EZRA, the priest and scribe, one of the principal characters in the chronicler's history of Israel (Chronicles-Ezra-Nehemiah). He is here said to have been sent from Babylon to Jerusalem by the Persian king Artaxerxes (i.e., A. II. 398 B.c.) to restore the neglected law (the Pentateuch). On his arrival, he reads the law to the people, and in accordance with it (Ezra x. 3) accom plishes important reforms. A considerable part of the account of his work has been transposed to the book of Nehemiah, as the result of a copyist's mistake. (See EZRA AND NEHEMIAH, BOOKS OF.) In still later legend, preserved in 2 Esdras xiv., he is said to have restored not only the law, which had been burnt (v. 21), but also all the other Hebrew scriptures which had been destroyed, and seventy apocryphal works in addition. Since the narrative concerning him is written throughout in the chronicler's peculiar diction and style, and in every portion directly serves the apolo getic aim of the history of which it is an essential feature, while it is unsupported from any other source, there is very strong reason, in the present writer's opinion, for the conclusion that the char acter of Ezra was created by the chronicler. (See also CHRON