3 and 4 Ezra.
3 and 4 Ezra.
Third and Fourth Ezra belong to the former group. There actually are some people who want also these books to be canonical. Genebrardus places them in the later canon of the Hebrews (Chronol., bk. 2, ann. mundi 3638). He says:
Third and Fourth Ezra do not belong to the earlier canon of the Hebrews because they had not yet been published when the canon was sanctioned. They do not come short, however, of being sacred and canonical because this synod does not bind the sacred authors who followed nor did it extinguish nor take away the inbreathing of the Spirit. Because of these later writers, another canon was published.
Pistorius accuses blessed Luther of great audacity for tearing the two later books of Ezra out of the Bible (Prima motiva, quare Marchio Badensis ad Papatum defecerit). He writes: “The two later Books of Ezra have no more worth to him than the fables of Aesop or books of even meaner esteem, so he thinks that he is right to drive them away from his Bible and does not deem them worthy of a translation.”
** Jerome writes, Ad Domin. et Rog., vol. 3, p. 21: “(No one) is pleased by the dreams of the apocryphal third and fourth books (of Ezra) because even among the Hebrews the sermons of Ezra and Nehemiah are put together into a single volume. What is not found in them must be thrown far away from the old twenty-four.” **
However, not only Jerome but also Bellarmine himself (De verbo Dei, bk.1, c. 20) acknowledges that “Jewish fables,” which are not better than Aesop’s fables, “are contained in them.” Bellarmine indeed wonders what Genebrardus, whom Pistorius approves in this regard, had in mind that he would accept these books into the canon. He should know, however, that Genebrardus confirms that these books are canonical with arguments equally as strong as those Bellarmine uses to prove that the rest of the controversial books are canonical. You see, 3 Ezra is quoted by Origen, Cyprian, Athanasius, Clement of Alexandria, Augustine, the author of the Opus Imperfectum, etc. In his treatise De fatis Monarch. Rom., f. 4ff., Bibliander also considers 4 Ezra as canonical. Scaliger, Exercit. 308: “The Books of Ezra contain many more secret matters that are more powerful than any story. A wonderful and divine summary of them is in my possession, written in Syriac.” The Rosicrucian Society draws much from 4 Ezra.
We can easily show, however, that these books are apocryphal. (1) There are no extant Hebrew or Greek texts. Therefore they cannot be prophetic because they are not found to be written in the prophetic languages. The fourth book, to be sure, has the scent of Hebrew diction. If it were canonical, however, divine providence would never have allowed the original text to perish. Some say that a Chaldaic version of it still exists in Venice, but this is uncertain and can be the same sort of copy as the Hebrew copy of Tobit that Munsterus made. Against the authority of these books, then, Jerome correctly urges in his preface to Ezra “that not only did the Hebrews not have them, but they also are not even in the Septuagint.” There are those who think this book was written in the time of the New Testament after John’s Revelation and was published under the name of Ezra by a converted Jew who was speaking about the state of the New Testament Church in relation to the state of the ancient Church. It appears from [4 Ezra] 1:40 that it was written after the time of Malachi, who was the last prophet of the Old Testament.
(2) They contain Jewish fables and provide empty dreams, according to Jerome (loc. cit.).
(3) They contradict other books of the Bible. Anyone may see that he cannot reconcile what 3 Ezra 4 says about the building of the temple with the prophecy of Haggai, and what it says about the building of Jerusalem with the true account in Esther 10. Compare also what 4 Ezra 10:22 says with 2 Maccabees 2:4.
(4) These books lack the approving consensus of the Israelite church as well as of the Christian Church.
(5) The more reasonable Papists themselves remove them from the canon.
** Sixtus Senensis writes (Biblioth., under the title Esdrae duo): “This third Book of Ezra we attribute to the apocryphal writings and reject with them. The Greek fathers place it in the sacred canon and set it first in the order of the Books of Ezra because that which is told therein occurred before what is contained in the Books of Ezra and Nehemiah. We consider those latter ones, however, as the first and second. The Greeks include both of these under the second volume of Ezra. Therefore among them 1 Ezra begins: ‘When Josiah celebrated the Passover,’ and 2 Ezra begins: ‘In the first year …’ “**
In the council of the seventy bishops at Rome, Gelasius puts only one Book of Ezra into the canon. This one he undoubtedly takes to mean our two, which “are contained in a single volume,” as Jerome testifies in his preface to Ezra. With clear words, then, Gelasius rejects that first one among the Greeks or 3 and 4 Ezra among the Latins. Lyra clearly excludes them. Strabo and Cardinal Hugh [of St. Cher] judged those books not worthy of being explained with their glosses. Ludovicus Vives, commentary on De civ. Dei, bk. 18, c. 36: “Third and Fourth Ezra are rejected among the Apocrypha, which Jerome calls ‘dreams.’ “The same claim is made by Vatablus, the fathers of the Council of Trent (sess. 40), Bellarmine (De verbo Dei, bk. 1, c. 20; bk. 2, c. 1), Gregorius de Valentia (De eccles., p. 335), etc.
To be sure, some doctors of the ancient Christian Church, as also Josephus, adduce some material from these books, but this does not yet provide a sufficient basis for canonical authority, as we shall see in its own place. From 4 Ezra 1:30, Christ brings out the comparison that He uses in Matt. 23:37: “How often would I have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings!” Not even this citation, however, is a manifest argument for canonical authority, as we shall teach later.