VOLUME X SLICE I Evangelical Church Conference to Fairbairn, Sir William (continued 11)

3. Others like Michaelis, Trendelenburg, Pohlmann, Herzfeld, Fritzsche hold it to be a direct and independent translation of the Hebrew. There is much to be said in favour of this view. It presupposes in reality two independent recensions of the Hebrew text, such as we cannot reasonably doubt existed at one time of the Book of Daniel. Against this it has been urged that the story of the three pages was written originally in Greek (Ewald, Schürer, Thackeray). The only grounds for this theory are the easiness of the Greek style and the paronomasia in iv. 62 ἄνεσιν καὶ ἄφεσιν. But the former is no real objection, and the latter may be purely accidental. On the other hand there are several undoubted Semiticisms. Thus we have two instances Of the split relative οὗ ... αὐτοῦ iii. 5; οὗ ... ἐπ᾽ αὐτῷ iv. 63 and the phrase pointed out by Fritzsche τὰ δίκαια ποιεῖ ἀπὸ πάντων = עשה משפט מן. It must, however, be admitted that there are fewer Hebraisms in this section of the book than in the rest.

4. Sir H.H. Howorth in the treatises referred to at the close of this article has shown cogent grounds for regarding 1 Esdras as the original and genuine Septuagint translation, and 2 Esdras as probably that of Theodotion. For this view he adduces among others the following grounds: (i.) Its use by Josephus, who apparently was not acquainted with 2 Esdras. (ii.) Its precedence of 2 Esdras in the great uncials. (iii.) Its origin at a time when Chronicles, Ezra and Nehemiah formed a single work. (iv.) Its preservation of a better Hebrew text in many instances than 2 Esdras. (v.) The fact that 1 Esdras and the Septuagint of Daniel go back to one and the same translator, as Dr Gwynn (Dict. Christ. Biog. iv. 977) has pointed out (cf. 1 Esdr. vi. 31, and Dan. ii. 5).

This contention of Howorth has been accepted by Nestle, Cheyne, Bertholet, Ginsburg and other scholars, though they regard the question of an Aramaic original of chapters iii. 1-v. 6 as doubtful. Howorth’s further claim that he has established the historical credibility of the book as a whole and its chronological accuracy as against the canonical Ezra has not as yet met with acceptance; but his arguments have not been fairly met and answered.

5. Volz (Encyc. Bibl. ii. 1490) thinks that the solution of the problem is to be found in a different direction. The text is of unequal value, and the inequalities are so great as to exclude the supposition that the Greek version was produced aus einem Guss. iii. 1-v. 3 is an independent narrative written originally in Greek and itself a composite production, the praise of truth being an addition, vi. 1-vii. 15, ii. 15-25a is a fragment of an Aramaic narrative. Some in Josephus (Ant. xi. 4. 9) an account of Samaritan intrigues is introduced immediately after 1 Esdras vii. 15, it is natural to infer that something of the same kind has fallen out between vi. and ii. 15-25. The Aramaic text behind 1 Esdras here is better than that behind the canonical Ezra. Next, viii.-ix. is from the Ezra document (= Ezra vii.-x.; Neh. vii. 73, viii. 1 sqq.), though implying a different Hebrew text. ii. 1-15; v. 7-73; vii. 2-4, 6-15 are from the Chronicles: likewise i. is from 2 Chron. xxxv.-vi., 2 Esdras being at the same time before the translator.

Date.—The book must be placed between 300 B.C. and A.D. 100, when it was used by Josephus. It is idle to attempt any nearer limits until definite conclusions have been reached on the chief problems of the book.

MSS. and Versions.—The book is found in B and A. The latter seems to have preserved the more ancient form of the text, as it is generally that followed by Josephus. The Old Latin in two recensions is published by Sabatier, Bibliorum sacrorum Latinae versiones antiquae, iii. Another Latin translation is given in Lagarde (Septuag. Studien, ii., 1892). In Syriac the text is found only in the Syro-Hexaplar of Paul of Tella (A.D. 616). See Walton’s Polyglott. There is also an Ethiopic version edited by Dillmann (Bibl. Vet. Test. Aeth. v., 1894) and an Armenian.

Literature.—Exegesis: Fritzsche, Exeget. Handb. zu den Apokr. (1851); Zöckler, Die Apokryphen, 155-161 (1891); Bissell in Lange-Schaff’s Comm. (1880); Lupton in Speaker’s Comm. (1888); Ball, notes to 1 Esdr. in the Variorum Apocrypha. Introduction and critical Inquiries: Trendelenburg, “Apocr. Esra,” in Eichhorn’s Allgem. Bibl. der bibl. Litt. i. 178-232 (1787); Pohlmann, “Über das Ansehen der apokr. dritten Buchs Esras,” in Tübingen Theol. Quartalschrift, 257-275 (1859); Sir H. Howorth, “Character and Importance of 1 Esdras,” in the Academy (1893), pp. 13, 60, 106, 174, 326, 524; and further studies entitled “Some Unconventional Views on the Text of the Bible,” in the Proceedings of the Society of Biblical Archaeology, 1901, pp. 147-159; 306-330, 1902, June and November.

(R. H. C.)

1 “At the Council of Trent (when the Septuagint Canon was virtually accepted as authoritative), by a most curious aberration, Esdras iii. and iv. and the Epistle of Manasseh were alone excluded from the canon and remitted to our appendix.”—Howorth, “Unconventional Views on the Text of the Bible,” in the P.S.B.A., 1901, p. 149.

EZRA, FOURTH BOOK (or Apocalypse) OF. This is the most profound and touching of the Jewish Apocalypses. It stands in the relation of a sister work to the Apocalypse of Baruch, but though the relation is so close, they have many points of divergence. Thus, whereas the former represents the ordinary Judaism of the 1st century of the Christian era, the teaching of 4 Ezra on the Law, Works, Justification, Original Sin and Free Will approximates to the school of Shammai and serves to explain the Pauline doctrines on those subjects; but to this subject we shall return.

Original Language and Versions.—In the Latin version our book consists of sixteen chapters, of which, however, only iii.-xiv. are found in the other versions. To iii.-xiv., accordingly, the present notice is confined. After the example of most of the Latin MSS. we designate the book 4 Ezra (see Bensly-James, Fourth Book of Ezra, pp. xxiv-xxvii). In the First Arabic and Ethiopic versions it is called 1 Ezra; in some Latin MSS. and in the English Authorized Version it is 2 Ezra, and in the Armenian 3 Ezra. Chapters i.-ii. are sometimes called 3 Ezra, and xv.-xvi. 5 Ezra. All the versions go back to a Greek text. This is shown by the late Greek apocalypse of Ezra (Tischendorf, Apocalypses Apocryphae, 1866, pp. 24-33), the author of which was acquainted with the Greek of 4 Ezra; also by quotations from it in Barn, iv. 4; xii. 1 = 4 Ezra xii. 10 sqq., v. 5; Clem. Alex. Strom. iii. 16 (here first expressly cited) = 4 Ezra v. 35, &c. (see Bensly-James, op. cit. pp. xxvii-xxxviii). The derivation of the Latin version from the Greek is obvious when we consider its very numerous Graecisms. Thus the genitive is found after the comparative (v. 13) horum majora; xi. 29 duorum capitum majus, even the genitive absolute as in x. 9, the double negative, de and ex with the genitive. Peculiar genders can only be accounted for by the influence of the original forms in Greek, as x. 23 signaculum (σφραγίς) . . . tradita est; xi. 4 caput (κεφαλή) ... sed et ipsa. In vi. 25 we have the Greek attraction of the relative—omnibus istis quibus praedixi tibi. In his Messias Judaeorum (1869), pp. 36-110, Hilgenfeld has given a reconstruction of the Greek text. Till 1896 only Ewald believed that 4 Ezra was written originally in Hebrew. In that year Wellhausen (Gött. Gel. Anz. pp. 12-13) and Charles (Apoc. Bar. p. lxxii) pointed out that a Hebrew original must be assumed on various grounds; and this view the former established in his Skizzen u. Vorarbeiten, vi. 234-240 (1899). Of the numerous grounds for this assumption it will be necessary only to adduce such constructions as “de quo me interrogas de eo,” iv. 28, and xiii. 26, “qui per semet ipsum liberabit” (= אשר-בו) = “through whom he will deliver,” or to point to such a mistranslation as vii. 33, “longanimitas congregabitur,” where for “congregabitur” (= יאסף) we require “evanescet,” which is another and the actual meaning of the Hebrew verb in this passage. The same mistranslation is found in the Vulgate in Hosea iv. 3. Gunkel has adopted this view in his German translation of the book in Kautzsch’s Apok. und Pseud, des A. Testaments, ii. 332-333, and brought forward in confirmation the following remarkable instance in viii. 23, where though the Latin, Syriac, Ethiopic, Arabic and Armenian Versions read testificatur, the Second Arabic version and the Apostolic Constitutions have μένει εἰς τὸν αἰῶνα, which are to be explained as translations of עמדת לעד (לע. Another interesting case is found in xiv. 3, where the Latin and all other versions but Arabic[2] read super rubum and the Arabic[2] in monte Sinai. Here there is a corruption of סנה “bush” into סיני “Sinai.”

Latin Version.—All the older editions of this version, as those of Fabricius, Sabatier, Volkmar, Hilgenfeld, Fritzsche, as well as in the older editions of the Bible, are based ultimately on only one MS., the Codex Sangermanensis (written A.D. 822), as Gildemeister proved in 1865 from the fact that the large fragment between verses 36 and 37 in chapter vii., which is omitted in all the above editions, originated through the excision of a leaf in this MS. A splendid edition of this version based on MSS. containing the missing fragment, which have been subsequently discovered, has been published by Bensly-James, op. cit. This edition has taken account of all the important MSS. known, save one at Leon in Spain.

