Bonwetsch, Texte zur Geschichte des Montanismus (KIT 129), 1914; K. Aland, ‘Bemerkungen zum Montanismus und zur frühchristlichen Eschatologie’, Kirchengeschichtliche Entwürfe. 1960, 105-148. On the significance of Montanism for the history of the Canon, see vol. 1, p. 24ff. by Hugo Duensing † and Aurelio de Santos Otero

Introduction

Tradition: in the texts of the Latin Bible, the Fourth Book of Esra has two additional chapters at the beginning and at the end; these are missing in the Oriental translations. Chapters 1 and 2 are a Christian Apocalypse which is introduced in the MSS before or after 4 Esra, and is known to some extent as the Fifth Book of Esra. Chapters 15 and 16 form an appendix: these chapters, in point of style, are prophecies filled with sayings of woe in the fashion of the OT, and, like the introductory chapters as a whole, they are available only in Latin.

1 Linguistic observations point to a Greek original2 and this is confirmed for chs. 15-16 by the discovery of a small Greek fragment of ch. 15, vv. 57-59, among the Oxyrhynchus papyri. The manuscript tradition is divided into two groups: a Frankish, represented by S, the Codex Sangermanensis of the year 822, and the Codex A Ambianensis, also from the 9th century, and a Spanish, represented by C Complutensis from the 9th-10th century and M Mazarinaeus, from the 11th-12th century, and in addition some other secondary witnesses among which the C. Legionensis L. has a sharply divergent text; according to Violet, this text is indebted to the modifying treatment of a writer of independent spirit. The group S A as a rule has a higher value than C M (NVL).

2. Contents: the prophecy of the two introductory chapters falls into two parts. The first turns against the Jewish people, the second is concerned with the Christians who must take their place. It is possible that in the first section material from a Jewish text has been used and has been worked over by a Christian hand (see 1.11; 1.24; 1.30 and especially 1.35-40) to provide an invective against the Jewish people. On the other hand, the second part, 2.10-48, which brings comforting promises to the Christians, is purely Christian, in spite of 2.33, 42, etc., which are decoration. The Sixth Book of Esra, comprising chs. 15 and 16, contains descriptions of the dissolution of the world which comes to its fulfilment in terrible wars and natural events by which Babylon, Asia, Egypt and Syria in particular are threatened, but which will admonish, strengthen and comfort the people of God who will have suffered the afflictions of persecution.

3. Time of composition: in 2.42-47 an innumerable company of Christian martyrs are crowned. This takes us beyond the 1st century. The young man of great stature has a parallel in the Gospel of Peter, in the Acts of Perpetua and Felicitas, and also in the Shepherd of Hermas. This feature points to the 2nd century, but, since the argument with Judaism still clearly possesses topical significance, we ought not to place the writing too late. We may adhere to a date around A.D. 200.3 It is different with the appendix, chs. 15-16. In this a persecution is assumed, stretching over the entire eastern half of the Roman empire, a persecution in which the Christians, driven from their homes, robbed of their goods and imprisoned, are compelled to eat flesh offered to idols. For this there is available the long space of time from about 120 to the end of the persecutions under Constantine. On the basis of some particular features which it has been thought possible to fix in time, the writing has been dated in the 3rd century. But a precise decision as to the time of writing is no more possible than is a fixing of the place of origin, although the western regions of the Orient have the greatest degree of probability.

4. Significance: the extent to which the apocalyptic material of 5th Esra attracted Christians in later times can be seen in addition to other references and reminiscences in the offical Roman Catholic liturgy in the fact that in a fragment of a Missal from the 11th century the passage 2.42-48 is communicated in complete text as the epistle for the Mass de communi plurimorum martyrum. Many separate points as well have special significance: the twelve angels with flowers 1.40, the people of God who come from the east, 1.38; the tree of life in Paradise, 2.12; the twelve fruit-trees in 2.18; the resurrection in 2.31 and the exceedingly tall son of God in 2.43 (on the growth-motif, cf. the material in E. Hammerschmidt, Studies in the Ethiopic Anaphoras, 1961, p. 98). On the other hand, 6th Esra provides threats of judgment, comfort and exhortation within the definite circumstances of a period of persecution. Everything is earth- bound here. Nevertheless this work was also deemed suitable for use in warning and exhortation, as is shown by the letter of the Anglo-Saxon writer Gildas (dated in the 7th or 6th century), in which the text of ch. 15.21-27 and 16.3f., 5-12 is reproduced

