8 little wings {contraricB pemwe) and 3 heads, which bear rule in turn, until sentence is pronounced on the eagle by a lion (the Messiah), and it is burnt up. A partial interpretation is given of the vision.
Uh Vision, 131-68. a man (the Messiah) arises from the sea, and graves for himself a mountain (Sion) : his enemies collect to fight against him, and are burnt up : and he gathers to him ' a peaceable multitude,' i.e. the ten lost tribes, who are to return from Arzareth (i.s. * another land' ninx Y^K, cf. Dt 2921).
Ith Vision, 141-47. E. is told he is to he taken from men ; and to console the people for his departure, he in forty days writes ninety-four books (the twenty-four canonical books of the OT that were lost, and seventy books of mysteries for the wise among the people).
The interpolation at the beginning (1. 2), "written in an anti-Jewish spirit, contains a reproof of the Isr. for their desertion of God, and threatens the transference of God's favours from them to the Gentiles. The concluding chs. (15. 16) are not of an apocalyptic character, but a denunciation of woe on the nations of the world (Egypt, Asia, Babylon) in the style of the OT prophets. Both sections have numerous reminiscences of the NT (e.g. l*'-'»=Mt 23"- » l»» = Lk 11«'», 2" 'taber- nacula a;tema ' = Lk 16', 2" = Mt 7' and 25", 2»«- "" = Rev7"''», 16"^- = 1 Co7^»-).
Character and Date. — The book is written in a tone of deep despondency, and offers a marked contrast in this respect to the Book of Enoch. The prospect of ultimate triumph and blessedness is almost lost in dismal forebodings about the im- mediate future and the destiny of the world. The time and place in which the scene is laid demanded that this should be so ; but the meaning of this despairing tone is greatly enhanced if we suppose that recent events are referred to, that Jerusalem was in ruins at the time when it was written, and that the whole work portrays the hopeless outlook of the Jew after the terrible events of the year A.D. 70. Hence the gloomy picture of the few that shall be saved (8'), tlie dying of the Messiah and all that draw breath (7^), the discussion of the problem of the origin of evil ('quare cor malig- num,' 4*), the oft-repeated cry that it were better not to be born, or to be without consciousness of our doom like the beasts (7«2-i" 4H 53i> c"), the con- solation to be found in the permanence of the law (9") though the city is gone.
The date of the book has been the subject of much controversy. It is obviously not a genuine work of the time of Ezra, as is shown, e.g., by the error in Ezra's date (3') and the allusion to the Book of Daniel (12"-"). An ultimate limit is given by the quotation of Clem. Alex, from it referred to above (A.D. 200). Internal notices must fix it more nearly. Hilgenfeld adduces for the earlier date (B.C. 30) 6' ' Finis huius sa-culi Esau,' whicli he thinks proves the time of writing to be the reign of the mumsean Herod. But Edom is found in Rabbinical literature equally as a de-
• This name (In the Arm. Ardab) is explained by Rendel Harris as a corruption of (Kiriath) Arba, the old name of Hebron, which is the scene of the visions of Baruch in the sister Apocah-pse (Rest of the Words of Baruch, 15). The oak (HI) is the terebinth of Mamre. Hilg. takes it to mean Arpad (•Am«t, 2 K IS*").
ESDllAS, SECOND LOOK OF
ESDRAS, SECOND BOOK OF 765
signation of Rome ; and the Herodian dynasty, if that is referred to, lasted on througli the hrst century of our era. He also draws an argument from the description of the twelve ages of the World, of which ten and a half are past (14"), taken in connexion with 10" (Solomon built the temple in the year of the world 3uiW), from which he ciileulates about B.C. 30 as the date (Mens. Jud. 104) ; but the description of the world-ages is too uncertain (the Syr. omits the verses) to base any inference upon it. Another argument for the early date is that a Jew, writing after the death of Christ, would not have introduced a prophecy of the death of the Messiah (7^) which would have been employed against him by Christians. No inference can be drawn from the signs of the end (S'"- 6'*"- 9') as applicable rather to the por- tents that preceded the battle of Actium than to those in the time of Vespasian. On the otlier band, the allusion to the pulling down of tlie walls of Jerus. (11" ' humiliasti muros eorum qui te non nocuerunt') was true of Titus, but not of the capture of the city by Pompey in B.C. 63.