Syriac Version.—This version, found in the Ambrosian Library in Milan, was translated into Latin by Ceriani, Monumenta sacra et profana, II. ii. pp. 99-124 (1866). Two years later this scholar edited the Syriac text, op. cit. V. i. pp. 4-111, and in 1883 reproduced the MS. by photo-lithography (Translatio Syra Peshitto V.T. II. iv. pp. 553-572). Hilgenfeld incorporated Ceriani’s Latin translation in his Messias Judaeorum. This translation needs revision and correction.

Ethiopic Version.—First edited and translated by Laurence, Primi Ezrae libri versio Aethiopica (1820). Laurence’s Latin translation was corrected by Praetorius and reprinted in Hilgenfeld’s Messias Judaeorum. In 1894 Dillmann’s text based on ten MSS. was published—V.T. Aeth. libri apocryphi, v. 153-193.

Arabic Versions.—The First Arabic version was translated from a MS. in the Bodleian Library into English by Ockley (in Whiston’s Primitive Christianity, vol. iv. 1711). This was done into Latin and corrected by Steiner for Hilgenfeld’s Mess. Jud. The Second Arabic version, which is independent of the first, has been edited from a Vatican MS. and translated into Latin by Gildemeister, 1877.

Armenian Version.—First printed in the Armenian Bible (1805). Translated into Latin by Petermann for Hilgenfeld’s Mess. Jud.; next with Armenian text and English translation by Issaverdens in the Uncanonical Writings of the Old Testament, pp. 488 sqq. (Venice, 1901).

Georgian Version.—According to F.C. Conybeare an accurate Georgian version made from the Greek exists in an 11th-century MS. at Jerusalem.

Relation of the above Versions.—These versions stand in the order of worth as follows: Latin, Syriac, Ethiopic. The remaining versions are paraphrastic and less accurate, and are guilty of additions and omissions. All the versions, save the Second Arabic one, go back to the same Greek version. The Second Arabic version presupposes a second Greek version.

Modern Versions.—All the English versions are now antiquated, except those in the Variorum Apocrypha and the Revised Version of the Apocrypha, and even these are far from satisfactory. Similarly, all the German versions are behindhand, except the excellent version of Gunkel in Apok. u. Pseud. ii. 252-401, which, however, needs occasional correction.

Contents.—The book (iii.-xiv.) consists of seven visions or parts, like the apocalypse of Baruch. They are: (1) iii. 1-v. 19; (2) v. 20-vi. 34; (3) vi. 35-ix. 25; (4) ix. 26-x. 60; (5) xi. 1-xii. 51; (6) xiii.; (7) xiv. These deal with (1) religious problems and speculations and (2) eschatological questions. The first three are devoted to the discussion of religious problems affecting in the main the individual. The presuppositions underlying these are in many cases the same as those in the Pauline Epistles. The next three visions are principally concerned with eschatological problems which relate to the nation. The seventh vision is a fragment of the Ezra Saga recounting the rewriting of the Scriptures, which had been destroyed. This has no organic connexion with what precedes.

First Vision. iii.-v. 19.—“In the thirtieth year after the ruin of the city I Salathiel (the same is Ezra) was in Babylon and lay troubled upon my bed.” In a long prayer Ezra asks how the desolation of Sion and the prosperity of Babylon can be in keeping with the justice of God. The angel Uriel answers that God’s ways are unsearchable and past man’s understanding. When Ezra asks when the end will be and what are the signs of it, the angel answers that the end is at hand and enumerates the signs of it.

Second Vision. v. 14-vi. 34.—Phaltiel, chief of the people, reproaches Ezra for forsaking his flock. Ezra fasts, and in his prayer asks why God had given up his people into the hands of the heathen. Uriel replies: “Lovest thou that people better than He that made them?” Man cannot find out God’s judgment. The end is at hand; its signs are recounted.

Third Vision. vi. 35-ix. 25.—Ezra recounts the works of creation, and asks why Israel does not possess the world since the world was made for Israel. The answer is that the present state is a necessary stage to the coming one. Then follows an account of the Messianic age and the resurrection: the punishment of the wicked and the blessings of the righteous. There can be no intercession for the departed. Few will be saved—only as it were a grape out of a cluster or a plant out of a forest.

Fourth Vision. ix. 26-x. 60.—Ezra eats of herbs in the field of Ardat, and sees in a vision a woman mourning for her only son. Ezra reminds her of the greater desolation of Sion. Suddenly she is transfigured and vanishes, and in her place appears a city. The woman, Uriel explains, represents Sion.

Fifth Vision. xi. i-xii. 39.—Vision of an eagle with three heads, twelve wings and eight winglets, which is rebuked by a lion and destroyed. The eagle is the fourth kingdom seen by Daniel, and the lion is the Messiah.

Sixth Vision. xiii.—Vision of a man (i.e. the Messiah) arising from the sea, who destroys his enemies who assemble against him, and gathers to him another multitude, i.e. the lost Ten Tribes.

Seventh Vision. xiv.—Ezra is told of his approaching translation. He asks for the restoration of the Law, and is enabled by God to dictate in forty days ninety-four books (the twenty-four canonical books of the Old Testament that were lost, and seventy secret books for the wise among the people).

Ezra’s translation is found in the Canon only in the Oriental Versions. In the Latin it was omitted when xv.-xvi. were added.

Integrity.—According to Gunkel (Apok. u. Pseud. ii. 335-352) the whole book is the work of one writer. Thus down to vii. 16 he deals with the problem of the origin of suffering in the world, and from vii. 17 to ix. 25 with the question who is worthy to share in the blessedness of the next world. As regards the first problem the writer shows, in the first vision, that suffering and death come from sin—no less truly on the part of Israel than of all men, for God created man to be immortal; that the end is nigh, when wrongs will be righted; God’s rule will then be recognized. In the second he emphasizes the consolation to be found in the coming time, and in the third he speaks solely of the next world, and then addresses himself to the second problem. The fourth, fifth and sixth visions are eschatological. In these the writer turns aside from the religious problems of the first three visions and concerns himself only with the future national supremacy of Israel. Zion’s glory will certainly be revealed (vision four), Israel will destroy Rome (five) and the hostile Gentiles (six). Then the book is brought to a close with the legend of Ezra’s restoration of the lost Old Testament Scriptures.

In the course of the above work there are many inconsistencies and contradictions. These Gunkel explains by admitting that the writer has drawn largely on tradition, both oral and written, for his materials. Thus he concedes that eschatological materials in v. 1-13, vi; 18-28, vii. 26 sqq., also ix. 1 sqq., are from this source, and apparently from an originally independent work, as Kabisch urges, but that it is no longer possible to separate the borrowed elements from the text. Again, in the four last visions he is obliged to make the same concession on a very large scale. Vision four is based on a current novel, which the author has taken up and put into an allegorical form. Visions five and six are drawn from oral or written tradition, and relate only to the political expectations of Israel, and seven is a reproduction of a legend, for the independent existence of which evidence is furnished by the quotations in Bensly-James pp. xxxvii-xxxviii. Thus the chief champion of the unity of the book makes so many concessions as to its dependence on previously existing sources that, to the student of eschatology, there is little to choose between his view and that of Kabisch. In fact, if the true meaning of the borrowed materials is to be discovered, the sources must be disentangled. Hence the need of some such analysis as that of Kabisch (Das vierte Buck Ezra, 1889): S = an Apocalypse of Salathiel, c. A.D. 100, preserved in a fragmentary condition, iii. 1-31, iv. 1-51, v. 13b-vi. 10, 30-vii. 25, vii. 45-viii. 62, ix. 13-x. 57, xii. 40-48, xiv. 28-35. E = an Ezra Apocalypse, c. 31 B.C., iv. 52-v. 13a, vi. 13-28, vii. 26-44, viii. 63-ix. 12. A = an Eagle Vision, c. A.D. 90, x. 60-xii. 35. M = a Son-of-Man Vision, xiii. E2 = an Ezra fragment, c. A.D. 100, xiv. 1-17a, 18-27, 36-47. All these, according to Kabisch, were edited by a Zealot, c. 120, who supplied the connecting links and made many small additions. In the main this analysis is excellent. If we assume that the editor was also the author of S, and that such a vigorous stylist, as he shows himself to be, recast to some extent the materials he borrowed, there remains but slight difference between the views of Kabisch and Gunkel. Neither view, however, is quite satisfactory, and the problem still awaits solution. Other attempts, such as Ewald’s (Gesch. d. Volkes Israel[3], vii. 69-83) and De Faye’s (Apocalypses juives, 155-165), make no contribution.

