ESDRAS (es'draz), APOCRYPHAL BOOKS OF (Gr."Ecrapas, esdras).
Boots of Ezra. In several manzscripts of the Latin Vulgate, as well as in all the printed editions anterior to the decree of the Council of Trent, and in many since that period, there will be found four books following each other, entitled the first, second, third, and fourth books of Ezra. The two first are the canonical books of Ezra and Nehemiah, the third and fourth form the sub ject of the present article. They are the Fame which are called first and second Esdras in the English Authorized Version.
(1) Third Book. The Third Book of Ezra is found in all the manuscripts of the Seventy, where it is called the first book, and precedes the second or canonical Ezra, which, in this version, includes the book of Nehemiah. . It contains too Ke0aXatm It is a little more than a recapitulation of the his tory contained in the canonical Ezra, interspersed with some remarkable interpolations, the chief of which are chapter i, taken from 2 Chron. xxxv, xxxvi, part of the last chapter, from Neh. viii, and the narration of the themes or sentences of Zorobabel and the two other young men of Darius's bodyguard (3 Esdr. iii :4). The book is more properly a version than an original work. The style is acknowledged to be elegant, and not unlike that of Symmachus. This book was made use of by Josephus, who cites it largely in his Antiquities, but nothing further has been ascer tained respecting the age either of the original or the translation. It is cited by Clemens Alex andrinus (Stromata, i.), the author of the Im perfect Work on Matt. (Hom. i), Athanasius (Orat. iii. cont. Ariano.$), and by Cyprian (Epist. ad Pompeium).
From the circumstance of Jerome's having declined to translate the third and fourth books of Ezra, they are (with the exception of the book of Job and the Psalms) the only portions either of the canonical or apocryphal writings of the Old Testament which have been preserved to us entire in the old Latin translation.
This hook does not, however, appear to have been included in the catalogue of any council, nor has any portion of it been read in the offices of the church. Having been rejected as apocry phal by the Council of Trent, it has been removed, together with the fourth book, in the Sixtine and Clementine editions of the Vulgate, to the end of the volume, with the observation that they are thus retained in order to 'preserve from being alto gether lost. books which had been sometimes cited by some of the holy fathers. The following is the order of the books of the Old Testament declared to be canonical by this council : Five of Moses; Joshua ; Judges; Ruth ; four of Kings; two of Chronicles ; two of Ezra (viz.. Ezra and Nehe miah) ; Tobit ; Judith Esther : Job: Psalms ; Proverbs; Ecclesiastes; Canticles ; Wisdom ; Ec clesiasticus ; Isaias; Jeremias with Baruch : Eze kiel ; Daniel ; twelve minor Prophets (viz., Hosea, Joel, Amos, Abdias, Jonas, Micah, Nahum. Habak kuk, Zephanias, Haggai, Zecharias, Malachi), and two of.Maccabees.
(2) Fourth Book. The fourth book of Ezra is quite of a different character from the former, and it has been even doubted whether it more properly belongs to the Apocrypha of the Old or the New Testament, but the circumstance of the author's personating the celebrated scribe of that name has been supposed to have led to its obtain mg a place in the former. It consists of a num ber of similitudes or visions, resembling in some passages the Apocalypse. The descriptions are acknowledged to be sometimes most spirited and striking. occasionally rising to great sublimity of thought, energy of conception, and elegance of expression.
Jahn supposes the author to have been a Jew, educated in Chaldea, who borrowed his style from Daniel, and who, having become a Christian. still retained his reverence for Cabalistic traditions. Ile places him in the first or early in the second century.