On the Ruin of Britain

Notes

1. Ille bibliotheca legis. The explanation of this term as applied to Ezra may be found in the book itself. If 4 Esdras, or this particular part of it, be placed as late as some critics conclude (c. A.D. 286), then the tradition can be shown to have come into Christian communities long before it found expression there. In any case, it must be regarded as part of Jewish tradition respecting “the men of the Great Synagogue.”
   I quote from the Revised Version of xiv, 21: “For thy law is burnt, therefore no man knoweth the things that are done of thee, or of the works that shall be done. But if I have found favour before thee, send the holy spirit into me, and I shall write all that hath been done in the world since the beginning, even the things that were written in thy law . . . . So I took the five men, as he commanded me, and we went forth into the field, and remained there. And it came to pass on the morrow that, lo, a voice called me, saying, Esdras, open thy mouth, and drink that I give thee to drink. Then opened I my mouth, and, behold, there was reached unto me a full cup, which was full as it were with water, but the colour of it was like fire. And I took it and drank: and when I had drunk of it my heart uttered understanding, and wisdom grew in my breast, for my spirit retained its memory: and my mouth was opened, and shut no more. The Most High gave understanding unto the five men, and they wrote by course the things that were told them, in characters which they knew not, and they sat forty days: now they wrote in the day-time, and at night they ate bread. As for me, I spake in the day, and by night I held not my tongue. So in forty days were written four-score and fourteen books. And it came to pass, when the forty days were fulfilled, that the Most High spake unto me, saying, The first which thou hast written publish openly, and let the worthy and unworthy read it: but keep the seventy last, that thou mayest deliver them to such as be wise among thy people: for in them is the spring of understanding, the fountain of wisdom, and the stream of knowledge. And I did so.” (The question of reading in this last passage can scarcely concern us.) The twenty-four books (94—70) which Esdras is to publish openly cannot but be the twenty-four books of the Old Testament canon, while the remaining seventy would be mystical or Apocryphal books. From this story came, with slight alteration and refinement, the idea that Ezra performed the task of collector or editor for the books of the Old Testament. In Irenaeus, v. 8 (c. A.D. 180), the story is told thus: “And this was nothing wonderful for God to do, who, in the captivity of the people under Nebuchadnezzar, when the Scriptures had been destroyed, and the Jews had returned to their own country after seventy years, afterwards, in the time of Artaxerxes, King of the Persians, inspired Ezra the priest (ἐνέπνευσεν Ἔσδρᾳ τῷ ἱερεῖ)), of the tribe of Levi, to relate all the words of the former prophets, and to restore to the people the legislation of Moses.”
   Substantially the same tradition is found in Clem., Al. Strom., i, 22; Tert., De cult. poem., i, 3; Jerome, Adv. Helv., 7; Pseudo-Aug., De mirab., s. s. ii, 32, and continued to be accepted until the sixteenth century.
2. 4 Esdras xv, 22-27.