School of the Author.—The author or final redactor of the book was a pessimist, and herein his book stands in strong contrast with the Apocalypse of Baruch. Thus to the question propounded in the New Testament—“Are there few that be saved?” he has no hesitation in answering, “There be many created, but few that be saved” (viii. 3): “An evil heart hath grown up in us which hath led us astray ... and that not a few only but wellnigh all that have been created” (vii. 48). In the Apocalypse of Baruch on the other hand it is definitely maintained that not a few shall be saved (xxi. 11). Moreover, the sufferings of the wicked are so great in the next world it were better, according to 4 Ezra (as also to the school of Shammai), that man had not been born. “It is much better (for the beasts of the field) than for us; for they expect not a judgment and know not of torments” (vii. 66): yet “it would have been best not to have given a body to Adam, or that being done, to have restrained him from sin; for what profit is there that man should in the present life live in heaviness and after death look for punishment” (vii. 116, 117). In iv. 12 the nexus of life, sin and suffering just referred to, is put still more strongly: “It were better we had not been at all than that we should be born and sin and suffer.”1 The different attitude of these two writers towards this question springs from their respective views on the question of free will. The author of Baruch declares (iv. 15, 19): “For though Adam sinned and brought untimely death upon all, yet of those who were born from him each one of them prepared for his own soul torment to come, and again each one of them has chosen for himself glories to come ... each one of us has been the Adam of his own soul,” Though the writer of Ezra would admit the possibility of a few Israelites attaining to salvation through the most strenuous endeavour, yet he holds that man is all but predoomed through his original evil disposition or through the fall of Adam (vii. 118). “O Adam, what hast thou done: for though it was thou that sinned, the evil is not fallen on thee alone, but upon all of us that come of thee.”

Another contrast between the two books is that while Baruch shows some mercy to the Gentiles (lxxii. 4-6) in the Messianic period, none according to 4 Ezra and the Shammaites (Toseph. Sanh. xiii. 2) will be extended to them, (iii. 30, ix. 22 sq., xii. 34, xiii. 37 sq.).

On the above grounds it is not unreasonable to conclude that whereas the Apocalypse of Baruch owes its leading characteristics to a pupil of Hillel’s school, 4 Ezra shows just as clearly its derivation from that of Shammai. Kohler (Jewish Encyc. v. 221) points out that the view of 4 Ezra that the Ten Tribes will return was held by the Shammaites, whereas it was denied by Aqiba. The Apocalypse of Baruch is silent on this point.

Time and Place.—The work was written towards the close of the 1st century (iii. 1, 29), and somewhere in the east.

Literature.—In addition to the authorities mentioned above, see Dillmann, Herzog’s Real-Encyk.[2] xii. 353 sqq.; Schürer, Gesch. des jüd. Volkes[3], iii. 246 sqq.; and the articles on 4 Esdras in Hastings’ Bible Dictionary and the Encyclopaedia Biblica by Thackeray and James respectively.

(R. H. C.)

1 In the Apocalypse of Baruch, x. 6, we find a similar expression: “Blessed is he who was not born, or being born has died.” But here death is said to be preferable to witnessing the present woes of Jerusalem.

EZRA AND NEHEMIAH, BOOKS OF, in the Old Testament. The two canonical books entitled Ezra and Nehemiah in the English Bibie1 correspond to the 1 and 2 Esdras of the Vulgate, to the 2 Esdras of the Septuagint, and to the Ezra and Nehemiah of the Massoretic (Hebrew) text. Though for many centuries they have thus been treated as separate compositions, we have abundant evidence that they were anciently regarded as forming but one book, and a careful examination proves that together with the book of Chronicles they constitute one single work. The two books may therefore be conveniently treated together.

1. Position and Date.—Origen (Euseb, H.E. vi. 25), expressly enumerating the twenty-two books of the old covenant as acknowledged by the Jews and accepted by the Christian church, names “the First and Second Ezra in one book”; Melito of Sardis (Euseb. H.E. iv. 26) in like manner mentions the book of Ezra only. So also the Talmud (in Bābā bathrā, 14. 2), nor can it be supposed that Josephus in his enumeration (c. Ap. i. 8) reckoned Nehemiah as apart from Ezra. That the Jews themselves recognized no real separation is shown by the fact that no Massoretic notes are found after Ezra x., but at the end of Nehemiah the contents of both are reckoned together, and it is stated that Neh. iii. 22 is the middle verse of the book. Their position in the Hebrew Bible before the book of Chronicles is, however, illogical. The introductory verses of Ezra i. are identical with the conclusion of 2 Chron. xxxvi., whilst in the version of 1 Esdras no less than two chapters (2 Chron. xxxv. sq.) overlap. The cause of the separation is probably to be found in the late reception of Chronicles into the Jewish canon. Further proof of the unity of the three is to be found in the general similarity of style and treatment. The same linguistic criteria recur, and the interest in lists and genealogies, in priests and Levites, and in the temple service point unmistakably to the presence of the same hand (the so-called “chronicler”) in Chronicles-Ezra-Nehemiah. See Bible (sect. Canon); Chronicles.

The period of history covered by the books of Ezra and Nehemiah extends from the return of the exiles under Zerubbabel in 537-536 B.C. to Nehemiah’s second visit to Jerusalem in 432 B.C. In their present form, however, the books are considerably later, and allusions to Nehemiah in the past (Neh. xii. 26, 47), to the days of Jaddua (the grandson of Nehemiah’s contemporary Joiada; ib. xii. 11), to Darius (Nothus 423 B.C. or rather Codomannus 336 B.C., ib. v. 22), and the use of the term “king of Persia,” as a distinctive title after the fall of that empire (332 B.C.), are enough to show that, as a whole, they belong to the same age as the book of Chronicles.

2. Contents.—Their contents may be divided into four parts:—

(a) The events preceding the mission of Ezra (i.-vi.).—In the first year of his reign Cyrus was inspired to grant a decree permitting the Jews to return to build the temple in Jerusalem (i.); a list of families is given (ii.). The altar of burnt-offering was set up, and in the second year of the return the foundations of the new temple were laid with great solemnity (iii.). The “adversaries of Judah and Benjamin” offered to assist but were repulsed, and they raised such opposition to the progress of the work that it ceased until the second year of Darius (521-520 B.C.). Aroused by the prophets Haggai and Zechariah the building was then resumed, and despite fresh attempts to hinder the work it was completed, consecrated and dedicated in the sixth year of that king (vi.). The event was solemnized by the celebration of the Passover (cf. 2 Chron. xxx., Hezekiah; xxxv. Josiah).

(b) An interval of fifty-eight years is passed over in silence, and the rest of the book of Ezra comprises his account of his mission to Jerusalem (vii.-x.). Ezra, a scribe of repute, well versed in the laws of Moses, returns with a band of exiles in order to reorganize the religious community. A few months after his arrival (seventh year of Artaxerxes, 458 B.C.) he instituted a great religious reform, viz. the prohibition of intermarriage with the heathen of the land (cf. already vi. 21). In spite of some opposition (x. 15 obscurely worded) the reform was accepted, and the foundations of a new community were laid.

(c) Twelve years elapse before the return of Nehemiah, whose description of his work is one of the most interesting pieces of Old Testament narrative (Neh. i.-vi.). In the twentieth year of Artaxerxes (445 B.C.), Nehemiah the royal cup-bearer at Shushan (Susa, the royal winter palace) was visited by friends from Judah and was overcome with grief at the tidings of the miserable condition of Jerusalem and the pitiful state of the Judaean remnant which had escaped the captivity. He obtained permission to return, and on reaching the city made a secret survey of the ruins and called upon the nobles and rulers to assist in repairing them. Much opposition was caused by Sanballat the Horonite (i.e. of the Moabite Horonaim or Beth-horon, about 15 m. N.W. of Jerusalem), Tobiah the Ammonite, Geshem (or Gashmu) the Arabian, and the Ashdodites, whose virulence increased as the rebuilding of the walls continued. But notwithstanding attempts upon the city and upon the life of Nehemiah, and in spite of intrigues among certain members of the Judaean section, in fifty-two days the city walls were complete (Neh. vi. 15). The hostility, however, did not cease, and measures were taken to ensure the safety of the city (vi. 16-vii. 4). A valuable account is given of Nehemiah’s economical reforms, illustrating the internal social conditions of the period and the general character of the former governors who had been placed in charge (v., cf. the laws codified in Lev. xxv. 35 sqq.).

(d) The remaining chapters carry on the story of the labours of both Ezra, and Nehemiah. The list of those who returned under the decree of Cyrus is repeated (Neh. vii.), and leads up to the reading of the Law by Ezra, a great national confession of guilt, and a solemn undertaking to observe the new covenant, the provisions of which are detailed (x. 28-39). After sundry lists of the families dwelling in Jerusalem and its neighbourhood (xi. 1 sqq., apparently a sequel to vii. 1-4),2 and of various priests and Levites, an account is given of the dedication of the walls (xii. 27-43), the arrangements for the Levitical organization (vv. 44-47), and a fresh separation from the heathen (Moabites and Ammonites, xiii. 1-3; cf. Deut. xxiii. 3 seq.). The book concludes with another extract from Nehemiah’s memoirs dealing with the events of a second visit, twelve years later (xiii. 4-31). On this occasion he vindicated the sanctity of the temple by expelling Tobiah, reorganized the supplies for the Levites, took measures to uphold the observance of the Sabbath, and protested energetically against the foreign marriages. In the course of his reforms he thrust out a son of Joiada (son of Eliashib, the high-priest), who had married the daughter of Sanballat, an incident which had an important result (see Samaritans).

That these books are the result of compilation (like the book of Chronicles itself) is evident from the many abrupt changes; the inclusion of certain documents written in an Aramaic dialect (Ezr. iv. 8-vi. 18, vii. 12-26)3; the character of the name-lists; the lengthy gaps in the history; the use made of two distinct sources, attributed to Ezra and Nehemiah respectively, and from the varying form in which the narratives are cast. The chronicler’s hand can usually be readily recognized. There are relatively few traces of it in Nehemiah’s memoirs and in the Aramaic documents, but elsewhere the sources are largely coloured, if not written from the standpoint of his age. Examples of artificial arrangement appear notably in Ezr. ii.-iii. 1 compared with Neh. vii. 6-viii. 1 (first clause); in the present position of Ezr. iv. 6-23; and in the dislocation of certain portions of the two memoirs in Neh. viii.-xiii. (see below). It should be noticed that the present order of the narratives involves the theory that some catastrophe ensued after Ezr. x. and before Neh. i.; that the walls had been destroyed and the gates burnt down; that some external opposition (with which, however, Ezra did not have to contend) had been successful; that the main object of Ezra’s mission was delayed for twelve years, and, finally, that only through Nehemiah’s energy was the work of social and religious reorganization successful. These topics raise serious historical problems (see Jews: History, § 21).

