Глава 9

Time and signs of the end (1–13). Damage to morals as the reason for the small number of those saved, pre-elected by God (14–22). The promise of new revelation (23–25). Fourth Vision. Ezra's bewilderment at the preservation of the law despite the death of the chosen people (29–37). The vision of the wife and her story about the birth of her son and his marriage (38–47). 3Ezra 9:1 He answered me and said: When you measure, measure time in yourself, and when you see that some of the signs have passed before those indicated, 3Ezra 9:2 Then you will understand that this is the time in which the Most High will begin to visit the age He created. 3Ezra 9:3 When the confusion of places and the confusion of nations is revealed in the age, 3. In the printed text, the list of signs of the end is given in brief form. In the Latin manuscripts there are five of them: “And when in the century there will be rebellions in countries, disorderly movement of peoples, encroachments of tribes, inconstancy of leaders and confusion among rulers, then you will understand that this is what the Almighty spoke about.” The violations of the usual order of political life mentioned here constitute a necessary part of all eschatological pictures. Their historical understanding has no basis in its favor. Gutschmid (272–275) sees in the first sign an echo of the earthquake that occurred in the year of the Battle of Actaeum and buried 30,000 people and many livestock. By the encroachments of tribes he means the Parthian invasion of Palestine (40 BC); under the desecration of the people, which is discussed in the Ethiopian text, the bloody war between the supporters of Antigonus and Herod, the siege of Jerusalem by Sossium, the bloody reprisal of Herod against the patriots (37) and, finally, the killing of Aristobulus, from which the killers were not restrained by his youth (36). The lack of unity of power indicates, according to Gutschmid, the discord that broke out between Antony and Octavian; the hopeless situation of the toparchs - to the horror that Herod experienced at the news of the Battle of Acteia. Going to Octavian, he killed the old man Hyrcanus and, in case of failure in his attempt, gave the order to kill his wife and her mother from the Maccabean family. Hilgenfeld sees here an indication of the murders of Caesar, which caused extraordinary unrest in the state (44 BC), which stopped only with the accession of Octavian. Volkmar (365–367) with the same success selects a whole series of facts that took place after the death of Domitian. The peoples he had just tamed, the Sarmatians, Dacians, Marcomanni, Parthians and Germans, rose again under Nerva and defeated the Roman legions. The confusion among the rulers indicates, according to Volkmar, a rebellion that took place in the palace and ended with Nerva’s abdication of the throne. 3Ezra 9:4 Then you will understand that the Most High has spoken about this from the days that were before you, from the beginning. 4. The author means apocalypses similar to his book, inscribed with the names of the ancient patriarchs, Adam, Seth, Enoch, Noah, etc. 3Ezra 9:5 Just as everything created in the world has a beginning, so there is also an end, and the end is obvious: 3Ezra 9:6 So the times of the Most High have beginnings, revealed by miracles and powers, and endings, revealed by actions and signs. 5–6. Volkmar puts into this passage the meaning that the last time, like everything that exists in the world, will have its beginning and its end. But it is more correct to see here a comparison of the present century with the future. It is carried out most clearly in the Ethiopian text. “Just as everything that comes to light has a beginning in the word (i.e., in the creative word), and an end in revelation outside, so the world of the Most High has a beginning in speech (i.e., in the revelation given to the prophets, v. 4), in signs and in power, and the end in action and a miracle.” The comparison of the creative word with its action is found in Justin (Apology I, 12, 10). “As soon as everything that arises again, the appearance of which He previously predicted, reveals itself in action, then we are confirmed from this in everything that He taught us, namely, that what was the work of God was said before it came into being, and what appeared was revealed in the form that was predicted.” In order to more clearly highlight the difference between the present century and the future, the author dwells on the beginning and end of everything that exists in the world. The generation of new beings, having its source in the creative word (Gen. I:22, 28), is shrouded in mystery; their death is seen by everyone around them. Likewise, humanity lived on earth under the guidance of the prophetic word and miracles incomprehensible to man; in the next century all mysteries will be removed; humanity will have wisdom that penetrates into the essence of the phenomena taking place before it; everything predicted by the prophets in words will be realized in reality in signs that far exceed the miracles that took place according to the word of the prophets. There is an obvious omission in the Latin handwritten text. With the words: “everything that has come into the world has a beginning as a result of the end, and the end is obvious,” the Latin scribe, perhaps, connected the meaning that the birth of new creatures is conditioned by the death of the previous generation, therefore birth and death are the inevitable law of all world life, in view of this the author extends the analogy to the plans of Divine economy regarding the present and future centuries. 