Esdras

ESDRAS. - Priest and scribe (Heb. 'Esrā'; Septuagint 'Eσ[ē]σ[ē] = 'E[σ]σ; Vulgate Esdras) who played a leading part in the Jewish restoration in Jerusalem after the exile. His activity, carried on in difficult circumstances, is related in the books of Ezra and Nehemiah. The two books, which continue the history of Paralipomena, are not so much two distinct works as two parts of the same one. The ancients regarded them as a single book (Fl. Josephus, Melito of Sardis, Origen, Epiphanius, Jerome); the Septuagint joins them together. Their subject is one: the restoration of the Israelite nation after the Babylonian exile; their purpose is identical: to proclaim God's faithfulness and to commend observance of the law; the same character is found in the 23 chapters that make up the whole narrative.

I. SUBJECT MATTER

The two books cover the period from 537 to 433 B.C. or, according to others, to 398 B.C., in addition to later additions. The author does not present a continuous history of this period, but relates only certain events: the first return of the exiles led by Zerubbabel and the rebuilding of the Temple (Ezra 1-6); the second repatriation of exiles led by E., in the 7th year of Artaxerxes, and the religious restoration (Ezra 7-10); the rebuilding of the city walls by Nehemiah amid much opposition (Neh. 1-6) and the political and religious organization of the Jewish community (Neh. 7-13). Various catalogues (Ezra 2:1-70; 8:1-20; 10:18-44; Neh. 3:1-31; 7:6-69; 10:1-27; 11:4-12:25) list the families that returned, the rebuilders of the walls, and the signatories of the renewed covenant.

II. AUTHOR

Jewish tradition stands for E. (Bābha' Bāthra', 15; Sanhedhrin, 93b), followed by Lamy, Kaulen, Cornely-Hagen, Hetzenauer, Seisenberger, Vigouroux, Fillion, Pelt, Sales, Hoberg. Not a few, however, hold that additions were made to the work of E., which Hoberg, for example, assigns to the Hellenistic period. But it is more probable (Herbst, Haneberg, Bertheau, Fischer, Mangenot, Höpfl, Cornely-Merk) that the work was compiled at a time later than E. from historical documents of the time of E. and of Nehemiah. Indeed, it speaks of the "days of Nehemiah the governor and of E. the priest" (Neh. 12, 26) and of the "days of Zerubbabel and of Nehemiah" (Neh. 12, 46) as of a past time; Darius the Persian (Neh. 12, 22) is Darius III Codomannus (335-330); E. is praised as "a scribe skilled in the Law" (Estd. 7, 6, 11). Jewish tradition will have drawn on the Ezra sources cited (Estd. 7, 1-10, 44; Neh. 7, 73-10, 4).

III. CHRONOLOGY

E. came to Palestine in the 7th year of Artaxerxes; Nehemiah in the 20th year and then in the 32nd year of Artaxerxes. This concerns Artaxerxes I or II (v.). It was commonly admitted that E. had come in the 7th year of Artaxerxes I Longimanus (458 B.C.), and Nehemiah in 445 and 433 (the 20th and 32nd years of the same king). A. van Hoonacker (followed by Torrey, Klamath, Touzard, Sales, Ricciotti) in 1890 advanced the hypothesis that the first to come to Jerusalem would have been Nehemiah, in the 20th year of Artaxerxes I (445 B.C.), as prefect of the province; there with E. he renewed the covenant (Neh. 8-10); then E. returned to Babylon, whence he set out at the head of the returned exiles in the 7th year of Artaxerxes II (398 B.C.). The principal reasons adduced by van Hoonacker are: 1. when Nehemiah deals with Artaxerxes and when he speaks of those who returned before him, he makes no mention of E.; 2. Nehemiah openly accuses the governors and leaders before him of being oppressors and exploiters: could E. have been so condemned?; 3. when Nehemiah arrives at Jerusalem, the walls of the city still lie in ruins on the ground, whereas in the times of E. there is a datum (Estd. 9, 9) that presupposes the circuit of the walls completed; 4. at that time Sanballat the Horonite, Tobiah the Ammonite, etc., lorded it over Jerusalem: of them there is no trace under E.; 5. E. makes a contemporary of Johanan son of Eliashib (Estd. 10, 6), who is probably the third in the list of high priests, of whom in Neh. 12, 22. But such motives do not seem sufficient to admit so notable a displacement in the sacred text. In the time of Nehemiah, in fact, the Jews provided for the sacred cult at their own expense (Neh. 10, 32 agg.); under E., on the other hand, the colony of the Jews was so poor that it had to provide for the cult with the royal treasury (Estd. 7, 20), a poverty that is better explained in a time prior to Nehemiah. The solution of the mixed marriages supposes the present order, and if in Nehemiah there is no mention of the preceding work of E., this is due to its little happy outcome. Nor is it proved that Johanan, son of Eliashib