3. Criticism of Ezra i.-vi.—The chronicler’s account of the destruction of Jerusalem, the seventy years’ interval (2 Chron. xxxvi. 20 sq.; cf. Jer. xxv. 11, xxix. 10, also Is. xxiii. 17), and the return of 42,360 of the exiles (Ezr. ii. 64 sqq.) represent a special view of the history of the period. The totals, as also the detailed figures, in Ezr., Neh. and 1 Esdr. v. vary considerably; the number is extremely large (contrast Jer. lii. 30); it includes the common people (contrast 2 Kings xxiv. 14, xxv. 12), and ignores the fact that Judah was not depopulated, that the Jews were carried off to other places besides Babylon and that many remained behind in Babylon. According to this view, Judah and Jerusalem were practically deserted until the return. The list in Ezr. ii. is that of families which returned “every man unto his city” under twelve leaders (including Nehemiah, Azariah [cf. Ezra], Zcrubbabel and Jeshua); it recurs with many variations in a different and apparently more original context in Neh. vii., and in 1 Esdr. v. is ascribed to the time of Darius. The families (to judge from the northwards extension of Judaean territory) are probably those of the population in the later Persian period, hardly those who returned to the precise homes of their ancestors (see C.F. Kent, Israel’s Hist. and Biogr. Narratives, p. 379). The offerings which are for the temple-service in Neh. vii. 70-72 (cf. 1 Chron. xxix. 6-8) are for the building of the temple in Ezr. ii. 68-70; and since the walls are not yet built, the topographical details in Neh. viii. 1 (see 1 Esdr. v. 47) are adjusted, and the event of the seventh month is not the reading of the Law amid the laments of the people (Neh. viii.; see vv. 9-11) but the erection of the altar by Jeshua and Zerubbabel under inauspicious circumstances (cf. Ezr. iii. 3 with 1 Esdr. v. 50).

The chronologically misplaced account of the successful opposition in the time of Ahasuerus (i.e. Xerxes) and Artaxerxes (the son and grandson of Darius respectively) breaks the account of the temple under Cyrus and Darius, and is concerned with the city walls (iv. 6-23)4; there is some obscurity in vv. 7-9: Rehum and Shimshai evidently take the lead, Tabeel may be an Aramaized equivalent of Tobiah. A recent return is implied (iv. 12) and the record hints that a new decree may be made (v. 21). The account of the unsuccessful opposition to the temple in the time of Darius (v. sq.; for another account see Jos. Ant. xi. 4, 9) is independent of iv. 7-23, and throws another light upon the decree of Cyrus (vi. 3-5, contrast i. 2-4). It implies that Sheshbazzar, who had been sent with the temple vessels in the time of Cyrus, had laid the foundations and that the work had continued without cessation (v. 16, contrast iv. 5, 24). The beginning of the reply of Darius is wanting (vi. 6 sqq.), and the decree which had been sought in Babylon is found at Ecbatana. Chap. vi. 15 sqq. follow more naturally upon v. 1-2, but v. 14 with its difficult reference to Artaxerxes now seems to presuppose the decree in iv. 21 and looks forward to the time of Ezra or Nehemiah. As regards this section (Ezr. i.-vi.) as a whole, there is little doubt that i. iii. 1-iv. 5, vi. 15-22 are from the chronicler, whose free treatment of his material is seen in the use he has made of ch. ii. Notwithstanding the unimpeachable evidence for the tolerant attitude of Persian kings and governors towards the religion of subject races, it is probable that the various decrees incorporated in the book (cf. also 1 Esdr. iv. 42 sqq.) have been reshaped from a Jewish standpoint. A noteworthy example appears in the account of the unique powers entrusted to Ezra (vii. 11-26), the introduction to whose memoirs, at all events, is quite in the style of the chronicler.

4. Memoirs of Nehemiah and Ezra.—The memoirs of Ezra and Nehemiah do not appear to have been incorporated without some adjustment. The lapse of time between Neh. i. 1 and ii. 1 is noteworthy, and with the prayer in i. 5-11 cf. Ezr. ix. 6-15, Dan. ix. 4 sqq. (also parallels in Deuteronomy); chap. i. in its present form may be a compiler’s introduction. The important topographical list in ch. iii. is probably from another source; the styie is different, Nehemiah is absent, and the high-priest is unusually prominent.5 Chap, v., where Nehemiah reviews his past conduct as governor, turns aside to economic reforms and scarcely falls within the fifty-two days of the building of the walls. The chapter is closely associated with the contents of xiii. and breaks the account of the opposition. Anticipated already in ii. 10, the hostility partly arises from the repudiation of Samaritan religious claims (ii. 20; cf. Ezr. iv. 3) and is partly political. It is difficult to follow its progress clearly, and the account ceases abruptly in. vi. 17-19 with the notice of the conspiracy of Tobiah and the nobles of Judah. The chronicler’s style can be recognized in vii. 1-5 (in its present form), where steps are taken to protect and to people Jerusalem; the older sequel is now found in ch. xi. Whilst the account of the dedication of the walls is marked by the use of the pronoun “I” (xii. 31, 38, 40), it is probably now due as a whole to the chronicler, and when the more trustworthy memoirs of Nehemiah are resumed (xiii. 4 sqq.) the episodes, although placed twelve years later (ver. 6), are intimately connected with the preceding reforms (cf. xii. 44-xiii. 3 with xiii. 10 sqq., 23 sqq.).6 Nehemiah’s attitude towards intermarriage is markedly moderate in contrast to the drastic measures of Ezra, whose mission and work the simpler and perhaps earlier narratives of Nehemiah originally ignored, and the relation between the two is complicated further by the literary character of the memoir of Ezra.

To the last mentioned are prefixed (a) the scribe’s genealogy, which traces him back to Aaron and names as his immediate ancestor, Seraiah, who had been slain 130 years previously (Ezr. vii. 1-5), and (b) an independent account of the return (vv. 6-10) with a reference to Ezra’s renown, obviously not from the hand of Ezra himself. Whatever the original prelude to Ezra’s thanksgiving may have been (vii. 27 seq.), we now have the essentially Jewish account of the letter of Artaxerxes with its unusual concessions.7 The list of those who returned amounts to the moderate total of 1496 males (viii., but 1690 in 1 Esdr. viii. 30 sqq.). Ezra’s mission was obviously concerned with the Law and Temple service (vii. 6, 10, 14 sqq., 25; viii. 17, 24-30, 33 sq.), but four months elapse between his return in the fifth month (vii. 9) and the preparations for the marriage reforms in the ninth (x. 9), and there is a delay of twelve years before the Law is read (Neh. viii.). The Septuagint version (1 Esdr. ix.; cf. Josephus, Antiq. xi. 5. 5 and some modern scholars) would place the latter after Ezr. x., but more probably this event (dated in the seventh month) should precede the great undertaking in Ezr. ix.8 That the adjustment was attended with considerable revision of the passages appears from a careful comparison of Neh. viii. sq. with Ezr. ix. sq. With Ezra’s confession (ix. 6 sqq.) compare the prayer in Neh. ix. 5 sqq., which the Septuagint ascribes to him. In Ezr. x. (written in the third person) the number of those that had intermarried with the heathen is relatively small considering the general trend of the preliminaries, and the list bears a marked resemblance to that in ch. ii. It ends abruptly and obscurely (x. 44; cf. 1 Esdr. ix. 36), and whilst as a whole the memoirs of Ezra point to ideas later than those of Nehemiah, the present close literary connexion between them is seen in the isolated reference to Johanan the son of Eliashib in Ezra x. 6, which seems to be connected with Neh. xiii. 7, and (after W.R. Smith) in the suitability of ib. xiii. 1, 2 between Ezr. x. 9 and 10. The list of signatories in Neh. x. 1-27 should be compared with the names in xii. and 1 Chron. xxiv.; the true connexion of ix. 38 is very obscure, and the relation to Ezr. ix. seq. is complicated by the reference to the separation from the heathen in Neh. ix. 2. The description of the covenant (Neh. x. 28 sqq., marked by the use of “we”) is closely connected with xii. 43-xiii. 3 (from the same or an allied source), and anticipates the parallel though somewhat preliminary measures detailed in the more genuine memoirs (Neh. xiii. 4 sqq.). Finally, the specific allusion in xiii. 1-3 to Ammon and Moab is possibly intended as an introduction to the references to Tobiah and Sanballat respectively (vv. 4 seq., 28).

