VERSION OF BIBLE AND THEOLOGY OF WESTERN CHURCH. 147 



that chapter was so abrupt as to strike even the most 

 superficial reader ; 83f. gives an account of the final judgment — 

 *' The most high shall be revealed upon the seat of judgment and 

 compassion shall pass away and longsuffering shall be withdrawn: 

 (34) but judgment only shall remain, truth shall stand, and faith 

 shall wax strong ; (35) and the work shall follow, and the reward 

 shall beshewed,and good deeds shall awake." Verse 36 proceeds 

 with a completely irrelevant question of Esdras to the angel : 



And I answered and said, How do we find now that first 

 Abraham prayed for the people of Sodom, and Moses for the 

 fathers that sinned in the wilderness ?"etc. The reason of this 

 abrupt change is that originally a long discussion occurred 

 between Esdras and the angel, at the end of which Esdras asked 

 the angel whether in the day of judgment (verse 102) the just 

 will be able to intercede for the ungodly or to entreat the Most 

 High for them. The angel returns a very decided negative : 

 " Never shall any one pray for another in that day, neither shall 

 one lay a burden on another, for then shall all bear every one 

 his own righteousness or unrighteousness." Such a statement as 

 this did not prove acceptable to some early theologian, and he 

 got out of the difficulty, not by erasing the verse, but by tearing- 

 out the whole page which contained the verse. By a strange 

 fate almost all the Latin copies of the 4th Book of Esdras were 

 derived from this mutilated exemplar, and it was not till 

 B. L. Bensly in 1875 published his Missing Fragment of the 

 Fourth Book of Ezra that we realized what we had lost for so 

 many centuries. 



Samuel Berger* has shewn by a series of extracts from MSS. 

 of different centuries how the text in II Maccabees xii, 46, with 

 regard to praying for the dead, gradually increased in strength. 

 The first group of MSS. is that of the Old Latin ; these repro- 

 duce the LXX (B) text, and simply mention with approval the 

 fact that Judas prayed for the dead : " Holy and godly was the 

 thought. Wherefore he made supplication for them that had 

 died, that they might be released from their sin " (Sancta et 

 salubris excogitatio. Ideoque exorabat pro mortuis illis qui 

 peccaverant, ut a peccato solverentur). The Vulgate MSS. of 

 the oldest type alter this a little ; it becomes : " Sancta et 

 salubris cogitatio pro defunctis exorare ut a peccato solverentur " 

 (" It was a holy and sound thought to pray for the departed, 



* Histoire de la Vulgate pendant les premiers Siecles du Moyen Age, 

 p. 23. 



L 2 



