iii. 6. 10: Matt. xxiv. 29, &c.-iv. 13: Rev. vii. 3— iv. 14: Matt. xxiv. 3-iv. 21: Rev. i. 15; xiv. 2; xix. 6-iv. 22: Rev. xx. 12-iv. 26: 1 Cor. xv. 52 or 1 Thess. iv. 16-iv. 30: Matt. xvi. 28, or John viii. 52-vi. 1: Rev. xx. 1. 3, or ix. 1, &c. or Matt. xiii. 42. 50-vi. 20; viii. 1, 2. 6: Matt. xx. 16-vi. 50; viii. 38: Rev. xiv. 13, or Luke xii. 33—vi. 71; vii. 30: Matt. xiii. 43-vi. 71: Luke xx. 36-vi. 76: Acts i. 25-viii. 26: Hebrews i. 7-ix. 2, 3: Matt. xxiv. 7: Luke xxi. 25-ix. 8: Matt. xxiv. 13— xiii. 2: Matt. xxiv. 30-xiii. 3: Rev. xx. 11-xiii. 36: Matt. xxiv. 7—xiii. 54—Matt. xi. 27—xiii. 55: Luke xvii. 22. 24-xiv. 7: Philipp. i. 23.

Ch. iv. 1. we have the Son of man, ázλs, a phrase decidedly Christian; iv. 13. and elsewhere repeatedly, faith, absolutely mentioned also; xiii. 54. xiv. 7. the Son, absolutely; xiii. 50. his day, absolutely; all evangelical or Christian modes of speech.

Independent however of these internal evidences of what the author was-I think a clear proof that he was a Christian of some denomination or other, would be supplied by iv. 30. alone: "In that day, "shall they behold those men who have ascended (into heaven) without tasting death from their "birth."

If the only persons who ever ascended into heaven without having died, were Enoch and Elijah, these men must be Enoch and Elijah: and the verse in question predicts their appearance again just on the eve of the establishment of the Messiah's kingdom upon earth; such being the general subject of that part of the book, to which this verse belongs. Now the expectation of a personal reappearance of both

these parties in conjunction, and not of one of them merely (Elijah) distinct from the other, is an expectation which we have seen to be purely Christian; which no one entertained, who had not heard of the two witnesses in Revelation, and of the Christian gloss upon them, that they were Enoch and Elijah.

Again, the end of the world is repeatedly spoken of as at hand, and the latter times as current, when the author was writing; and the likeP. In particular, at xiv. 8, 9; which I shall quote:

66

"For the world has past its youth, and the times grow old.

"The world is distributed into ten periods. To "the tenth is it arrived, and a half of that tenth "remaineth."

The part which answers to this in the Vulgate 4, certainly differs materially from it; but Dr. Laurence has shewn that the true reading is the Ethiopic r. There is another text in the Vulgate (vii. 28.) which predicts the appearance of Jesus by name, within four hundred years; and though the Ethiopic, in the parallel place, v. 29. reads simply, “my "Messiah," for, "my Son Jesus," and omits the date, yet there seems no reason, why we should not suppose the date at least to be genuine, whether the name of Jesus is so, or not. At the end of the work in the Ethiopic, xiv. 52. we meet with a subscription, which makes it bear date A. M. 5092. in the fourth of the Sabbatic years, on the tenth night of the third month.

If these dates are consistent with each other, the

P Chap. ii. 35. 41-43. 52-61. iii. 5; viii. 60, &c. ix. 1. 9 Chap. xiv. 10—12. r Gen. Rem. 296.

end of the world, as synchronous with the appearance of the Messiah, about four hundred years after the supposed date of the vision of Esdras, will be about A. M. 5491 or 92: which may perhaps authorise us in assuming that the Pseudo-Esdras was one, who expected the end of the world, ushered in by the appearance of the Messiah, described as above, A. M. 5500. Consequently, if all his ten periods before alluded to, are of equal duration, each of them contains a period of 550 years; and the half of any of them is 275 years. The assumed date of the vision, then, being A. M. 5092. it might well be said the tenth period was arrived at that time; and when it is further said, that an half of this tenth was remaining, though it certainly implies that not less than 275 years had yet to elapse before the time of the end would arrive, it does not necessarily imply that there might not be more. As referred to the assumed date of the vision, it might be any number of years not more than 400, nor less than 275.

Let us suppose, upon the warrant of his own intimations, that the Pseudo-Esdras thought the end of the world was at hand in his days; and also, as we shall see reason for concluding by and by, that his age was the end of the first century. He was living on this supposition, about A. M. 5500, and A. D. 100: 408 years later than his supposed time of Esdras, whom he personated, himself. This places his supposed time of Esdras about three hundred years before the Christian era; no very improbable position for the chronology of a writer, whose dates are not the most exact; especially if he placed the mission of Esdras in the reign of Artaxerxes Mnemon, and not of Artaxerxes Longimanus.

But the precise age of the writer is most satisfactorily to be inferred from the symbolical vision of the eagle, with its Twelve wings, and its Eleven heads; of which we have the account, chapters xi. xii. of the Ethiopic version.

It is agreed upon by all the commentators on this part of the Pseudo-Esdras, that the eagle denotes the Roman empire; answering to the fourth beast, as the representative of the fourth kingdom in Daniel; which, in fact, is plainly declared in the account of the vision, given by the book itself. But what is to be understood by its Twelve wings and its Eleven heads, there is a great difference of opinion among those who have thought it worth their while to discuss this subject. Dr. Laurence proposes his own mode of solving the enigmat; to which, while I refer the reader, I regret that it is not in my power to do so, with the expression of my assent to it.

The wings and the heads of this eagle appear to me to be quite distinct things, and to require to be distinctly considered: in which distinction the main point to be attended to, in my opinion, is this; that in what relates to the Twelve wings the vision is purely historical; in what relates to the Eleven heads, it is purely prophetical; both being referred to the time of the real author, whosoever he was, and not to that of the Pseudo-Esdras, whom he personates. Here we have the solution of the whole riddle. The reason of the thing forces upon us the necessity of some such distinction, if the author of

8 Chap. xi. 43, 44; xii. 16, 17.

t Gen. Rem. 311–317.

the vision was not truly the person which he professes to be. The symbolical representation which he supposes to pass before the eyes of Esdras, prophetically of course as referred to him, extends from the rise of the Roman empire to its dissolution and extinction; and these are made synchronous with the time of the end.

If the real author of the book, then, however near he might suppose himself to the time of the end, was not living and writing at the actual time thereof; and even though living under the Roman empire, and contemplating the futurity of its destruction sometime or other, if he was not living at the very time when that destruction took place; it is quite certain that he must be speaking prophetically in reference to each of these events; and it is equally certain that he was competent to speak historically of whatever had preceded them, up to his own time at least. The particulars of the vision which concern the Eleven heads, are manifestly such as relate to these two events, both of which pass beyond the time of the real author of it; and considered with reference to his personal knowledge and observation cannot be treated as historical in any sense, though they may be as prophetical.

It would be ridiculous and absurd, then, to search in the history of the Roman empire, for any facts which may be expected to tally with the account of these Eleven heads, as we have it related in the symbolical vision; unless we supposed the vision a real one, and the Pseudo-Esdras really endued with the spirit of prophecy, which enabled him to anticipate and describe beforehand the true course of future events. The history of the Eleven heads may ex