5. Summary.—The literary and historical criticism of Ezra-Nehemiah is closely bound up with that of Chronicles, whose characteristic features it shares. Although the three formed a unit at one stage it may seem doubtful whether two so closely related chapters as 1 Chron. ix. and Neh. xi. would have appeared in one single work, while the repetition of Neh. vii. 6-viii. 1 in Ezr. ii.-iii. 1 is less unnatural if they had originally appeared in distinct sources. Thus other hands apart from the compiler of Chronicles may have helped to shape the narratives, either before their union with that book or after their separation.9 The present intricacy is also due partly to specific historical theories regarding the post-exilic period. Here the recension in 1 Esdras especially merits attention for its text, literary structure and for its variant traditions.10 Its account of a return in the time of Darius scarcely arose after Ezr. i.-iii. (Cyrus); the reverse seems more probable, and the possibility of some confusion or of an intentional adjustment to the earlier date is emphasized by the relation between the popular feeling in Ezr. iii. 12 (Cyrus) and Hag. ii. 3 (Darius), and between the grant by Cyrus in iii. 7 (it is not certain that he held Phoenicia) and the permit of Darius in 1 Esdr. iv. 47-57 (see v. 48). To the latter context belongs the list of names which reappears in Ezr. ii. (Cyrus). But from the independent testimony of Haggai and Zechariah it is doubtful whether the chronicler’s account of the return under Cyrus is at all trustworthy. The list in 1 Esdr. v., Ezr. ii., as already observed, appears to be in its more original context in Neh. vii., i.e. in the time of Artaxerxes, and it is questionable whether the earliest of the surviving detailed traditions in Ezra-Nehemiah went back before this reign. It is precisely at this age that there is evidence for a return, apparently other than that of Ezra or Nehemiah (see Ezr. iv. 12), yet no account seems to be preserved unless the records were used for the history of earlier periods (cf. generally Ezr. iii. 12 sq. with Neh. viii. 9-11; Ezr. iii. 7 with the special favour enlisted on behalf of the Jews in vi. 7 sq., 13, vii. 21; Neh. ii. 7 sq.). But the account of the events in the reign of Artaxerxes is extremely perplexing. Since the building of the walls of Jerusalem must have begun early in the fifth month (Neh. vi. 15), an allowance of three days (ii. 11) makes the date of Nehemiah’s arrival practically the anniversary of Ezra’s return (Ezr. vii. 9, viii. 32). Considering the close connexion between the work of the two men this can hardly be accidental. The compiler, however, clearly intends Neh. vi. 15 (25th of sixth month) to be the prelude to the events in Neh. vii. 73, viii. (seventh month), but the true sequence of Neh. vi. sqq. is uncertain, and the possibility of artificiality is suggested by the unembellished statement of Josephus that the building of the walls occupied, not fifty-two days, but two years four months (Ant. xi. 5. 8). The present chronological order of Nehemiah’s work is confused (cf. §4, n. 3), and the obscure interval of twelve years in his work corresponds very closely to that which now separates the records of Ezra’s labours. However, both the recovery of the compilers’ aims and attempted reconstructions are precluded from finality by the scantiness of independent historical evidence. (See further Jews: History, §21 seq.)

Bibliography.—S.R. Driver, Lit. of the O.T. (1909), pp. 540 sqq. and the commentaries of H.E. Ryle (Camb. Bible, 1893), C. Siegfried (1901), A. Bertholet (1902), and T.W. Davies (Cent. Bible, 1909). Impetus to recent criticism of these books starts with Van Hoonacker (Neh. et Esd. [1890]; see also Expos. Times [1897], pp. 351-354, and M.-J. Lagrange, Rev. biblique, iii. 561-585 [1894], iv. 186-202 [1895]) and W.H. Kosters (Germ. ed., Wiederherstellung Israëls, 1895). The latter’s important conclusions (for which see his article with Cheyne’s additions in Ency. Bib. col. 1473 sqq., 3380 sqq.) have been adversely criticized, especially by J. Wellhausen (Nachrichten of the Univ. of Göttingen, 1895, pp. 166-186), E. Meyer (Entstehung d. Judentums, 1896), J. Nikel (Wiederherstellung d. jüd. Gemein., 1900), and S. Jampel in Monatsschrift f. Gesch. u. Wissens. d. Judentums, vols. xlvi.-xlvii. (1902-1903). The negative criticisms of Kosters have, however, been strengthened by his replies (in the Dutch Theolog. Tijdschrift), and by the discussions of C.C. Torrey and C.F. Kent (op. cit) and of G. Jahn (Esra u. Neh. pp. i-lxxviii; 1909), and his general position appears to do more justice to the biblical evidence as a whole.

(S. A. C.)

1 References to 1 Esdras in this article are to the book discussed above as Ezra, Third Book of.

2 With Neh. xi. 4-19 cf. 1 Chron. ix. 3-17; with the list xii. 1-7 cf. vv. 12-21 and x. 3-9; and with xii. 10 sq. cf. 1 Chron. vi. 3-13 (to which it forms the sequel). See further Smend, Listen d. Esra u. Neh. (1881).

3 Sometimes wrongly styled Chaldee (q.v.); see Semitic Languages.

4 Its real position in the history of this period is not certain. Against the supposition that the names refer to Cambyses and Pseudo-Smerdis who reigned after Cyrus and before Darius, see H.E. Ryle, Camb. Bible, “Ezra and Neh.,” p. 65 sq. Against the view that Darius is D. ii. Nothus of 423-404 B.C., see G.A. Smith, Minor Prophets, ii. 191 sqq. The ignorance of the compiler regarding the sequence of the kings finds a parallel in that of the author of the book of Daniel (q.v.); see C.C. Torrey, Amer. Journ. of Sem. Lang. (1907), p. 178, n. 1.

5 See further H.G. Mitchell, Journ. of Bibl. Lit. (1903), pp. 88 sqq.

6 The chronological difficulties will be seen from xiii. 6 (“before this”), which would imply that the dedication of the walls was on the occasion of Nehemiah’s later visit (see G.A. Smith, Expositor, July 1906, p. 12). His previous departure is perhaps foreshadowed in vii. 2.

7 See Ency. Bib. col. 1480. Papyri from a Jewish colony in Elephantine (407 B.C.) clearly show the form which royal permits could take, and what the Jews were prepared to give in return; the points of resemblance are extremely interesting, but compared with the biblical documents the papyri reveal some striking differences.

8 C.C. Torrey, Comp. and Hist. Value of Ezra-Neh. (Beihefte of Zeit. f. alttest. Wissens., 1896), pp. 30-34; C.F. Kent, Israel’s Hist. and Biog. Narratives, pp. 32, 369. Since Neh. vii. 70-73 is closely joined to viii., the suggested transposition would place its account of the contributions to the temple in a more appropriate context (cf. Ezr. viii. 24-30, 33 sq.).

9 For linguistic evidence reference should be made to J. Geissler, Die litterarischen Beziehungen d. Esramemoiren (Chemnitz, 1899).

10 See especially Sir Henry Howorth, Proc. of Society of Bibl. Arch. (1901-1904), passim; C.C. Torrey, Ezra Studies (Chicago, 1910). For the text, see A. Klostermann, Real-Ency. f. prot. Theol. v. 501 sqq.; H. Guthe in Haupt’s Sacred Books of Old Testament (1899); and S.A. Cook in R.H. Charles, Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha.

EZZO, or Ehrenfried (c. 954-1024), count palatine in Lorraine, was the son of a certain Hermann (d. c. 1000), also a count palatine in Lorraine who had possessions in the neighbourhood of Bonn. Having married Matilda (d. 1025), a daughter of the emperor Otto II., Ezzo came to the front during the reign of his brother-in-law, the emperor Otto III. (983-1002); his power was increased owing to the liberal grant of lands in Thuringia and Franconia which he received with his wife, and some time later his position as count palatine was recognized as an hereditary dignity. Otto’s successor, the emperor Henry II., was less friendly towards the powerful count palatine, though there was no serious trouble between them until 1011; but some disturbances in Lorraine quickly compelled the emperor to come to terms, and the assistance of Ezzo was purchased by a gift of lands. Henceforward the relations between Henry and his vassal appear to have been satisfactory. Very little is known about Ezzo’s later life, but we are told that he died at a great age at Saalfeld on the 21st of March 1024. He left three sons, among them being Hermann, who was archbishop of Cologne from 1036 to 1056, and Otto, who was for a short time duke of Swabia; and seven daughters, six of whom became abbesses. Ezzo founded a monastery at Brauweiler near Cologne, the place where his marriage had been celebrated. This was dedicated in 1028 by Piligrim, archbishop of Cologne, and here both Ezzo and his wife were buried.

EZZOLIED, or Anegenge, an old German poem, written by Ezzo, a scholar of Bamberg. It was written about 1060, but not, as one authority asserts, composed while the author was making a pilgrimage to Jerusalem. The subject of the poem is the life of Christ. Very popular during the later middle ages, the Ezzolied had a great influence on the poetry of south Germany, and is valuable as a monument of the poetical literature of the time.

The text is printed in the Denkmäler deutscher Poesie und Prosa aus dem 8-12. Jahrhundert (Berlin, 1892) of C.V. Müllenhoff and W. Scherer.

