Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 8.djvu/563

Rh E S H E S K 543 strongly, even fiercely, Jewish in its sympathies; and it is not a little remarkable that it should have made so little impression upon the Jewish mind, while by the Christians, on the other hand, it was received with great respect, and was indebted to them for its preservation. It has not passed through their hands without alteration. The insertion of the word &quot;Jesus&quot; in chap. vii. 28 may he mentioned as an instance of the changes it has undergone. By the author of the epistle of Barnabas (chap, xii.), by Clement of Alexandria (Strom, iii. 16), by Tertullian (De hab. mid., 3), and by Ambrose (De Bono Mortis, chap, x.-xii.), 2 Esdras is referred to as prophetic scripture. The unfavourable judgment of Jerome upon both books of Esdras is on the other hand repeated with special emphasis with regard to this in his treatise against Vigilantius. The work was never included in any list of canonical or eccle siastical &quot; writings, nor did it generally appear in MS. Latin bibles. It was printed, however, in Pfister s Bamberg Latin Bible (1460), and frequently thereafter. To this circum stance, doubtless, it owes its somewhat too high position, both in the Protestant and in the Romish Apocrypha. It may be interesting to notice that Columbus drew from chap. vi. 42 one of the arguments by which he supported his cause in the conference of Salamanca in 1487 (Navarrete, Coleccion, ii. 261). It cannot be doubted that 2 Esdras has exercised con siderable influence on the course of Christian thought, especially on eschatological subjects ; but in cases of real coincidence between its teaching and that of Paul, the honour of priority is now very generally conceded to the canonical writer. The work is of great authority in some Oriental churches; and it has been a special favourite with many Western mystics, such as Schwenkfeld and the once famous Antoinette Bourignon. Tischendorf, in his Apocalypses Apocrypha;, prints a Greek Apocalypse of Esdras, which is to be distinguished from 2 Esdras. It seems to date from the 3d century of the Christian era, and to belong originally to the Christian cycle (see vol. ii. p. 179). The best commentary on 1 Esdras is that of 0. F. Fritzsche in the Excgdischcs Hamlbuch (Leipsic, 1851). See also his critical edition of the text (Libri apocryphi Veteris Tcstan-Miti grace euro, ccwmeftton omhco (Leipsic, 1871); De Wette-Schrader, Einlcitung, sects. 363-4 (1869), Sclmreriii Herzog s Ewydopadic, i. 496 (1877). There have been several critical editions of the Latin text of 2 Esdras, the earliest having been those of Fabricius (1741) andSaba- tier (1751). Laurence was the first; editor of the Ethiopic version (Oxford, 1820), Ewald of the Arabic (Gottingen, 1863), and Ceriani of the Syriac (Milan, 1868). The Vatican codex of the Arabic has now for the first time been edited by Gildemeister (Bonn, 1877). The Armenian is to be found in the Armenian Bible (Venice, 1805). The latest editions of the Latin are those of Hilgenfeld (1869) and of 0. F. Fritzsche (Libri Apocryphi, as above). A good account of the work, with an almost exhaustive catalogue of the modern literature of the subject, is given by Schiirer in his NeuttstamentUche Zcitgr.schichlc (Leipsic, 1874). In 1875 Bensly published the results of an examination of the Amiens MS., which dates from the 9th century. The missing fragment has also been found in a Spanish MS. (see Cambridge Journal of Philology, 1877). See also Kenan, Les fivangilcs (Paris, 1877), aiid Drummoml, The Jewish Messiah, (London, 1878). (J. S. BL.) ESHEIl, a village and parish in the county of Surrey, England, is situated about 15 miles S.W. of London. Near it is Claremont Palace (built by the great Lord Clive), formerly the residence of the Princess Charlotte, and more recently of Louis Philippe and his family. Of the mansion house of Esher, in which Cardinal Wolsey resided for three or four weeks after his sudden fall from power in 1529, only the gatehouse now remains. A new mansion was erected in 1803. Esher