Page:1902 Encyclopædia Britannica - Volume 25 - A-AUS.pdf/539

 APOCALYPTIC

AND

APOCRYPHAL

LITERATURE

491

described as the pre-existent Son of Man, who possesses order of worth as follows :—Latin, Syriac, Ethiopic. The remaining universal dominion and is the Judge of all mankind. versions are paraphrastic and less accurate, and are guilty of and omissions. All the versions, save the second Arabic After the judgment there will be a new heaven and a new additions one, go back to the same Greek version. The second Arabic version earth, which will be the abode of the blessed. presupposes a second Greek version. Modern Versions.—All the English versions are now antiquated, 4 Ezra.—This apocryph had a very wide circulation among the Greek and Latin fathers. In the Latin version except those in the Variorum Apocrypha and the Revised Version the Apocrypha, and even these are far from satisfactory. it consists of sixteen chapters, of which, however, only of Similarly, all the German versions are behindhand, except the iii. -xiv. are found in the other versions. iii.-xiv., excellentToversion of Gunkel in Apok. u. Pseud, ii. 252-401, which, accordingly, the present notice is confined. After the however, needs occasional correction. example of most of the Latin MSS. we designate the The book (iii.-xiv.) consists of seven visions or parts, book 4 Ezra (see Bensly-James, Fourth Book of Ezra, pp. like the apocalypse of Baruch. They are : (l)iii. 1-v. 19; xxiv.-xxvii.). In/the first Arabic and Ethiopic versions it (2) v. 20-vi. 34; (3) vi. 35-ix. 25 ; (4) ix. 26-x. 60; (5) is called 1 Ezra; in some Latin MSS. and in the English xi. 1-xii. 51; (6) xiii.; (7) xiv. These deal with (1) Authorized Version it is 2 Ezra, and in the Armenian 3 Ezra. religious problems and speculations (2) and eschatological Chapters i.-ii, are sometimes called 3 Ezra, and xv.-xvi. questions. The first three are devoted to the discussion of 5 Ezra. All the versions go back to a Greek text. This is religious problems affecting in the main the individual. The shown by the late Greek apocalypse of Ezra (Tischendorf, pre-suppositions underlying these are in many cases the same Apocalypses Apocryphal, 1866, pp. 24-33), the author of as those in the Pauline Epistles. The next three visions which was acquainted with the Greek of 4 Ezra; also by are principally concerned with eschatological problems quotations from it in Barn. iv. 4; xii. 1 = 4 Ezra xii. 10 which relate to the nation. The seventh vision is a sqq., v. 5 ; Clem. Alex. Strom, iii. 16 (here first expressly fragment of the Ezra Saga recounting the rewriting of cited) = 4 Ezra, v. 35, &c. (see Bensly-James, op. cit. pp. the Scriptures, which had been destroyed. This has xxvii.-xxxviii.). In his Messias Judceorum, 1869, pp. 36- no organic connexion with what precedes. According to 110, Hilgenfeld has given a reconstruction of the Greek Gunkel {Apok. u. Pseud, ii. 335-352) the whole book is text. Till 1896 only Ewald believed that 4 Ezra was the work of one writer. Thus down to vii. 16 he deals written originally in Greek. In that year Wellhausen with the problem of the origin of suffering in the world, (Gott. Gel. Anz. pp. 12-13), and Charles (Apoc. Bar. p. and from vii. 17 to ix. 25 with the question who is Ixxii.) pointed out that a Hebrew original must be assumed worthy to share in the blessedness of the next world. As on various grounds; and this view the former established regards the first problem the writer shows, in the first in his Skizzen u. Vorarbeiten, vi. 234-240, 1899. Of the vision, that suffering and death come from sin—no less numerous grounds for this assumption it will be neces- truly on the part of Israel than of all men, for God sary only to adduce such constructions as “ de quo me created man to be immortal; that the end is nigh, when interrogas de eo,” iv. 28, and xiii. 26 “ qui per semet wrongs will be righted; God’s rule will then be recogipsum liberabit ” ( = ia-ifx) = “ through whom he will nized. In the second he emphasizes the consolation to be deliver,” or to point to such a mistranslation as vii. 33, found in the coming time, and in the third he speaks “ longanimitas congregabitur,” where for “ congregabitur ” solely of the next world, and then addresses himself to the (= *]Dx') we require “ evanescet,” which is another and second problem. The fourth, fifth, and sixth visions are the actual meaning of the Hebrew verb in this passage. eschatological. In these the writer turns aside from the The same mistranslation is found in the Vulgate in Hosea religious problems of the first three visions and concerns iv. 3. This view has been adopted in Gunkels German himself only with the future national supremacy of Israel. translation of Ezra (Kautzsch, Apok. u. Pseud, d. A. T. ii. Zion’s glory will certainly be revealed (vision four), Israel will destroy Borne (five) and the hostile Gentiles (six). 