3Ezra 9:7 Whoever is saved and is able by his works and the faith in which you believe to escape from the troubles that have been spoken of, 7. The righteousness that the author spoke about earlier is a righteousness under the law. Man, he believes, is justified by his own works (VIII:33); God's mercy is necessary only for sinners, whose crimes can be forgiven if they observe the law (VII:132–139). The law comes to the fore in both the present and future life. He is eternal. Despite the destruction of the sacred books where it was expressed (IV:23; XIV:21), it retains the same power (IX:37). Keeping it determines the acquisition of bliss in the future life (VII: 127–131). The law is a powerful weapon in the hands of the Messiah. Through the law He destroys the entire pagan world (XIII:38). From here it is obvious that the faith in question here occupies a place in the author’s worldview that is far from the place that Ap assigns to it. Paul. Faith is not the independent source of justification. “It is only a private matter among other legal matters” (Wieseler, 293). This is faith in the law (VII:24), as the source of eternal life (VII:127–131). After what has been said with the expressions of the book about the keeping of faith by the righteous as treasures (VI:5), or about the prosperity of faith in the next century, or, finally, about salvation through works and faith (IX:7–8; XIII:23), the New Testament meaning cannot be combined. Faith was proclaimed as a justifying principle already by the prophet Habakkuk (II: 4). But only Christianity revealed in its entirety the meaning of faith in the matter of salvation. Hilgenfeld unfairly sees in the prophetic book of Ezra a rejection of the previous view of legal righteousness and a noticeable step forward from the Mosaic law of works to the Pauline law of faith (Die Judische Apokalyptik. 235). Post-exilic Judaism was imbued with only the consciousness of the unenforceability of the law, but the main step - the denial of the law as the only source of justification - had not yet been taken. 3Ezra 9:8 He will remain and see My salvation in My land and within My borders, which I have sanctified for Myself from eternity. 3Ezra 9:9 Then those who have now departed from My ways will have pity, and those who rejected them with contempt will remain in torment. 9 . “Then those who have transgressed My ways will be imbued with respect” (mirabuntur - translation of the Greek θαυμάσουσι. Hilgenfeld. Gunkel). 3Ezra 9:10 Those who did not know Me, receiving benefits during life, 3Ezra 9:11 And they abhorred My law, they did not understand it, but despised it, while they still had freedom and while the place for repentance was still open to them, 3Ezra 9:12 They will know Me after death in torment. 3Ezra 9:13 Do not inquire anymore how the wicked will be tormented, but inquire how the righteous, to whom the age belongs, and for whose sake the age belongs, will be saved, and when. 13. The salvation of the righteous is the subject of the next three visions. 3Ezra 9:14 I answered and said: 3Ezra 9:15 I said before, and now I say, and hereafter I will say, that those who perish are greater than those who are saved, as the wave is greater than the drop. 3Ezra 9:16 He answered me and said: 3Ezra 9:17 As is the field, so are the seeds; as are the flowers, so are the colors; as is the doer, so is the work; as is the farmer, so is the cultivation; for it was the time of the century. 17. The fate of sinners is sad, but they fully deserve it. The world, as a creation of God, should have existed forever. As is the doer, so is his work. But as soon as people appeared in the world, through them an evil arose in the world that required suppression. However, in His mercy, God does not destroy all people, but leaves Israel to Himself as a chosen plant or berry. 