5. Literature: O.F. Fritzsche, Libri apocryphi Veteris Testamenti, Leipzig, 1871 (pp. 640ff.); R.L. Benaly, The Fourth Book of Ezra (with an introduction by M.R. James), Texts and Studies III 2, 1895, the above-mentioned Fragment of 4 Esra 15.57-59 in The Oxyrhynchus Papyri, Part VII (ed. A. Hunt), 1910, 11ff.; older literature in E. Schürer, The Jewish People in the time of Jesus Christ, ET, Div. II, vol. III, 1131. (German ed.4 1909, III 330f.; rev. English ed. 1986, III 1, 301ff.); in addition, M.J. Labourt, ‘Le cinquième livre d’Esdras’, Rev. Bibl. 17, 1909,412-434; D.de Bruyne, ‘Fragments d’une apocalypse perdue’, Rev Bénéd. 33,1921,97- 109, A. Oepike, ‘Ein bisher unbeachtetes Zitat aus dem 5. Buche Esra’, Coniect. Neotestament. XI, 1947, 179-195 (reprinted in ZNW 42, 1949, 158-172); O. Plöger, Article ‘Daa 5. and 6. Esrabuch’, in RGG II, 1958, cols. 699f; also the introduction to 4 Esra (cha. 3-14) by B. Noack in De Gammeltestamentlige Pseudepigrapher, Heft 1, 1953, 1-13. W. Schnoemeicher, art. ‘Esra’, RAC 6, 1966, cols. 604-606; Biblia Sacra iuxta Vulgatam Versionem, ed. R. Weber et. al., 1969, Moraldi 11, 1917ff. (Italian trans.); M.D. Brocke, ‘On the Jewish Origin of the “Improperia” (V Ezra 1,5-25), Immanuel 7, 1977, 44-51.

 

