ALLUSIONS IN SACRED BOOKS OF THE EAST. 



203 



indeed, up to a hundred years ago, that these aerolites are the 

 products of storm-clouds, and are generated, along with 

 lightning and hail, in the upper atmosphere. 



"The ahove are instances of the mechanical use that the 

 author of IV Ezra makes of astronomical imagery to elaborate 

 his thought. In a similar fashion he makes use of number. In 

 his day — and indeed in most ages, even in our own — it is thought 

 that there is a mystery of number ; that in certain abstract num- 

 bers there resides a concrete virtue or malignity. Some numbers 

 are perfect ; perfect, it is implied in themselves, so that even 

 God is bound to employ them, for otherwise He would fall short 

 of perfection. This belief in the holiness and power of certain 

 given numbers is a superstition at the base of many incantations 

 and magical formulas in all races."* 



iv Ezra is an apocalyptic book, written by a faithful Jew, one 

 who turns to God in almost passionate reproach for the 

 disasters which have fallen upon His chosen and peculiar 

 people, but, at the same time, in unshaken faith that in the end 

 God will again be favourable and restore and exalt them. Of 

 all the numerous apocalyptic books which have attracted the 

 attention of scholars in recent years, it is the only one that has 

 attained semi-canonical estimation ; if the simile may be 

 allowed, it has gained admission to the Court of the Gentiles. 

 And not quite unworthily, for with all its many and 

 conspicuous faults, it was at least the expression of a man of 

 intense earnestness, who felt to the quick the destruction of the 

 Temple, the dispersion and sufferings of his people, the down- 

 fall of his hopes and of the Messianic Empire. 



But many of the other apocalypses, and in particular the two 

 bearing the name of Enoch have, of late, had conferred upon 

 them a position which, if confirmed, would raise them far above 

 IV Ezra in importance, iv Ezra was written at the end of the 

 first or the beginning of the second century of our era, long after 

 the initiation of Christianity. These other books are alleged, 

 on the contrary, to have been written before our Lord's 

 Ministry, and therefore to reveal to us the religious views 

 current at that time. It is said that they represent, even if 

 they did not themselves actually form, the background which 



* The International Journal of Apocrypha for July, 1912, pp. 4G-52, 

 " The Astronomy of the Apocrypha," by E. Walter Maunder. 



