(b) Occasionally we meet with clear signs of Greek thought, e.g. Ign. ad Bom. 3, ' Nothing visible is good.' And some thirty years later we find the Epistle to Diognctus reflecting a thoroughly Greek theory of the relation of the soul to the body (7, 10).
(c) The conception of the Eucharist as a ' Mystery,' through which immortality is conveyed to the believer, though (as we have contended above) not sanctioned by St. Paul himself, seems to be implied in some of the sub-apostolic writings : e.g. Ign. ad Eph. 20, ' Breaking one bread, which is the medicine of immortality, and the antidote that we should not die, but live for ever ' ; cf . Iren. adv. Hcer. iv. 8, ' Our bodies, when they receive the Eucharist, are no longer corruptible, having the hope of resurrection to eternity.'
(d) The idea that ' salvation ' is a future blessing, to be gained by external acts, or by membership of an organized society, may also be traced to the sub- Apostolic Age : e.g. Ign. ad Phil. 3, 'If any man foUoweth one that maketh a schism, he doth not inherit the Kingdom of God.'
As a result of these and other modifications, early Christian eschatology in the Gentile churches gradually assumed a form which, though Jewish in phraseology, was sufficientlj^ intelligible to those who were not familiar witli the presupposition of Jewish apocalyptic. With the exception of a few doctrinal features, such as Chiliasm, which proved to be but temporary phases of thought, the escha- tology of the Church of the 2nd. cent., as seen, e.g., in Irenseus, had discarded its distinctively ' primi-
tive'characteristics, and was not far from the normal type of Christian eschatology as it has been taught in subsequent ages of the Church.
Literature. — For apostolic eschatology in general, see S. D. F. Salmond's art. on ' Escliatology of the NT ' in HDB, and J. A. MacCulloch's art. on 'Eschatology' in the ERE; also R. H. Charles, Eschatoloay : Hebrew, Jewish, and ChrUtian'^, 1913 ; E. C. Dewick, Prunitiue Christian Eschatology, 1912 ; S. D. F. Salmond, Christian Doctrine 0/ Immortality, 1904 ; etc.
For the Jewish 'background of ideas,' see Charles, op. eit., and the same writer's editions of the Jewish apocalypses, especially his Book of Enoch-, 1912 ; V. H. Stanton, Ths Jewish and Christian Messiah, 18s6.
For the eschatology of the N'T books,see the Comm. and Artt. ad toe, especially H. B. Swete, The Apocalypse of St. John, 1909, and R. H. Charles, Studies in the Apocalypse, 1913 ; and for Pauline eschatology, H. A. A. Kennedy, St. PauCs Con- ceptions of the Last Things, 1904 ; the same writer's artt. on 'St. Paul and the Mvsterj-Eeligions' in the Expositor, Sth ser., iv. [1912] 60, 212, 306, 434, .539 ; K. Lake, The Earlier Epistles of St. Paul, 1911 ; A. Schweitzer, Paul and his Interpreters, Eng. tr., 1912. 'The two last-named works apply the 'Consist- ent Eschatological theory ' to the apostolic writings.
For the influence of Gentile thought on Christian eschatology, see C. Clemen, Primitive Christianity and its non Jewish Sources, Eng. tr., 1912 ; F. Cumont, The Oriental Religions in Roman Paganism, 1911 ; E. Hatch, The Injluence of Greek Ideas and Usages upon the Christian Church, 1890 (Hibbert Lecture, IS&S).
Of the Christian apocalypses, many are edited in TS, vols. ii. and iii. ; The Ascension of Isaiah, bv R. H. Charles, 1900 ; The Sibylline Oracles, by Alexandre, 1841-56, and Rzach, 1892.
For particular aspects of apostolic eschatologj', see the articles in this Dictionary on Antichrist, Heaven, Hell, Mam OF Sis, Spieits is Peisos, EESUEaEcrioN, etc.
E. C. Dewick.
ESDRAS, THE SECOND BOOK OF.— This book is quite difi'erent in character from 1 Es. , which it follows in the English Apocrypha. It belongs to the apocalyptic order, and is closely related in time and thought to the Apocalypse of Baruch (q.v.). Some early writers cite it as prophetical — Clement of Alexandria (Strom, iii, 16) and Ambrose (de Excessu Satyri, i. 64, 66, 68, 69) in particular ; but Jerome speaks slightingly of it as a book he had not read or required to read, because it was not re- ceived in the Church (c. Vigilant, ch. 6). In the authenticated edition of the Vulgate, it is relegated to an appendix, along with 1 Es. and the Prayer of Manasses. It is not reckoned canonical by the Church of Rome, nor is it used in the English Church.
1. Contents. — As it stands in our Apocrypha, 2 Es. consists of 16 chapters ; but the first two and last two are separate works which have been added to the original book, and have no inward connexion with it. The prefixed cha])ters (1. 2), though written in the name of Esdras, exhibit an anti- Jewish spirit, in striking contrast to that of the chapters that follow. They speak of the rejection of the Jews and the call of the Gentiles as a Western Christian of the 2nd cent, might have done. A connexion has been suggested between them and the Apocalypse of Zeplianiah, of which fragments are extant in Coptic. The subjoined chapters (15. 16) make no mention of Esdras, and their contents are colourless enough to admit of either a Jewish or a Christian author. In imita- tion of Jeremiah's prophecies, they predict wars and tumults, denounce God's A\Tath on the wicked, and encourage the righteous to endirre. The pro- bable quotation of W''^ in Ep. xxix. of Ambrose — 'extendit coelum sicut cameram' — would indicate that tlaese chapters were known in the middle of the 4th century. Possibly they had their origin about a century previously, in the wars of the Arabian Odenathus and Sapor I. of Persia.