Fifth Esra

1:4 The word of God which came to Esra, the son of Chusis, in the days of Nebuchadnezzar, thus:
5. Go and make known to my people their misdeeds, and to their sons the evil which they have committed against me, that they may recount it to their children’s children.
6. For the sins of their fathers are increased in them (still); they have forgotten me and sacrificed to strange gods.
7. Have not I brought them out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage? But they have provoked me to wrath and despised my counsels. 8. Shake thou therefore the hair of thy head and let all evils fall upon them, for they have not obeyed my law, the stiff-necked people!
9. How long shall I tolerate them? So many benefits have I shown to them!
10. Many kings have I overthrown for their sakes; Pharaoh and his servants and all his hosts have I thrown violently down.
11. Have I not for your sake destroyed the city of Bethsaida and burned with fire two cities in the east, Tyre and Sidon?
12. Speak thou then unto them: Thus saith the Lord:
13. Of a truth, I have brought you through the sea and in the pathless desert I provided for you prepared roads. As a leader I gave to you Moses and Aaron as a priest.
14. Light have I granted you by the pillar of fire and great wonders have I done among you. But you have forgotten me, saith the Lord.
15. Thus saith the Lord, the Almighty: The quails were for a sign to you; a camp did I give you for shelter, and there you murmured.
16. And you triumphed not in my name over the destruction of your enemies; no, even to this day, you still murmur.
17. Where are the benefits which I have shown to you? Have you not cried unto me in the desert, when you suffered hunger and thirst:
18. ‘Why hast thou brought us into this desert to kill us? Better that we had been slaves to the Egyptians than to die in this desert!’
19. Your sufferings made me sorrowful and I gave you manna for food; the bread of angels have you eaten.
20. When you suffered thirst, did I not cleave the rock and water flowed to your fill? Because of the heat I covered you with leaves of the trees.
21. Fertile lands did I apportion to you; the Canaanites, the Perizites, the Philistines did I cast out before you. What shall I yet do for you? saith the Lord.
22. Thus saith the Lord, the Almighty: When you were in the wilderness, thirsting at the bitter waters and blaspheming my name,
23. there I let not fire rain upon you for your blasphemies, but casting a tree into the waters, I made the river sweet.
24. What shall I do to thee, Jacob? Thou wouldst not obey me, Judah! I will turn to other nations and give to them my name, that they may keep my statutes.
25. Since you have forsaken me, I will also forsake you. When you implore me for mercy, I will have no mercy upon you.
26. When you call on me, I will not hear. For you have defiled your hands with blood and your feet are swift to commit acts of murder.
27. You have not, as it were, left me in the lurch, but your own selves, saith the Lord.
28. Thus saith the Lord, the Almighty: Have I not admonished you with prayers, as a father his sons, as a mother her daughters, as a nurse her infants,
29. that you should be a people for me and I should be your God, that you should be sons to me and I a father to you?
30. I gathered you together as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wing. But now, what shall I do to you? I will cast you forth from my presence!
31. When you bring offerings to me, I will turn my face from you; for your feasts and new moons and circumcisions of the flesh have I not asked.
32. I sent to you my servants the prophets, whom you have taken and slain and torn their bodies in pieces. Their blood will I visit upon you again, saith the Lord.
33. Thus saith the Lord, the Almighty: Your house is desolate; I will cast you forth as the wind does stubble.
34. And your children will not produce offspring, for they have with you despised my commandment and done that which is evil in my sight.
35. I will give your dwellings to a people which shall come, who, though they have not heard of me, yet believe; to whom I have shown no wonderful signs. They will do what I have commanded.
36. They have not seen the prophets, but they will hold in remembrance their history.
37. I testify to the grace which shall meet the people to come, whose children jump for joy, though they see me not with the eyes of the body, yet in their spirit they believe what I have said.
38. And now, O Father, behold in glory and see thy people who come from the rising of the sun!
39. To them will I give the dominion with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, Elias and Enoch, Zachariah and Hosea, Amos, Joel, Micah, Obadiah,
40. Zephaniah, Nahum, Jonah, Mattathias, Habakkuk and the twelve angels with flowers.
2.1. Thus saith the Lord: I have brought this people out of bondage and have given them commandments by my servants the prophets, but they would not hear them, but threw my counsel to the wind.
2. The mother who bare them saith to them, Go, my sons, for I am widowed and forsaken.
3. I have brought you up with joy, and with sadness and sorrow have I lost you, since you have sinned before the Lord and done what is evil in my sight.
4. But now, what shall I do to you? I am widowed and forsaken. Go, my children, and ask the Lord for mercy.
5. But I call upon thee, O Father, as a witness upon the mother of these children, for they would not keep my covenant:
6. Let destruction come upon them, and looting upon their mother, so that no offspring may come after them.
7. Let them be scattered among the heathen, let their names be banished from the earth, for they have despised my covenant.
8. Woe to thee, Asshur, who shelterest in thee the unrighteous. Wicked city, remember what I have done to Sodom and Gomorrah,
9. whose land lies in clods of pitch and heaps of ashes; thus will I do to those who have not listened to me, saith the Lord, the Almighty.
10. Thus saith the Lord unto Esra: Tell my people that I will give to them the kingdom of Jerusalem which I would have given to Israel.
11. I will take unto me the glory of these (the Israelites) and give to those (my people) the everlasting tabernacles2 which I had prepared for them (Israel).
12. The tree of life3 will be to them for an ointment of sweet fragrance and they shall not labour nor weary.
13. Ask and ye shall receive4; plead for few days for yourselves, that they may be shortened. The kingdom is already prepared for you: watch!
14. I call heaven and earth to witness: I have given up the evil and created the good for (=so surely as) I live, saith the Lord.
15. (Good) mother, embrace thy children, bring them up with joy like a dove (CM: give them joy like a dove who tends her young), establish their feet, for I have chosen thee, saith the Lord.
16. I will raise up the dead from their places and bring them forth out of the tombs,5 for I have known my name in them.
17. Fear thou not, O mother of the children, for I have chosen thee, saith the Lord.
18. I will send for thy help my servants Isaiah and Jeremiah (CM + and Daniel) according to whose counsel I sanctified (CM+thee) and have prepared for thee twelve trees, heavy laden with many kinds of fruit,
19. and as many fountains which flow with milk and honey,6 and seven measureless mountains,7 filled with roses and lilies, wherein I will fill thy children with joy.
20. Do right to the widow, assist the fatherless to his right; give to the needy; protect the orphan, clothe the naked;
21. tend the cripple and the feeble, laugh not at the lame, defend the frail and let the blind man behold my glory.8
22. Guard the aged and the young within thy walls, preserve thy little children, let thy slaves and freemen rejoice and thy whole company live in cheerfulness.
23. Wherever thou findest the dead, there commit them to a grave, marking it; so will I give to thee the first place in my resurrection.
24. Rest and be at peace, my people, for your repose will come.9
25. Good nurse, nourish thy children, and establish their feet.
26. The (SA: servants) which I have given thee-none of them shall perish,10 for I will require them according to thy number.
27. Be not anxious; for when the day of affliction and anguish is come, others will weep and be sorrowful, but thou shalt be gay and rich.
28. The nations will envy thee, and prevail not against thee, saith the Lord.
29. My hands will shelter thee, that thy children see not Gehenna.
30. Be joyful, O mother, with thy children, for I will deliver thee, saith the Lord.
31. Remember thy sleeping children, for I will bring them from the hidden graves in the earth and show mercy to them: for I am merciful, saith the Lord.11
32. Embrace thy children till I come, and proclaim mercy to them, for my wells run over and my grace will not cease.
33. I, Esra, received the command of the Lord on the mountain Horeb that I should go to Israel: when I came to them, they rejected me and received not the commandment of God.
34. Therefore I say unto you, ye nations (= heathen), you who hear and understand: Wait for your shepherd! He will give you everlasting rest, for he is near who shall come at the end of the world.
35. Be ready for the rewards of the kingdom, for everlasting light shall shine upon you for evermore.
36. Flee the shadow of this world; receive the joy of your glory; I call to witness my Saviour openly.
37. Receive that which is offered you by the Lord and be joyful, giving thanks to him who has called you to his heavenly kingdom.12
38. Arise and stand and behold the number of those who are sealed at the banquet of the Lord.13
39. Those who have withdrawn from the shadow of this world have received shining garments from the Lord.14
40. Receive, O Zion, thy number (see 26) and embrace those who are clothed in white,15 who have fulfilled the law of the Lord.
41. The number of thy children, whom thou desirest, is complete; beseech the rule of the Lord that thy people, whom I have called from the beginning, may be sanctified.
42. I, Esra, saw upon mount Zion a great company, which I could not number, and they all praised the Lord with songs.
43. In the midst of them was a young man, tall of stature, towering above all the rest, and he set a crown upon the head of each one of them and he waxed ever taller. But I was absorbed by the wonder.16
44. So I asked the angel, saying, ‘Who are these, Lord?’
45. He answered and said to me. “These are they who have laid aside their mortal clothing and put on the immortal and have confessed the name of God.17 Now are they crowned and receive palms.
46. And I said to the angel, ‘Who is that young man who setteth crowns upon them and giveth them palms in their hands?
47. He answered me and said, “This is the Son of God whom they have confessed in the world. And I began to praise them who had appeared so valiant for the name of the Lord.
48. Then the angel said unto me, ‘Go! Proclaim to my people what wonders of the Lord thy God thou hast seen and how great they are.

