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 ESDRAS

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ESDRAS

alike to be enforced by severe penalties. The edict left all Jews who felt so inclinetl free to go back to their own country. Some 1800 men, including a certain number of priests, Levites, and Nathinites, started with Esdras from Babylon, and after five months the company safely reached Jerusalem. Long-neglectetl abuses had taken root in the sacred city. These Esdras set himself vigorously to correct, after the silver and gold he had carried from Baliylon were brought into the Temple and sacrifices offered. The first task which confronted him was that of dealing with mixed marriages. Regardless of the Law of Moses, many, even the leading Jews and priests, had intermarried with the idolatrous inhabitants of the country. Horror-stricken by the discoverj' of this abuse — the extent of which was very likely unknown heretofore to Esdras — he gave utterance to his feelings in a prayer which made such an impression upon the people that Sechenias, in their names, proposed that the Israelites should put away their foreign wives and the children born of them. Esdras seized his oppor- tunity, and exacted from the congregation an oath that they would comply with this proposition. A general assembly of the people was called by the princes and the ancients; but the business could not be transacted easily at such a meeting and a special commission, with Esdras at its head, was appointed to take the matter in hand. For three full months this commission held its sessions: at the end of that time the "strange wives" were dismissed.

What was the outcome of this drastic measure we are not told; Esdras's memoirs are interrupted here. Nor do we know whether, his task accomplished, he returned to Babylon or remained in Jerusalem. At any rate we find him again in the latter city at the reading of the Law which took place after the rebuilding of the walls. No doubt this event had kindled the en- thusiasm of the people ; and to comply with the popu- lar demand, Esdras brought the Book of the Law. On the first day of the seventh month (Tishri), a great meeting was held '' in the street that was before the Watergate", for the purpose of reading the Law. Standing on a platform, Esdras read the book aloud "from the morning until midday". At hearing the words of the Law, which they had so much trans- gressed, the congregation broke forth into lamenta- tions unsuited to the holiness of the day; Nehemias therefore adjourned the assembly. The reading was resumed on the next day by Esdras, and they foimd in the Law the directions concerning the feast of the Tabernacles. Thereupon steps were at once taken for the due celebration of this feast, which was to last seven days, from the fifteenth to the twenty-second day of Tishri. Esdras continued the public reading of "the Law every day of the feast ; and two days after its close a strict fast was held, and "they stood and confes.sed their sins, and the iniquities of their fathers ' ' (II Esd., ix, 2). There was a good opportunity to renew solemnly the covenant between the people and God. This covenant pledged the community to the observance of the Law, the abstention from inter- marriage with heathens, the careful keeping of the Sabbath and of the feasts, and to various regulations agreed to for the care of the Temple, its service, and the payment of the tithes. It was formally recited by the princes, the Levites, and the priests, and signed by Nehemias and chosen representatives of the priests, the Levites, and the people (strange as it may appear, Esdras's name is not to be foimd in the list of the -sub- scribers — II Esd., x, 1-'J7). Henceforth no mention whatever is made of E.sdras in the canonical literature. He is not spoken of in connexion with the .second mis- sion of .Nehemias to Jerusalem, and this has led many to suppose that he was dead at the time. In fact both the time and place of his death are unknown, although there is on the banks of the Tigris, near the place where this river joins the Euphrates, a monument pur-

porting to be Esdras's tomb, and which, for centuries, has been a place of pilgrimage for the Jews.

Esdras's role in the restoration of the Jews after the exile left a lasting impression upon the minds of the people. This is due mostly to the fact that hence- f )rth Jewish life was shapeci on the lines laid down by him, and in a way from which, in the main, it never departeti. There is probably a great deal of truth in the tradition which attributes to him the organization of the synagogues and the determination of the books hallowed as canonical among the Jews. Esdras's activity seems to have extended still further. He is credited by the Talmud with having compiled "his own book" (that is to say Esd.-Nehem.), "and the genealogies of the book of Chronicles as far as him- self" (Treat. "Baba bathra", 15"). Modern scholars, however, differ widely as to the extent of his literary work: some regard him as the last editor of the He.xa- teuch, whereas, on the other hand, his part in the com- position of Esdras-Nehemias and Paralipomenon is doubted. .\t any rate, it is certain that he had nothing to do with the composition of the so-called Third and Fourth Books of Esdras. As is the case with many men who played an important part at momentous epochs in history, in the course of time Esdras's personality and activity assumed, in the minds of the people, gi- gantic proportions; legend blended with history and supplied the scantiness of information concerning his life ; he was looked upon as a second Moses to whom were attributed all institutions which could not possi- bly be ascribed to the former. According to Jewish traditions, he restored from memory — an achieve- ment little short of miraculous — all the books of the O. T., which were believed to have perished during the Exile; he likewise replaced, in the copying of Holy Writ, the old Phoenician writing by the alphabet still in use. Until the Middle Ages, and even the Renais- sance, the crop of legendary achievements attributed to him grew up; it was then that Esdras was hailed as the organizer of the famous Great Synagogue — the very existence of which seems to be a myth — and the inventor of the Hebrew vocal signs.

Ryle, i.>ra anrfAV/irmw/t (Cambridge, 1893): Cl.\ir, Esdras et \ehemias (Paris, 1SS2): L.\gr.\nge, Nchemie-Esdras in Revue Bibtique (1S95), 193; Van Hoonacker, Nehemie en Van SO d'Artaxerxts I; Esdras en Van 7 d' Artaxerxes 11 (Ghent, 1S92); Idem, Zorobabel et le second temple (Giient, iS92); Idem. Noitvelles eludes sur la restauration juive aprls Vcxil de Babulone (Paris and Louvain, 1896); Idem, Kchrmie- Esiiras in Revue Biblique (1895), 186; ScHfREH, Gesch. dcs jud. Volkes im Zeilalter J. C. (Leipzig, 1901); Kostehs, Het Herslrl van Israel in het perzische Tijdvak (Leyden, 1894); KuENEN,Z>e Chronologie van het perzische Tijdvak der Joodsche geschiedenis (Amsterdam, 1890).

II. Books of EsnR.\s. — Not a little confusion arises from the titles of these books. Esdras A of the .•septuagint is III Esdras of St. Jerome, whereas the Greek Esdras B corresponds to I and II Esdras of the Vulgate, which were originally united into one book. Protestant WTiters, after the Geneva Bible, call I and II Esdras of the Vulgate respectively Ezra and Nehe- miah, and III and IV Esdras of the Vulgate respec- tively I and II Esdras. It would be desirable to have uniformity of titles. We shall follow here the termi- nologv of St. Jerome.

/ "Esilras (Gr. Esdras B, first part; A.V. Ezra).— .\s remarked above, this book formed in the Jewish canon, together with II Esd., a single volume. But Christian writers of the fourth century adopted the custom — the origin of which is not easy to assign — of considering them as two distinct works. This custom prev;iiled to such an extent that it foimd its way even into the Hebrew Bible, where it has remained in use. On the other hand, the many and close resemblances undeniably existing between E.sd.-Neh. and Par., and usually accoimtcd for by tmity of autliorship, have suggested that possibly all these books formed, in the beginning, one single volume, for which the title of "Ecclesiastical Chronicle of Jerusalem" has been pro-