AUTHENTICITY AND CANONICITY. — a) That the book is the work of the secretary of Jeremiah is affirmed by the title itself, which also specifies the date of composition (1:1–2). This is confirmed both by the similarity of form and content with the book of Jeremiah and by the correspondence between the historical conditions described and presupposed in the book and the era to which it is attributed. It is true that in chapters 1 and 2, Belshazzar (v.) is called the son of Nebuchadnezzar, whereas profane history makes him the son of Nabonidus, the last Babylonian king (555–539), and calls Evil-Merodach (561–560) the undeserving son and successor of Nebuchadnezzar. To overcome this difficulty, it may be supposed that Nebuchadnezzar had another son, heir to the throne, who predeceased his father, still alive when B. composed his book. It does not seem that this Belshazzar can be identified with the one in Daniel, for chronological reasons.
b) It is one of the seven books called “deuterocanonical,” not included today in the Hebrew canon. Yet it was read by the Jews among the sacred books as a sequel and appendix to Jeremiah. According to the Apostolic Constitutions (4th century or early 5th), B. is read in the synagogues alongside Lamentations. The earliest Fathers cite and adduce it as an inspired document (St. Irenaeus, Athenagoras, Origen, Clement of Alexandria, St. Athanasius; V. BIBLE: Canon).
Some Catholic critics (I. Goettsberger, *Einleitung in das A.T.*, Freiburg in Br. 1928, p. 310, n. 1) hold that the famous verse 38 of chapter 3: “Post haec in terris visus est (that is, he who in V. 36 is called: *Deus noster*) et cum hominibus conversatus est,” was added by some Christian. Many Fathers, however, cite it as a prophecy referring to the divine Incarnation of the Word, e.g., Theodoret (PG 81, 773), without raising any doubt as to its genuineness.
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APOCALYPSE OF B.
Under the name of B. two apocryphal Apocalypses have come down to us, the Syriac and the Greek.
### SYRIAC APOCALYPSE OF B.
It is one of the most important apocrypha of the Old Testament, a typical example of Jewish apocalyptic literature around A.D. 100. It is so called because it is preserved in the Syriac version and in a single manuscript, the famous Milanese codex of the Pšittā, published in 1871 by A. Ceriani (*Monumenta sacra et profana*, V, fasc. II, Milan 1871, pp. 113–80), who had already given its Latin translation in 1866 (ibid., I, fasc. II, Milan 1866, pp. 73–98). It derives from a previous Greek version (of which only a few fragments remain, cf. R. H. Charles, *The Apocrypha*..., II, pp. 487–90), made from a Hebrew or Aramaic original. It has much affinity with 4 Ezra, with which it agrees in structure, purpose, and often even in thought; but it is inferior in depth and elevation of ideas and in the nobility of the traits of the figure of the Messiah. There is undoubtedly interdependence between the two apocrypha, but it is difficult to establish their relative priority, although the greater probability favors 4 Ezra. The date of composition ranges between the end of the 1st century and the beginning of the 2nd. The Apocalypse proper consists of 77 chapters, in dialogic form; it is followed (chapters 78–87) by the epistle to the 9½ tribes in Assyria, already known from other manuscripts. Mention is also made (77:19) of a second epistle to the other 2½ tribes in Babylon, which, however, has not come down to us.
The Apocalypse of B. claims to communicate the revelations made to B. immediately before and after the destruction of Jerusalem by the Chaldeans (587 B.C.), and it begins precisely with the description of the fall of the city, which, however, refers to the destruction of A.D. 70 (chapters 1–12). Thus, while Jeremiah accompanies the exiles to Babylon, B. remains in Jerusalem to weep by the walls (chapters 13–20), where the Lord reveals to him that the day of punishment will also come for the pagans and justice will be done to Israel. This first part has a certain analogy with the book of Job regarding the problem of the unhappiness of the righteous and the prosperity of the wicked. In the following chapters, the messianic-eschatological motif predominates in a succession of visions not always connected or harmonized. In a first vision (chapters 21–34), the precursor signs of the Messiah are announced, along with great tribulations in 12 periods (the so-called “messianic birth pangs”). With the coming of the Messiah, an era of prosperity begins for Israel and for the whole earth. In another vision, under the symbols of the forest and the cedar, the vine and the fountain, the fall of the pagan kingdoms is described, particularly the fourth and last, the Roman Empire, and the victory of the Messiah (chapters 35–46), whose dominion “will last forever until the world doomed to ruin reaches its end” (40:3). Then the fate of the righteous and the wicked after the resurrection is described (chapters 47–52). In a third vision of the cloud with dark and clear waters (chapters 53–76), the various periods of the history of Israel and the world are described, culminating in the triumph of the Messiah, who will do justice and bring peace and happiness; the peoples who submit to Israel will be saved, while the enemies will be slain.
The vision of the Messiah in the Syriac Apocalypse of B., as in general in Jewish apocalyptic literature (v.), is entirely set against a political-national backdrop; it envisages a temporal kingdom of Israel under the scepter of the Messiah, which is pursued between the end of the present world and the beginning of the future world. Despite the frequent repetitions of ideas and new motifs not always strictly connected and even some doctrinal discrepancies, there is no reason to think of multiple written sources and different compilers (R. Kabisch and E. De Faye speak of distinct documents, R. H. Charles of 6 or 7). As in all apocalyptic writings, the notions are often jumbled together, and there are echoes of diverse traditions and disparate images that the authors failed to harmonize. Since this is a law of the literary genre, the best critics (C. Clemen, E. Schürer, M. J. Lagrange, J. B. Frey) favor the unity of the book and its author. Moreover, it is not difficult to discern, amid the tangle of concepts and images, a unifying background in the ever-present vision of the Messiah, who is the point of reference and object of expectation. Within this messianic-eschatological framework, the entire history of Israel and the world is seen, and important theological-moral notions are inserted, largely derived from the Old Testament. Overall, the theology is essentially juridical, not without Christian influences, and reflects particularly the eschatological notions of the Jews in the apostolic age, steeped in messianic hopes of a political-nationalist nature.
The Apocalypse of Baruch the Syrian and 4 Ezra are the only two apocryphal works explicitly judged to affirm, despite inaccuracies, a connection between the sin of Adam and the death that followed for all men, as well as the hereditary nature of that first sin. Both describe, more clearly than the others, the state of the afterlife: Hades or Sheol is the common abode of the dead until the final judgment; but the righteous rest with their fathers awaiting the resurrection, while the wicked are tormented along with the enemies of Israel. Due to the emphasis placed on the necessity and value of works, R. H. Charles believes that the Apocalypse of Baruch the Syrian presents the ordinary Judaism of the 1st century, namely the doctrine that man is justified by the Law. The hypothesis that Paul’s conception of Christ as the Second Adam derives from Baruch the Syrian must be excluded (cf. A. Vitti, Apocal. B. siriaca, in Biblica, 7 [1926], pp. 384-92).