(Ezra 10:6), is identical with the high priest Johanan, grandson of Eliashib (Neh. 12:10 ff.); perhaps he is the son of the priest Eliashib, who was in charge of the treasury chamber (Neh. 13:4). E.'s authority is rather religious, and therefore Nehemiah's enemies did not hinder the internal religious reform; hence Nehemiah's complaints against his predecessors do not touch E. The gādheh ("wall"), of which E. speaks in the humble prayer to God, can only have the figurative sense of "protection" (cf. Ps. 79 [80]:13), since it is added: "in Judah and in Jerusalem" (Ezra 9:9). The traditional chronology seems confirmed by the papyri of Elephantine (v.), of about 410 B.C., since mention is made of a letter written to the sons of Nehemiah's adversary, Sanballat, evidently already dead. There seems, therefore, to be no doubt about the time of Nehemiah's mission. The traditional order of our books is thus always preferred by the great majority of Catholics and non-Catholics.

IV. HISTORICAL AUTHORITY

The historical authority of Ezra-Nehemiah is attested by the attached documents and by its perfect agreement with Persian history. The differences in names in the lists of exiles are explained by the usual fluctuations in the transcription of names.

The religious policy of Cyrus (v.) and the agreement with protocol expressions found elsewhere assure us of the historicity of the edict of liberation in which Yahweh is named. The silence of Ezek. 44-50 should not be more surprising than the omission of Asa and Jehoshaphat, kings of Judah. Jewish and Christian tradition, which admits the divine authority of Ezra-Nehemiah, a fortiori admits its historical authority; and rightly so. The Elephantine papyri, documents so akin to Ezra-Nehemiah in content and phraseology, confirm its historicity.

V. THE ACTIVITY OF EZRA

E., a priest and scribe, carried out his activity in difficult circumstances. After the decree of liberation issued by Cyrus (year 538), in 537, apparently in the spring, the first group of exiles set out, under the leadership of Zerubbabel and the high priest Joshua. Work on the new temple was begun at once (v. AGGEO).

From the times of Darius I (year 521) onward the Jewish community of Jerusalem continued to be governed by two leaders: the gehāh "prefect," and the high priest. Under these leaders the community lived in obscurity until the middle of the 5th century. Economic conditions were difficult and moral conditions hardly prosperous. Encouraged by a benevolent decree (Ezra 7:11-26) of Artaxerxes I (7th year = 458 B.C.), E. came from Babylon at the head of the second company of repatriated exiles. Possible the Yahwistic spirit; his mission was principally religious. The caravan, of about 1800 men, set out on the 12th of Nisan 458. E. eliminated the grave abuse of mixed marriages, which had become prevalent among the leading men. At the Temple and before the people E. confessed to Yahweh the grave public crime. Moved, the people swore, beginning with the guilty priests and Levites, to send away at once the foreign women with their children. Because of the difficulty of sending away the women and children immediately and in the rainy season (20th of Kislev = Nov.-Dec.), a commission presided over by E. decided on individual cases. But it seems that, once the first enthusiasm wore off, the success was not great, as the abrupt ending of Ezra suggests and as Nehemiah confirms (9:2; 10:30; 13:3).

God soon sent E. a help in Nehemiah, in the 20th year of Artaxerxes. Once the walls, gates and towers of Jerusalem had been rebuilt in 52 days, E. (Neh. 8), on the feast of the new year, read to the assembled people the Law that had fallen into disuse. He added some exhortations. During the subsequent feast of Tabernacles (Neh. 9, 13 ff.) for 8 days there was the daily reading of the Law. The people and the Levites were once again initiated into the Mosaic prescriptions. Having prepared itself with fasting, penance, confession and prayer, Israel renewed the covenant. With this restoration the mission of E. seems to have come to an end.

According to Jewish tradition, E. collected the sacred books; he would then have died in Persia, where his tomb is still shown at el-'Osejr or el-'Esr ("E.") on the Tigris, 40 km. from its confluence with the Euphrates; but Flavius Josephus places his death in Jerusalem. It is to be presumed that, along with Nehemiah (2 Macc. 3:13), E. occupied himself with preserving and arranging the deposit of the inspired books (v. ESDRA, IV BOOK of).

Vincenzo M. Jacono