 

Notes

1. The fact that such texts are also to be found in the Armenian versions of the Bible (cf. M.Ε. Stone, The Apocryphal Literature in the Armenian Tradition [The Israel Acad. of Sciences and Humanities-Proceedings IV, 4), Jerusalem 1969, [6]64), is not in conflict with the above statement, since the Armenian versions concerned go back to Latin sources.
2. Following Labourt (see Lit.), J. Danielou on the contrary pleads for a Latin original for 5th Esra (Studies in the History of Religions [Supplement 21 to Numen), 1972, 162-171). His argument however presents no new proofs, but concentrates on the noting of certain analogies which are supposed to link this document with other Latin works from the end of the 2nd century (e.g. Passio Perpetuae and the adv. Judaeos of ps.-Cyprian)
3. G.N. Stanton recently argues (JTS 28, 1977, 67-83) for an origin as early as the middle of the 2nd century in a Jewish-Christian milieu for 5th Ears. The arguments for this he draws from the supposed exclusive influence which-within the NT-the Gospel of Matthew has exercised upon this document, and from the typically Jewish-Christian features of the community in which 5th Esra came into being.

References

1. No Biblical citations and references are given for the following section (1.4-2.9), for the text is nothing but a mosaic of innumerable OT passages.
2. Lk 16:9
3. Rev. 22:2
4. Cf. Mt. 7:7 and par
5. Cf. Is. 26:19.
6. Exod. 3:8, etc.
7. Enoch 24
8. Cf. Is. 1:17; 58:6f.; Jer. 7:51. James 1:27: Tob. 1:17.
9. Cf. Heb. 4:9.
10. Cf. Jn. 17:12: also 10:28.
11. Jer. 3:12.
12. 1 Thess. 2:12.
13. Cf. Rev. 7:4f7; Lk 14:15.
14. Cf. Rev. 6:11; 7:9.
15. Cf. ibid.
16. Cf. Hermas, Sim. IX 6.1
17. Cf. Rev. 7:131
18. Rev. 7:9.