3Ezra 9:18 When I prepared the age before it was, for the habitation of those who now live in it, no one contradicted Me. 3Ezra 9:19 But now, when this age was created, the morals of the created were corrupted by the unfading harvest, by the unsearchable law. 18–19. In the printed text of the Vulgate there is irregular interpunction, obscuring the thought. “For there was a time of the age when I prepared for the present people before their advent the age in which they were to live, and no one contradicted Me then, nor was there anyone. Now those who were created in this world and destined (parati) for an endless table (mensa, Syr, Aeth.) and virgin pastures (habitationes, quae non possunt comprehendi, Ar.), have become corrupt in morals.” The Latin, Syriac, and Ethiopic translations speak of the destiny of men for the unsearchable law (lege investigabili). This idea appeared as a result of an incorrectly read emphasis in the Greek text: νομός (pasture) was taken for νόμος (law). Obviously, the author means paradise with its tree of life, the fruits of which the righteous will eat. 3Ezra 9:20 And I considered the age, and behold, there was danger from the plans that appeared in it. 3Ezra 9:21 I saw and spared him, and kept for Myself one vine and one plant from the multitude. 21. Eastern translations talk about God choosing one planting from a large forest. The Latin translator mixed the word ' ύλη (forest) with the word φυλή (knee), seeing here an allusion to the infinite number of plant species, of which only one was chosen by God. 3Ezra 9:22 Let the multitude perish, which was born in vain, and let my grapes and my plantings, which I raised with great labor, be preserved. 3Ezra 9:23 But you, when after seven other days, without fasting in them, 3Ezra 9:24 You will go out into a flowering field, where there is no house built, and you will eat only wild flowers and not eat meat or drink wine, but only flowers, 3Ezra 9:25 Pray to the Most High without ceasing, and I will come and speak to you. 23–25. Due to the fact that further visions are of a bright nature, depicting exclusively the benefits of the future century, the author, by order of the Angel, stops fasting. He now eats vegetables growing in the field, where he receives the fourth revelation, and abstains from meat and wine. The consumption of flowers as a religious institution took place both in the pagan world, in the schools of Pythagoras and Plato, and in the Jewish sects, among the Essenes, Therapeuta and Ebionites, in a word, in those systems where the metaphysical opposition between the dark earth and the bright sky was affirmed. According to their belief, flowers are less involved in matter than other works of nature and come closest to the heavenly substance. By eating them, a person prepares his body for communication with the unearthly world. In the fourth vision, indeed, Ezra contemplates the heavenly Jerusalem. 3Ezra 9:26 And I went, as He had told me, to the field which is called Ardath, and sat there among the flowers and ate of the herbs of the field, and I had food from them to satisfy me. 26. The fourth vision takes place in the field of Ardat. Like (174), based on the Ethiopian text where the name Arfad is used, brings it closer to the Hebrew word arabah (steppe desert). Under the desert where the prophet retires, of course, according to Lyke, is the desert of Judah, to the right of which he sees Jerusalem. From here he has a view of the Mediterranean Sea, over which the eagle soars in the fifth vision. But the text of the book clearly states that the prophet prays not in the middle of a lifeless desert, but in a field strewn with flowers and overgrown with grass. In addition, the author directly sees only the heavenly Jerusalem, and he contemplates the earthly one under the symbol of his wife. This symbol did not at all require that the author be transported, even in imagination, to Judea. Volkmar sees in the entire setting of the fourth vision a hint of Palestine, which was truly a virgin meadow, full of flowers, but in the author’s contemporary era lay in ruins and devoid of signs of human habitation. This interpretation clearly contradicts the text of the vision, which states that there were no buildings in the field (IX:24; X:51). According to the author himself, the absence of human traces indicates that the heavenly Jerusalem will appear without the participation of human hands. In view of this, it is much more natural to consider the place of the fourth vision to be a field in the vicinity of apocalyptic Babylon (Hilgenfeld, Gutschmid, Kabisch, Gunkel). Gunkel brings the Latin name of the field closer to the eastern measure of granular bodies (ardab). This is probably the same purely eschatological name as the name of the land of Arsareph (XIII:45). 3Ezra 9:27 After seven days I lay on the grass, and my heart was again troubled as before. 3Ezra 9:28 And my mouth was opened, and I began to speak before the Most High, and said: 3Ezra 9:29 O Lord! revealing Yourself to us, You appeared to our fathers in the impenetrable and barren desert, when they came out of Egypt, 3Ezra 9:30 and said, “Listen to Me, O Israel, and give ear to My words, O seed of Jacob. 3Ezra 9:31 Behold, I sow My law in you, and it will bring forth fruit in you, and you will be glorified in it forever.” 