church contains some fine memorials, and one of its three bells is said to have been brought from San Domingo by Sir Francis Drake. The population of the parish in 1871 was 1815. ESHREF, or ASHKEF, a town of Persia in the province of Mazanderan, about 50 miles west of Astrabad, and 5 miles inland from the Caspian Sea. It lies in a hollow of the mountains richly embowered with cypress, orange, and melon trees. The inhabitants, who number about 5000 or 6000, comprise, according to Napier, the descendants of a Georgian colony introduced by Shah Abbas Sefawi, some families of Talish and Tats (the former a Turkish, the second a Persian tribe), and a number of Godars, a peculiar pariah race, possibly of Indian origin. Foreign trade, especially with Constantinople and Astrakhan, is carried on by means of the port of Mashhad-i-Sar, about 50 miles to the N.W., the exports being cotton, sugar, and cutlery, and the im ports iron vessels and crockery. The principal buildings are the two dilapidated royal palaces. They were built in a style of great magnificence by Shah Abbas, and after a conflagration were restored by Shah Nadir, the conqueror of Delhi. The third palace of Sefiabad, situated on an eminence above the town, has been replaced by a modern building in the European style. For details see Erinnerung&i aus den Lcben dcs K. Russischcn Gcn.-Licut. Johann ion Blaramberf}, 1874, quoted in Petermanu s MMhcil., 1875; and Napier s &quot;Diary of a Tour in Khorassan,&quot; in. Journ. of Roy. Geog. Soc., 1876. ESKI-DJUMA, orEsKi-DjUMUA, a town of Bulgaria, in the sanjak of Rustchuk, about 22 miles west of Shumla, on the northern slopes of the Binar-dagh. It has several mosques and baths, and derives great local importance from its fairs, of which the greatest, in May, is attended by a vast concourse of merchants from north and south, and displays a variety of German, French, Swiss, and Russian goods. See Hilberg, NacJi Eski Djumaia, mil Bericht uber die Messe von Eski Djumaia im Mai 1876 von s. Exc. Gr. Edmund Zechy, Vienna, 1876. ESKILSTUNA, a town of Sweden in the government of Sddermanland, anddistrict of Nykoping, on the Hjelmar-Aa, which unites Lake Hjelmar with Lake Malar. It is the principal centre of Swedish manufacturing industry, pos sessing a royal musket-factory, engineering works, cutlery establishments, needle factories, dye-works, and tanneries. The place is mentioned in the 13th century, and is said to derive its name from an English missionary called Eskil who suffered martyrdom and was buried on the spot. It rose into importance in the reign of Charles X., who bestowed on it considerable privileges, and gave the first impulse to its manufacturing activity. Population 6130. ESKIMO, ESKIMOS, or ESQUIMAUX, the name applied by European ethnologists to a large number of cognate but widely separated tribes, which are scattered along the coasts of the arctic regions of America and Asia. The Danish form of the word has recently supplanted the older French form. The name is a corruption of the Abenaki Indian Eskimat- sic or the Ojiba Askimey, both terms meaning &quot;those who eat raw flesh.&quot; The native name is Innuit a word signifying, as names of savage tribes frequently do, &quot;The people.&quot; The Eskimo constitute a very homogeneous race, and are the widest spread aboriginal people in the world. They are entirely unknown in Europe, being confined to the arctic coast of America, and a small portion of the Asiatic shore of Behring Strait. On the American shores they are found, in broken tribes, from East Greenland to the western shores of Alaska, never far off the coast, or south of the region where the winter ice allows seals to congregate in large numbers. They thus stretch for 3200 miles from S. E. to S.W. ; and though in all likelihood they have little intercourse with each other, yet, judging from the traditions, the separate tribes must have maintained their present characteristic language and mode of life for at least 1000 years. Most probably, like the rest of the aborigines of the New World, they came from Asia at some very