F This is the sixth letter of the English alphabet as it was of the Latin. In the ordinary Greek alphabet the symbol has disappeared, although it survived far into historical times in many Greek dialects as , the digamma, the use of which in early times was inductively proved by Bentley, when comparatively little was known of the local alphabets and dialects of Greece. The so-called stigma ς, which serves for the numeral 6, is all that remains to represent it. This symbol derives its name from its resemblance in medieval MSS. to the abbreviation for στ. The symbol occupying the same position in the Phoenician alphabet was Vau (), which seems to be represented by the Greek Υ, the Latin , at the end of the early alphabet. Many authorities therefore contend that is only a modification of the preceding symbol E and has nothing to do with the symbol Vau. In some early Latin inscriptions is represented by ||, as E is by ||. It must be admitted that the resemblance between the sixth symbol of the Phoenician alphabet and the corresponding symbol of the European alphabet is not striking. But the position of the limbs of symbols in early alphabets often varies surprisingly. In Greek, besides we find for f in Pamphylia (the only Greek district in Asia which possesses the symbol) , and in Boeotia, Thessaly, Tarentum, Cumae and on Chalcidian vases of Italy the form , though except at Cumae and on the vases the form exists contemporaneously with or even earlier. At the little town of Falerii (Civita Castellana), whose alphabet is undoubtedly of the same origin as the Latin, takes the form . Though uncertain, therefore, it seems not impossible that the original symbol of the Phoenician alphabet, which was a consonant like the English w, may have been differentiated in Greek into two symbols, one indicating the consonant value w and retaining the position of the Phoenician consonant Vau, the other having the vowel value u, which ultimately most dialects changed to a modified sound like French u or German ü. Be this as it may, the value of the symbol in Greek was w, a bilabial voiced sound, not the labio-dental unvoiced sound which we call f. When the Romans adopted the Greek alphabet they took over the symbols with their Greek values. But Greek had no sound corresponding to the Latin f, for φ was pronounced p-h, like the final sound of lip in ordinary English or the initial sound of pig in Irish English. Consequently in the very old inscription on a gold fibula found at Praeneste and published in 1887 (see Alphabet) the Latin f is represented by . Later, as Latin did not use for the consonant written as v in vis, &c. , was dropped and received a new special value in Latin as representative of the unvoiced labio-dental spirant. In the Oscan and Umbrian dialects, whose alphabet was borrowed from Etruscan, a special form appears for f, viz. , the old form being kept for the other consonant v (i.e. English w). The has generally been asserted to be developed out of the second element in the combination , its upper and lower halves being first converted into lozenges, , which naturally changed to when inscribed without lifting the writing or incising implement. Recent discoveries, however, make this doubtful (see Alphabet).

(P. Gi.)

FABBRONI, ANGELO (1732-1803), Italian biographer, was born at Marradi in Tuscany on the 25th of September 1732. After studying at Faenza he entered the Roman college founded for the education of young Tuscans. On the conclusion of his studies he continued his stay in Rome, and having been introduced to the celebrated Jansenist Bottari, received from him the canonry of Santa Teresa in Trastevere. Some time after this he was chosen to preach a discourse in the pontifical chapel before Benedict XIV. and made such a favourable impression that the pontiff settled on him an annuity, with the possession of which Fabbroni was able to devote his whole time to study. He was intimate with Leopold I., grand-duke of Tuscany, but the Jesuits disliked him on account of his Jansenist views. Besides his other literary labours he began at Pisa in 1771 a literary journal, which he continued till 1796. About 1772 he made a journey to Paris, where he formed the acquaintance of Condorcet, Diderot, d’Alembert, Rousseau and most of the other eminent Frenchmen of the day. He also spent four months in London. He died at Pisa on the 22nd of September 1803.

The following are his principal works:—Vitae Italorum doctrina excellentium qui saeculis XVII. et XVIII. floruerunt (20 vols., Pisa, 1778-1799, 1804-1805), the last two vols., published posthumously, contain a life of the author; Laurentii Medicei Magnifici Vita (2 vols., Pisa, 1784), a work which served as a basis for H. Roscoe’s Life of Lorenzo dei Medici; Leonis X. pontificis maximi Vita (Pisa, 1797); and Elogi di Dante Alighieri, di Angelo Poliziano, di Lodovico Ariosto, e di Torq. Tasso (Parma, 1800).

FABER, the name of a family of German lead-pencil manufacturers. Their business was founded in 1760 at Stein, near Nuremberg, by Kaspar Faber (d. 1784). It was then inherited by his son Anton Wilhelm (d. 1819). Georg Leonhard Faber succeeded in 1810 (d. 1839), and the business passed to Johann Lothar von Faber (1817-1896), the great-grandson of the founder. At the time of his assuming control about twenty hands were employed, under old-fashioned conditions, and owing to the invention of the French crayons Contés of Nicolas Jacques Conté (q.v.) competition had reduced the entire Nuremberg industry to a low ebb (see Pencil). Johann introduced improvements in machinery and methods, brought his factory to the highest state of efficiency, and it became a model for all the other German and Austrian manufacturers. He established branches in New York, Paris, London and Berlin, and agencies in Vienna, St Petersburg and Hamburg, and made his greatest coup in 1856, when he contracted for the exclusive control of the graphite obtained from the East Siberian mines. Faber had also branched out into the manufacture of water-colour and oil paints, inks, slates and slate-pencils, and engineers’ and architects’ drawing instruments, and built additional factories to house his various industries at New York and at Noisy-le-Sec, near Paris, and had his own cedar mills in Florida. For his services to German industry he received a patent of nobility and an appointment as councillor of state. After the death of his widow (1903) the business was inherited by his grand-daughter Countess Otilie von Faber-Castell and her husband, Count Alexander.

FABER, BASIL (1520—c. 1576), Lutheran schoolmaster and theologian, was born at Sorau, in lower Lusatia, in 1520. In 1538 he entered the university of Wittenberg, studying as pauper gratis under Melanchthon. Choosing the schoolmaster’s profession, he became successively rector of the schools at Nordhausen, Tennstadt (1555), Magdeburg (1557) and Quedlinburg (1560). From this last post he was removed in December 1570 as a Crypto-Calvinist. In 1571 he was appointed to the Raths-gymnasium at Erfurt, not as rector, but as director (Vorsteher). In this situation he remained till his death in 1575 or 1576. His translation of the first twenty-five chapters of Luther’s commentary on Genesis was published in 1557; in other ways he promoted the spread of Lutheran views. He was a contributor to the first four of the Magdeburg Centuries. He is best known by his Thesaurus eruditionis scholasticae (1571; last edition, improved by J.H. Leich, 1749, folio, 2 vols.); this was followed by his Libellus de disciplina scholastica (1572).

See Wagenmann and G. Müller in Herzog-Hauck’s Realencyklopädie (1898).

(A. Go.*)

FABER, FREDERICK WILLIAM (1814-1863), British hymn writer and theologian, was born on the 28th of June 1814 at Calverley, Yorkshire, of which place his grandfather, Thomas Faber, was vicar. He attended the grammar school of Bishop Auckland for a short time, but a large portion of his boyhood was spent in Westmorland. He afterwards went to Harrow and to Balliol College, Oxford. In 1835 he obtained a scholarship at University College; and in 1836 he gained the Newdigate prize for a poem on “The Knights of St John,” which elicited special praise from Keble. Among his college friends were Dean Stanley and Roundell Palmer, 1st earl of Selborne. In January 1837 he was elected fellow of University College. Meanwhile he had given up the Calvinistic views of his youth, and had become an enthusiastic follower of John Henry Newman. In 1841 a travelling tutorship took him to the continent; and on his return a book appeared called Sights and Thoughts in Foreign Churches and among Foreign Peoples (London, 1842), with a dedication to his friend the poet Wordsworth. He accepted the rectory of Elton in Huntingdonshire, but soon after went again to the continent, in order to study the methods of the Roman Catholic Church; and after a prolonged mental struggle he joined the Roman Catholic communion in November 1845. He founded a religious community at Birmingham, called Wilfridians, which was ultimately merged in the oratory of St Philip Neri, with John Henry Newman as Superior. In 1849 a branch of the oratory—subsequently independent—was established in London, first in King William Street, and afterwards at Brompton, over which Faber presided till his death on the 26th of September 1863. In spite of his weak health, an almost incredible amount of work was crowded into those years. He published a number of theological works, and edited the Oratorian Lives of the Saints. He was an eloquent preacher, and a man of great charm of character. It is mainly as a hymn-writer, however, that Faber is remembered. Among his best-known hymns are:—“The Greatness of God,” “The Will of God,” “The Eternal Father,” “The God of my Childhood,” “Jesus is God,” “The Pilgrims of the Night,” “The Land beyond the Sea,” “Sweet Saviour, bless us ere we go,” “I was wandering and weary,” and “The Shadow of the Rock.” The hymns are largely used in Protestant collections. In addition to many pamphlets and translations, Faber published the following works: All for Jesus; The Precious Blood; Bethlehem; The Blessed Sacrament; The Creator and the Creature; Growth of Holiness; Spiritual Conferences; The Foot of the Cross (8 vols., London, 1853-1860).

See his Life and Letters, by Father J.E. Bowden (London, 1869), and A Brief Sketch of the Early Life of the late F.W. Faber, D.D., by his brother the Rev. F.A. Faber (London, 1869).