332-333). Latin Version.—All the older editions of this version, as those Then the book is brought to a close with the legend of of Fabricius, Sabatier, Volkmar, Hilgenfeld, Fritzsche, as well as Ezra’s restoration of the lost Old Testament Scriptures. In the course of the above work there are many inconin the older editions of the Bible, are based ultimately on only one MS., the Codex Sangermanensis (written A.n. 822), as Gilde- sistencies and contradictions. These Gunkel explains by meister proved in 1865 from the fact that the large fragment admitting that the writer has drawn largely on tradition, between verses 36 and 37 in chapter vii., which is omitted in all the above editions, originated through the excision of a leaf in this both oral and written, for his materials. Thus he conMS. A splendid edition of this version based on MSS. containing cedes that eschatological materials in v. 1-13, vi. 18-28, the missing fragment, which have been subsequently discovered, vii. 26 sqq., also ix. 1 sqq., are from this source, and aphas been published by Bensly-James {op. cit.). This edition has parently from an originally independent work, as Kabisch taken account of all the important MSS. known, save one at Leon urges, but that it is no longer possible to separate the in Spain. Syriac Version.—This version, found in the Ambrosian Library borrowed elements from the text. Again, in the four last in Milan, was translated into Latin by Ceriani, Monumenta sacra visions he is obliged to make the same concession on a et prof ana, II. ii. pp. 99-124, 1866. Two years later this scholar very large scale. Vision four is based on a current novel, edited the Syriac text, op. cit. V. i. pp. 4-111, and in 1883 reproduced the MS. by photo-lithography (T'mnslatio Syra Pcshitto V. T. which the author has taken up and put into an allegorical II. iv. pp. 553-572). Hilgenfeld incorporated Ceriani’s Latin trans- form. Visions five and six are drawn from oral or written lation in his Messias Judceorum. This translation needs revision tradition, and relate only to the political expectations of and correction. Israel, and seven is a reproduction of a legend, for the Ethiopic Version.—First edited and translated by Laurence, independent existence of which evidence is furnished by Primi Ezrce Libri Versio JEthiopica, 1820. Laurence’s Latin translation was corrected by Prsetorius and reprinted in Hilgen- the quotations in Bensly-James, pp. xxxvii.-xxxviii. Thus feld’s Messias Judceorum. In 1894 Dillmann’s text based on ten the chief champion of the unity of the book makes so MSS. was published—V. T. JEth. Libri Apocryphi, v. 153-193. many concessions as to its dependence on previously existing Arabic Versions.—The first Arabic version was translated from a sources that, to the student of eschatology, there is little to MS. in the Bodleian Library into English by Ockley (in Whiston’s choose between his view and that of Kabisch. In fact, if Primitive Christianity, vol. iv. 1711). This was done into Latin and corrected by Steiner for Hilgenfeld’s Mess. Jud. The second the true meaning of the borrowed materials is to be disArabic version, which is independent of the first, has been edited covered, the sources must be disentangled. Hence the from a Vatican MS. and translated into Latin by Gildemeister, 1877. need of some such analysis as that of Kabisch {Das vierte Armenian Version.—First printed in the Armenian Bible, 1805. Buch Ezra, 1889): S = an Apocalypse of Salathiel, circ. Translated into Latin by Petermann for Hilgenfeld’s Mess. Jud. Relation of the above Versions.—These versions stand in the a.d. 100, preserved in a fragmentary condition, iii. 1-31,