As to its original language, this compilation is un- doubtedly made directly from the Hebrew, and not from other parts of the present Sept. This is evi- dent from the rendering of C^'tl '^33^ by tjUTrpocrSfj/ ToiJ Xaov, reading "^SSb (compare i, 11 with 2 Chron. xxxiv, 12), andof n-^'n^n;? ibs bbl hy kuI rrvvirkXt- aav TvavTa rd ivdoS,a aurijc reading ^^ ^-'f l^ (comp. i, 53 with 2 Chron. xxxvi, 19 ; see also ii, 7-9 with Ezra i, 4, 6 ; ii, 17 with Ezra iv, 9 ; ii, IG with Ezra iv, 7 ; ii, 24 with Ezra iv, 16 ; ix, 10 with Ezra x, 4), since these can only be accounted for on the supposi- tion that the book was compiled and translated from the Hebrew. The translator, however, did not aim so much to be literal as to produce a version compati- ble with the Greek idiom. Hence he sometimes ab- breviated the Hebrew (comp. i, 10 with 2 Chron. xxxv, 10-12 ; ii, 15, IG with Ezra iv, 7-11 ; v, 7 witii Ezra v, 6, 7 ; vi, 4 with Ezra v, .3, 4 ; viii, G with Ezra vii, G : viii, 14 with Ezra vii, 17 ; viii, 20 with Ezra vii, 22), and sometimes tried to make it more intelligible by adding some words (comp. i, 56 with 2 Chron. xxvi, 20 ; ii, 5 with Ezra i, 3 ; ii, 9 with Ezra i, 4 ; ii, 16 with Ezra iv, 6 ; ii, 18 with Ezra iv, 12 ; v, 40 with Ezra ii, 63 ; V, 47 with Ezra iii, 1 ; v, 52 with Ezra iii, 5 ; v, 66 with Ezra iv, 1 ; vi, 41 with Ezra ii, 64 ; vi, 8 with Ezra iv, 14; vi, 9 with Ezra v, 8; vii, 9 with Ezra vi, 18). The original portion, too, is a Palestinian pro- duction, embellished to suit the Alexandrian taste. The Hel)rcw forms of it may be seen in Josephus (.Iw^ xi, 3, 1) and Josijipon ben-Gorion (i, c. 6, p. 47 sq., ed. Breithaupt).
IV. Author and Date. — As regards the time and place when the compilation was nuide, the original portion is that whicli alone affords much clew. This seems to indicate tliat the writer was thoroughly con- versant with Hebrew, even if he did ni)t write the book in that language. He was well ac(iuainted, too, witli tlie books of Esther and Daniel (1 Esdr. iii, 1, 2 sq.), and other books of Scripture (ih. 20, 21, 39, 41, etc., and 45 compared with Psa. cxxxvii, 7). But that he did not live under the Persian kings, and was not contemporary with the events narrated, appeai-s from the undiscriminating way in which he uses pro- miscuously the phrase Medes and rcr.nans, or Persians and Med<s, according as he happened to be imitating the language of Daniel or of the book of Esther. The allusion in iv, 23 to "sailing upon the sea and upon the
vui, 5 with Ezra viii, 17; ix, 13 with Ezra x, 14). The compiler must have lived at least a centurj' l)efore Christ, since Josephus follows his narrative of the times of Ezra and Nehcmiah (Ant. xi, 5 ; xi, 45). The book must therefore have existed for some time, and have acquired great repvitation and authority, to make the Jewish historian prefer its description of those daj's to that of the canonical books.
V. Canonicit// and hnportance. — This book was nev- er included in the Hebrew canon, nor is it to be found in the catalogues of the Hebrew Scriptures given by the early fathers, e. g. Melito, Origen, Eusebius, Atha- nasius, Gregory Nazianzen, Hihny of Poitiers, Cyril of Jerusalem, the Council of Laodicea, and manj' oth- ers ; and St. Jerome empdiatically warns us " not to take pleasure in the dreams of the 3d and 4th apocry- phal books of Ezra" (Prof, in Ksdr. et Ni-chcm.). The councils of Florence (1438) and Trent (1546) decided against its canonicity. The reason of this last exclu- sion seems to be that the Tridentine fathers were not aware that it existed in Greek ; for it is not in the Complutensian edition (1515), nor in the Biblia Regia. Vatablus (1540) had never seen a Gi-eek copy, and, in the preface to the apocryphal Looks, speaks of it as only existing in some MSS. and jirinted Latin Bibles. Baduel also, a French Protestant divine (Bill. Crit.') (about 1550), says that he knew of no one Avho had ever seen a Greek copy. For this reason it seems it was excluded from the Canon, though it has certainly quite as good a title to be admitted as Tobit, Judith, etc. It has indeed been stated (Bp. Marsh, Compar. View. ap. Soames, Hist, of Jief. ii, 608) that the Coun- cil of Trent, in excluding the two books of Esdras, followed Augustine's Canon ; but this is not so. Au- gustine (dc Doctr. Christ, lib. ii, 13) distinctly mentions among the libri canonici Esdrtv dun; and that one of these was our 1st Esdras is manifest from the quota- tion from it given in his De Civit. Dei. Hence it is also sure that it was included among those pronounced as canonical jy tlie third Council of Carthage, A.D. 397 or 419, wher*^, the same title is given, Esdne libri duo : here it is to be noticed by the waj' that Augus- tine and the Council of Carthage use the term canoni- cal in a much broader sense than we do; and that the manifest ground of considering them canonical in any sense is their being found in the Greek copies of the Sept. in use at that time. Luther would not even translate it, "because there is nothing in it which is not better said'by Esop in his Fables, or even in much more trivial books" (Vorrede an f den Baruch); the version given in the later editions of Luther's Bilile