FABER, Fabri or Fabry (surnamed Stapulensis), JACOBUS [Jacques Lefèvre d’Étaples] (c. 1455—c. 1536), a pioneer of the Protestant movement in France, was born of humble parents at Étaples, in Pas de Calais, Picardy, about 1455. He appears to have been possessed of considerable means. He had already been ordained priest when he entered the university of Paris for higher education. Hermonymus of Sparta was his master in Greek. He visited Italy before 1486, for he heard the lectures of Argyropulus, who died in that year; he formed a friendship with Paulus Aemilius of Verona. In 1492 he again travelled in Italy, studying in Florence, Rome and Venice, making himself familiar with the writings of Aristotle, though greatly influenced by the Platonic philosophy. Returning to Paris, he became professor in the college of Cardinal Lemoine. Among his famous pupils were F.W. Vatable and Farel; his connexion with the latter drew him to the Calvinistic side of the movement of reform. At this time he began the publication, with critical apparatus, of Boëtius (De Arithmetica), and Aristotle’s Physics (1492), Ethics (1497), Metaphysics (1501) and Politics (1506). In 1507 he took up his residence in the Benedictine Abbey of St Germain des Prés, near Paris; this was due to his connexion with the family of Briçonnet (one of whom was the superior), especially with William Briçonnet, cardinal bishop of St Malo (Meaux). He now began to give himself to Biblical studies, the first-fruit of which was his Quintuplex Psalterium: Gallicum, Romanum, Hebraicum, Vetus, Conciliatum (1509); the Conciliatum was his own version. This was followed by S. Pauli Epistolae xiv. ex vulgata editione, adjecta intelligentia ex Graeco cum commentariis (1512), a work of great independence and judgment. His De Maria Magdalena et triduo Christi disceptatio (1517) provoked violent controversy and was condemned by the Sorbonne (1521). He had left Paris during the whole of 1520, and, removing to Meaux, was appointed (May 1, 1523) vicar-general to Bishop Briçonnet, and published his French version of the New Testament (1523). This (contemporary with Luther’s German version) has been the basis of all subsequent translations into French. From this, in the same year, he extracted the versions of the Gospels and Epistles “à l’usage du diocèse de Meaux.” The prefaces and notes to both these expressed the view that Holy Scripture is the only rule of doctrine, and that justification is by faith alone. He incurred much hostility, but was protected by Francis I. and the princess Margaret. Francis being in captivity after the battle of Pavia (February 25, 1525), Faber was condemned and his works suppressed by commission of the parlement; these measures were quashed on the return of Francis some months later. He issued Le Psautier de David (1525), and was appointed royal librarian at Blois (1526); his version of the Pentateuch appeared two years later. His complete version of the Bible (1530), on the basis of Jerome, took the same place as his version of the New Testament. Margaret (now queen of Navarre) led him to take refuge (1531) at Nérac from persecution. He is said to have been visited (1533) by Calvin on his flight from France. He died in 1536 or 1537.

See C.H. Graf, Essai sur la vie et les écrits (1842); G. Bonet-Maury, in A. Herzog-Hauck’s Realencyklopädie (1898).

(A. Go.*)

FABER (or Lefèvre), JOHANN (1478-1541), German theologian, styled from the title of one of his works “Malleus Haereticorum,” son of one Heigerlin, a smith (faber), was born at Leutkirch, in Swabia, in 1478. His early life is obscure; the tradition that he joined the Dominicans is untenable. He studied theology and canon law at Tübingen and at Freiburg im Breisgau, where he matriculated on the 26th of July 1509, and graduated M.A. and doctor of canon law. He was soon appointed vicar of Lindau and Leutkirch, and shortly afterwards canon of Basel. In 1518 Hugo von Landenberg, bishop of Constance, made him one of his vicars-general, and Pope Leo X. appointed him papal protonotary. He was an advocate of reforms, in sympathy with Erasmus, and corresponded (1519-1520) with Zwingli. While he defended Luther against Eck, he was as little inclined to adopt the position of Luther as of Carlstadt. His journey to Rome in the autumn of 1521 had the result of estranging him from the views of the Protestant leaders. He published Opus adversus nova quaedam dogmata Lutheri (1522), and appeared as a disputant against Zwingli at Zürich (1523). Then followed his Malleus in haeresin Lutheranam (1524). Among his efforts to stem the tide of Protestant innovation was the establishment of a training-house for the maintenance and instruction of popular preachers, drawn from the lower ranks, to compete with the orators of reform. In 1526 he became court preacher to the emperor Ferdinand, and in 1527 and 1528 was sent by him as envoy to Spain and England. He approved the death by burning of Balthasar Hubmeier, the Baptist, at Vienna on the 10th of March 1528. In 1531 he was consecrated bishop of Vienna, and combined with this (till 1538) the administration of the diocese of Neustadt. He died at Vienna on the 21st of May 1541. His works were collected in three volumes, 1537, 1539 and 1541.

See C.E. Kettner, Diss. de J. Fabri Vita Scriptisque (1737); Wagenmann and Egli in Herzog-Hauck’s Realencyklopädie (1898).

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FABERT, ABRAHAM DE (1599-1660), marshal of France, was the son of Abraham Fabert, seigneur de Moulins (d. 1638), a famous printer who rendered great services, civil and military, to Henry IV. At the age of fourteen he entered the Gardes françaises, and in 1618 received a commission in the Piedmont regiment, becoming major in 1627. He distinguished himself repeatedly in the constant wars of the period, notably in La Rochelle and at the siege of Exilles in 1630. His bravery and engineering skill were again displayed in the sieges of Avesnes and Maubeuge in 1637, and in 1642 Louis XIII. made him governor of the recently-acquired fortress of Sedan. In 1651 he became lieutenant-general, and in 1654 at the siege of Stenay he introduced new methods of siegecraft which anticipated in a measure the great improvements of Vauban. In 1658 Fabert was made a marshal of France, being the first commoner to attain that rank. He died at Sedan on the 17th of May 1660.

See Histoire du maréchal de Fabert (Amsterdam, 1697); P. Barre, Vie de Fabert (Paris, 1752); A. Feillet, Le Premier Maréchal de France plébéien (Paris, 1869); Bourelly, Le Maréchal Fabert (Paris, 1880).

FABIAN [Fabianus], SAINT (d. 250), pope and martyr, was chosen pope, or bishop of Rome, in January 236 in succession to Anteros. Eusebius (Hist. Eccl. vi. 29) relates how the Christians, having assembled in Rome to elect a new bishop, saw a dove alight upon the head of Fabian, a stranger to the city, who was thus marked out for this dignity, and was at once proclaimed bishop, although there were several famous men among the candidates for the vacant position. Fabian was martyred during the persecution under the emperor Decius, his death taking place on the 20th of January 250, and was buried in the catacomb of Calixtus, where a memorial has been found. He is said to have baptized the emperor Philip and his son, to have done some building in the catacombs, to have improved the organization of the church in Rome, to have appointed officials to register the deeds of the martyrs, and to have founded several churches in France. His deeds are thus described in the Liber Pontificalis: “Hic regiones dividit diaconibus et fecit vii subdiacones, qui vii notariis imminerent, ut gestas martyrum integro fideliter colligerent, et multas fabricas per cymiteria fieri praecepit.” Although there is very little authentic information about Fabian, there is evidence that his episcopate was one of great importance in the history of the early church. He was highly esteemed by Cyprian, bishop of Carthage; Novatian refers to his nobilissimae memoriae, and he corresponded with Origen. One authority refers to him as Flavian.

See the article on “Fabian” by A. Harnack in Herzog-Hauck’s Realencyklopädie, Band v. (Leipzig, 1898).

FABIUS, the name of a number of Roman soldiers and statesmen. The Fabian gens was one of the oldest and most distinguished patrician families of Rome. Its members claimed descent from Hercules and a daughter of the Arcadian Evander. From the earliest times it played a prominent part in Roman history, and was one of the two gentes exclusively charged with the management of the most ancient festival in Rome—the Lupercalia (Ovid, Fasti, ii. 375). The chief family names of the Fabian gens or clan, in republican times, were Vibulanus, Ambustus, Maximus, Buteo, Pictor, Dorso, Labeo; with surnames Verrucosus, Rullianus, Gurges, Aemilianus, Allobrogicus (all of the Maximus branch). The most important members of the family are the following:—

1. Marcus Fabius Ambustus, pontifex maximus in the year of the capture of Rome by the Gauls (390). His three sons, Quintus, Numerius and Caeso, although they had been sent as ambassadors to the Gauls when they were besieging Clusium, subsequently took part in hostilities (Livy v. 35). The Gauls thereupon demanded their surrender, on the ground that they had violated the law of nations; the Romans, by way of reply, elected them consular tribunes in the following year. The result was the march of the Gauls upon Rome, the battle of the Allia, and the capture of the city (Livy vi. 1).

2. Q. Fabius Maximus, surnamed Rullianus or Rullus, master of the horse in the second Samnite War to L. Papirius Cursor, by whom he was degraded for having fought the Samnites contrary to orders (Livy viii. 30), in spite of the fact that he gained a victory. In 315, when dictator, he was defeated by the Samnites at Lautulae (Livy ix. 23). In 310 he defeated the Etruscans at the Vadimonian Lake. In 295, consul for the fifth time, he defeated, at the great battle of Sentinum, the combined forces of the Etrurians, Umbrians, Samnites and Gauls (see Rome: History, II. “The Republic”). As censor (304) he altered the arrangement of Appius Claudius Caecus, whereby the freedmen were taken into all the tribes, and limited them to the four city tribes. For this he is said to have received the title of Maximus, as the deliverer of the comitia from the rule of the mob (Livy ix. 46), but there is reason to think that this title was first conferred on his grandson. It is probable that his achievements are greatly exaggerated by historians favourable to the Fabian house.

