In 2 Es 13 there is no such development of the phrase, ' one like unto a son of man,' as we find in the Sitnilitudes, but the dependence upon Daniel and the Messianic interpretation of Dn 7'^ is not less clear. Esdras is represented as recounting a dream, in which he saw coming 'up from the midst of the sea as it were the likeness of a man ; and I beheld [he proceeds], and, lo, that man (lew with the clouds of heaven : and when he turned his countenance to look, all things trembled that were seen under him. . . . And after this, I beheld, and, lo, there was gathered together a multitude of men, out of number, from the four winds of heaven, to make war against the man that had come out of the sea.' Tliis multitude he destroys by the mere breath of his mouth, and then he is seen to 'call unto him another multitude which was peaceable.' When Esdras seeks the interpretation of the dream, he is told : ' \Vliereas thou sawest a man coming up from the midst of the sea, the same is he whom the Most High hath kept a great season, which by his own self shall deliver his creatures : and he sliall order them that are left behind. . . . Behold, the days come when the Most High will begin to deliver them that are upon the earth. . . . and it shall be when these things shall come to pass, and the signs shall happen that I showed thee before, tlien shall my Son be revealed, whom thou sawest as a man ascending. . . . And this my Son shall rebuke the nations which are come for their wickedness. . . . And he shall destroy them without labour by the law, which is likened unto fire.' The ' peaceable multitude' is further explained to be Israel, of whom this 'son' of the Most High is not the symbol, but the Saviour.
The writings of Enoch and Esdras are, it is reasonable to assume, only the survivors of other Apocalypses of the same period, which in like manner foimded themselves on the vision of Daniel, and sought to supply in their own way what the prophet had left untold concerning ' one like unto a son of man.' If so, that phrase would also in- evitably turn in the popular mind into a definite Messianic title, calling for no question when it was heard from the lips of Jesus, unless it were as to His right to approj^riate it. It is suggestive to find tiiat later on a more subordinate expression in Dn 7*^ was adopted in similar fashion, and that '•7=33 n3='son of cloud,' or 'cloud-man,' became a Rabbinic title for the Messiah (see Levy, NHWB, s.v. -hzi).
At this point it is needful to pause to consider how our Lord's use of the expression ' the Son of Man ' is aflected by the fact that He spoke Aramaic. If 6 vibi Tov dvdpwTTov is turned into Aramaic, does it give an expression which could be employed as a title ? Or, to put it otherwise, is perhaps 6 w6j T. dvdpwirov a mistranslation of the words actually uttered by Jesus, or an expression of later growth imported into His sayings by Greek - speaking Christians ? Within the last decade, more especi- ally, these questions have been keenly discussed. Wellhausen gave stimulus to the debate by a foot- note in his /JG2 (1895, p. 346), in which he said : ' Since Jesus spoke Aramaic He did not call Him- self 6 vlbs TOV avdpthwov, but barnascha • that, how- ever, means ' the Man,' and nothing else, the Aramaeans having no other expression for the notion. Tlie earliest Christians did not understand that Jesus called Himself simply the Man. They held Him to be the Messiah, made accordingly a designation of the Messiah out of barnascha, and translated it not by 6 d.vdpujTro's, as they should, but quite erroneously by 6 vlb's rod avdpdiwov.' Wellhausen further lays stress on the fact that St. Paul makes no u.se of the expression ' Son of Man,' and refuses to admit any evidence which might be cited from Enoch, on the arbitrary plea that ' the Son of man in the Book of Enoch mu.st be left out of account, .so long as it is not established that the relative portion of the book was known, or could be known, to Jesus.'
In 1S96, H. Lietzmann published a brochure — Der Menschen- sohn — in which, after a review of previous opinions, he enters mto a discussion of ' Son of Man ' in Aramaic, with the result that he declares the expression to have been in Galilccan Aramaic, 'the most colourless and indeterminate designation of a human individual ' — one that might be used as an indefinite pronoun (p. 38). The use of "in in the compound phrase is described as a ' genuine Semitic pleonasm,' and it is maintained that no intelligible distinction existed between tyjx and t!/i 12. To say with Wellhausen that where the Gospels have i ulo; t. «►(/. the translation should have been o avOpuTo; will not do, accord- ing to Lietzmann, since that could be no distinctive designation, and the Evangelists do most certainly intend the phrase they use as a definite title ; but ' Jesus has never used the title " Son of Man " of Himself, since in Aramaic it does not exist, and for linguistic reasons cannot exist ' (pj). cit. p. 85). The formula is to be regarded as a terminus techiiicus of Hellenistic theology, which, originating in Christian Apocalypses, was applied first to passages relating to our Lord's Return, then to His Passion, and finally to other sections of the narratives.