In book 18 of his City of God, Augustine wrote the following:
After these three Prophets, Aggeus, Zacharias, and
Malachias, but during the period of freedom following upon the Babylonian
captivity, Esdras wrote a book which is historical rather than prophetic. The
same is true of the Book of Esther, whose exploit for God’s glory took place
not long after those days. However, one might say that Esdras did prophesy
Christ in the passage where some young men are discussing the question as to
which is the most powerful of all things. The first man said, a king; the second,
wine; the third, the woman who usually gives the king his orders. Then the
third said ‘No,’ and proceeded to prove that the truth is all-prevailing. Now,
when we turn to the Gospel, we see that the truth is Christ. (Augustine, City
of God, 18.36.1, in Augustine of Hippo, The City of God, Books XVII-XXII
[trans. Gerald G. Walsh and Daniel J. Honan; The Fathers of the Church;
Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 1954], 142-43)
Here, Augustine believes 1
Esdras 3:4-12 to be prophetic scripture, prophesying of Jesus Christ. The text
reads as follows:
4 Then the three young men of the bodyguard, who
kept guard over the person of the king, said to one another, “Let each of us
state what one thing is strongest; and to the one whose statement seems wisest,
King Darius will give rich gifts and great honors of victory. He shall be
clothed in purple, and drink from gold cups, and sleep on a gold bed, and have
a chariot with gold bridles, and a turban of fine linen, and a necklace around
his neck; and because of his wisdom he shall sit next to Darius and shall be
called Kinsman of Darius.” Then each wrote his own statement, and they sealed
them and put them under the pillow of King Darius, and said, “When the
king wakes, they will give him the writing; and to the one whose statement the
king and the three nobles of Persia judge to be wisest the victory shall be
given according to what is written.” The first wrote, “Wine is strongest.” The
second wrote, “The king is strongest.” The third wrote, “Women are
strongest, but above all things truth is victor.” (NRSV)
Augustine was not the only
person intrigued by this pericope. As Dieter Böhler noted:
Only the story of the bodyguards played a part in the
reception history of 1 Esdras. Josephus uses 1 Esdras exclusively in his Jewish
Antiquities XI, not 2 Esdras (=Ezr-Neh). Augustine was fascinated by the speech
on truth, which he interpreted in De
civitate Dei XVIII, 36 as a prophecy of Christ. Thomas Aquinas devoted one
of his Quaestiones quodlibetales (XII
q 13 a 21) to the question “Utrum veritas
sit fortior inter vinum et regem et mulierem” [whether truth is stronger
than wine and the king and women], and Martin Luther thought that in 1 Esdras
“there are also some good bits … as on wine, women, and kings” (Tischreden I, 337). (Dieter
Böhler, 1 Esdras [trans. Linda M. Maloney; International Exegetical
Commentary on the Old Testament; Stuttgart: W. Kohlhammer, 2016], 109)
Another scholar, Jacob M.
Myers commented that
Prosper Aquitanus (fifth century) agrees fully with I
Esdras (de promissionibus et
praedictionibus dei II, c. 36–38) and Sulpicius Severus quotes 1 Esd 3:4 in
Hist. sacra II. (Jacob M.
Myers, I and II Esdras: Introduction, Translation, and Commentary [AYB
42; New Haven: Yale University Press, 2008], 18)
Augustine, who was a leading
figure at the Councils of Hippo and Carthage, believed that 1 Esdras (Esdras A)
was part of the canon, and that Ezra/Nehemiah was the “second” book of Esdras
(for those familiar with the “Esdras issue” vis-à-vis the canon dogmatized at
the Council of Trent). On this, see, for e.g.:
1 Esdras and the Canon of the Council of Trent
Edmon L. Gallagher and John D. Meade on "Esdras"
The Freestanding Books of the Apocrypha and Early Christian Lists of the Old Testament
For a Roman Catholic response, see:
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