3Ezra 9:32 But our fathers, having received the law, did not fulfill it and did not keep Your statutes, and although the fruit of Your law did not perish and could not perish, because it was Yours, 3Ezra 9:33 But those who accepted the law perished, not keeping what was sown in it. 3Ezra 9:34 It usually happens that if the earth has received seed, or the sea a ship, or any vessel for food or drink, and if what is sown in or what is placed in is damaged, 3Ezra 9:35 In this case, what is sown, or placed, or received perishes together, and what was received no longer remains before us. But it's not like that with us. 34–35. The Vulgate notes the everyday phenomenon that if a vessel is destroyed, the contents in it also disappear. In contrast, Judaism, which was the bearer of the law, perished, but the law survived and retains all its force. But the death of land and sea is not at all an ordinary phenomenon, and does not fit well with the author’s intention to illuminate his thought with examples from the surrounding life. Therefore, handwritten text should be given preference. “And it usually happens that when the earth receives a seed, or the sea a ship, or any vessel of food or drink, and when what is sown, or sent, or placed is about to perish, it perishes, but what they were placed in remains; That’s not the case with us.” In everyday life, the content perishes, but the content continues to exist. With humanity and the law given to it, the situation is just the opposite. Israel, the keeper of the law, perishes, but the law itself, entrusted to the chosen people, remains. The law is eternal because it comes from God (IX:31). Because of this, he is spiritual (Rom VII:14) and abides in eternal glory (2 Cor. III:7-11). Its fruit is also eternal (IX:31): the law brings eternal bliss to the righteous, eternal torment to sinners. 3Ezra 9:36 We who received the law, when we sinned, perished, and so did our heart, which received it; 3Ezra 9:37 But the law did not perish, and remains in its force. 3Ezra 9:38 While I had spoken these things in my heart, I looked with my eyes, and saw a woman on the right side; and behold, she cried and sobbed with a great cry, and was very sick in soul; her clothes were torn, and there was ashes on her head. 38. The ancients associated the right side with the meaning of a good omen. On his right side, the priest Zechariah sees the angel who came to announce the birth of his son (Luke I:11), and the myrrh-bearing woman sees the young man sitting in the tomb of Christ after the resurrection (Mark XVI:5). 3Ezra 9:39 Then I left the thoughts with which I was busy, and turning to her, I said to her: 3Ezra 9:40 Why are you crying, and why are you so grieved in soul? 3Ezra 9:41 She said, Leave me alone, my lord, so that I may weep for myself and increase my grief, for I am greatly grieved in soul and greatly humbled. 3Ezra 9:42 I asked her, “What have you suffered?” Tell me. And she answered me: 3Ezra 9:43 I, thy servant, was barren, and had not given birth, having a husband, for thirty years. 3Ezra 9:44 Every hour, every day for these thirty years I prayed to the Most High without ceasing, 44. A woman prays to God night and day (nocie ac die) for the gift of a son. The author adheres to the Jewish count of the day. Every day begins in the evening. 3Ezra 9:45 And God heard me, your servant, after thirty years, saw my humility, heeded my sorrow and gave me a son, and I rejoiced greatly in him, and my husband, and all my fellow citizens, and we glorified the Most High a lot. 45. Barrenness was considered a disgrace among the Jews (Luke I:25). The wife's story about the gift of a son to her after many years of prayer, and about his sudden death during the wedding, is not independent. The author used for his purpose a touching story from family life, reminiscent in its character of the book of Tobit (Clemen, 241. Gunkel, 344). Kabish’s opinion that the book of Tobit itself served as material for the fourth vision has no basis, since there is too much difference in the content of both books. The content of the vision is much broader than its interpretation, which is satisfied with relatively few details, passing over most of them in silence. Thus, the personality of the son, which occupies a prominent place in the story, is left in the shadows when interpreting the vision. It is not clear why the son dies on his wedding night, why all the participants in the feast extinguish the lamps, why all the citizens take such a close part in the wife’s grief, why, finally, she runs away into the field and there, in despair, seeks death by starvation. All these details could not have taken place if the wife’s story belonged to the pen of the author himself and played exclusively an official role in illuminating the past and future fate of Jerusalem. 3Ezra 9:46 I fed him with great difficulty, 3Ezra 9:47 And when he grew up and went to take a wife, I gave a day of feasting.