3. Quintus Fabius Maximus, surnamed Verrucosus (from a wart on his lip), Ovicula (“the lamb,” from his mild disposition), and Cunctator (“the delayer,” from his cautious tactics in the war against Hannibal), grandson of the preceding. He served his first consulship in Liguria (233 B.C.), was censor (230) and consul for the second time (228). In 218 he was sent to Carthage to demand satisfaction for the attack on Saguntum (Livy xxi. 18). According to the well-known story, he held up a fold of his toga and offered the Carthaginians the choice between peace and war. When they declared themselves indifferent, he let fall his toga with the words, “Then take war.” After the disastrous campaign on the Trebia, and the defeat on the banks of the Trasimene Lake, Fabius was named dictator (Livy calls him pro-dictator, since he was nominated, not by the consul, but by the people) in 217, and began his tactics of “masterly inactivity.” Manœuvring among the hills, where Hannibal’s cavalry were useless, he cut off his supplies, harassed him incessantly, and did everything except fight. His steady adherence to his plan caused dissatisfaction at Rome and in his own camp, and aroused the suspicion that he was merely endeavouring to prolong his command. Minucius Rufus, his master of the horse, seized the opportunity, during the absence of Fabius at Rome, to make an attack upon the enemy which proved successful. The people, more than ever convinced that a forward movement was necessary, divided the command between Minucius and Fabius (Livy xxii. 15. 24; Polybius iii. 88). Minucius was led into an ambuscade by Hannibal, and his army was only saved by the opportune arrival of Fabius. Minucius confessed his mistake and henceforth submitted to the orders of Fabius (Livy xxiii. 32). At the end of the legal time of six months Fabius resigned the dictatorship and the war was carried on by the consuls. The result of the abandonment of Fabian tactics was the disaster of Cannae (216). In 215 and 214 (as consul for the third and fourth times) he was in charge of the operations against Hannibal together with Claudius Marcellus (Livy xxiii. 39). He laid siege to Capua, which had gone over to Hannibal after Cannae, and captured the important position of Casilinum; in his fifth consulship (209) he retook Tarentum, which had been occupied by Hannibal for three years (Livy xxvii. 15; Polybius xiii. 4; Plutarch, Fabius). He died in 203. Fabius was a strenuous opponent of the new aggressive policy, and did all he could to prevent the invasion of Africa by Scipio. He was distinguished for calmness and prudence, while by no means lacking in courage when it was required. In his later years, however, he became morose, and showed jealousy of rising young men, especially Scipio (Life by Plutarch; Livy xx.-xxx.; Polybius iii. 87-106).

4. Q. Fabius Maximus Aemilianus, eldest son of L. Aemilius Paullus, adopted by Fabius Cunctator. He served in the last Macedonian War (168), and, as consul, defeated Viriathus in Spain (Livy, Epit. 52). He was the pupil and patron of Polybius (Polybius xviii., xxix. 6, xxxii. 8-10; Livy xliv. 35).

5. Q. Fabius Maximus Allobrogicus, son of the above, consul 121 in Gaul. He obtained his surname from his victory over the Allobroges and Arverni in that year (Vell. Pat. ii. 10; Eutropius iv. 22). As censor (108) he erected the first triumphal arch.

6. Q. Fabius Vibulanus, with his brothers Caeso and Marcus, filled the consulship for seven years in succession (485-479 B.C.). In the last year there was a reaction against the family, in consequence of Caeso espousing the cause of the plebeians. Thereupon the Fabii—to the number, it is said, of 306 patricians, with some 5000 dependents—emigrated from Rome under the leadership of Caeso, and settled on the banks of the Cremera, a few miles above Rome. For two years the exiles continued to be the city’s chief defence against the Veientes, until at last they were surprised and cut off. The only survivor of the gens was Quintus, the sen of Marcus, who apparently took no part in the battle. The story that he had been left behind at Rome on account of his youth cannot be true, as he was consul ten years afterwards. This Quintus was consul in 467, 465 and 459, and a member of the second decemvirate in 450, on the fall of which he went into voluntary exile (Livy ii. 42, 48-50, iii. 1, 9, 41, 58, vi. 1; Dion. Halic. viii. 82-86, ix. 14-22: Ovid, Fasti, ii. 195).

The Fabian name is met with as late as the 2nd century A.D. A complete list of the Fabii will be found in de Vit’s Onomasticon; see also W.N. du Rieu, Disputatio de Gente Fabia (1856), containing an account of 57 members of the family.

FABIUS PICTOR, QUINTUS, the father of Roman history, was born about 254 B.C. He was the grandson of Gaius Fabius, who received the surname Pictor for his painting of the temple of Salus (302). He took an active part in the subjugation of the Gauls in the north of Italy (225), and after the battle of Cannae (216) was employed by the Romans to proceed to Delphi in order to consult the oracle of Apollo. He was the earliest prose writer of Roman history. His materials consisted of the Annales Maximi, Commentarii Consulares, and similar records; the chronicles of the great Roman families; and his own experiences in the Second Punic War. He is also said to have made much use of the Greek historian Diodes of Peparethus. His work, which was written in Greek, began with the arrival of Aeneas in Italy, and ended with the Hannibalic war. Although Polybius and Dionysius of Halicarnassus frequently find fault with him, the first uses him as his chief authority for the Second Punic War. A Latin version of the work was in existence in the time of Cicero, but it is doubtful whether it was by Fabius Pictor or by a later writer with whom he was confused—Q. Fabius Maximus Servilianus (consul 142); or there may have been two annalists of the name of Fabius Pictor.

Fragments in H. Peter, Historicorum Romanorum Fragmenta (1883); see also Annalists and Livy, and Teuffel-Schwabe, History of Roman Literature, § 116.

FABLE (Fr. fable, Lat. fabula). With certain restrictions, the necessity of which will be shown in the course of the article, we may accept the definition of “fable” which Dr Johnson proposes in his Life of Gay: “A fable or apologue seems to be, in its genuine state, a narrative in which beings irrational, and sometimes inanimate (arbores loquuntur, non tantum ferae), are, for the purpose of moral instruction, feigned to act and speak with human interests and passions.” The description of La Fontaine, the greatest of fabulists, is a poetic rendering of Johnson’s definition:

“Fables in sooth are not what they appear; Our moralists are mice, and such small deer. We yawn at sermons, but we gladly turn To moral tales, and so amused we learn.”

The fable is distinguished from the myth, which grows and is not made, the spontaneous and unconscious product of primitive fancy as it plays round some phenomenon of natural or historical fact. The literary myth, such as, for instance, the legend of Pandora in Hesiod or the tale of Er in the Republic of Plato, is really an allegory, and differs from the fable in so far as it is self-interpreting; the story and the moral are intermingled throughout. Between the parable and the fable there is no clear line of demarcation, and theologians like Trench have unwarrantably narrowed their definition of a parable to fit those of the New Testament. The soundest distinction is drawn by Neander. In the fable human passions and actions are attributed to beasts; in the parable the lower creation is employed only to illustrate the higher life and never transgresses the laws of its kind. But whether Jotham’s apologue of the trees choosing a king, perhaps the first recorded in literature, should be classed as a fable or a parable is hardly worth disputing. Lastly, we may point out the close affinity between the fable and the proverb. A proverb is often a condensed or fossilized fable, and not a few fables are amplified or elaborated proverbs.

The history of the fable goes back to the remotest antiquity, and Aesop has even less claim to be reckoned the father of the fable than has Homer to be entitled the father of poetry. The fable has its origin in the universal impulse of men to express their thoughts in concrete images, and is strictly parallel to the use of metaphor in language. It is the most widely diffused if not the most primitive form of literature. Though it has fallen from its high place it still survives, as in J. Chandler Harris’s Uncle Remus and Rudyard Kipling’s Jungle Book. The Arab of to-day will invent a fable at every turn of the conversation as the readiest form of argument, and in the Life of Coventry Patmore it is told how an impromptu fable of his about the pious dormouse found its way into Catholic books of devotion.

With the fable, as we know it, the moral is indispensable. As La Fontaine puts it, an apologue is composed of two parts, body and soul. The body is the story, the soul the morality. But if we revert to the earliest type we shall find that this is no longer the case. In the primitive beast-fable, which is the direct progenitor of the Aesopian fable, the story is told simply for its own sake, and is as innocent of any moral as the fairy tales of Little Red Riding-Hood and Jack and the Beanstalk. Thus, in a legend of the Flathead Indians, the Little Wolf found in cloud-land his grandsires the Spiders with their grizzled hair and long crooked nails, and they spun balls of thread to let him down to earth; when he came down and found his wife the Speckled Duck, whom the Old Wolf had taken from him, she fled in confusion, and this is why she lives and dives alone to this very day. Such animal myths are as common in the New World as in the Old, and abound from Finland and Kamtchatka to the Hottentots and Australasians. From the story invented, as the one above quoted, to account for some peculiarity of the animal world, or told as a pure exercise of the imagination, just as a sailor spins a yarn about the sea-serpent, to the moral apologue the transition is easy; and that it has been effected by savages unaided by the example of higher races seems sufficiently proved by the tales quoted by E.B. Tylor (Primitive Culture, vol. i. p. 411). From the beast-fables of savages we come next to the Oriental apologues, which we still possess in their original form. The East, the land of myth and legend, is the natural home of the fable, and Hindustan was the birthplace, if not of the original of these tales, at least of the oldest shape in which they still exist. The Pancha Tantra (2nd century B.C.), or fables of the Brahma Vishnu Sarman, have been translated from Sanskrit into almost every language and adapted by most modern fabulists. The Kalilah and Dimna (names of two jackals), or fables of Bidpai (or Pilpai), passed from India to western Europe through the successive stages of Pahlavi (ancient Persian), Arabic, Greek, Latin. By the end of the 16th century there were Italian, French and English versions. There is an excellent Arabic edition (Paris, 1816) with an introduction by Sylvestre de Sacy. The Hitopadesa, or “friendly instruction,” is a modernized form of the same work, and of it there are three translations into English by Dr Charles Wilkins, Sir William Jones and Professor F. Johnson. The Hitopadesa is a complete chaplet of fables loosely strung together, but connected so as to form something of a continuous story, with moral reflections freely interspersed, purporting to be written for the instruction of some dissolute young princes. Thus, in the first fable a flock of pigeons see the grains of rice which a fowler has scattered, and are about to descend on them, when the king of the pigeons warns them by telling the fable of a traveller who being greedy of a bracelet was devoured by a tiger. They neglect his warning and are caught in the net, but are afterwards delivered by the king of the mice, who tells the story of the Deer, the Jackal and the Crow, to show that no real friendship can exist between the strong and the weak, the beast of prey and his quarry, and so on to the end of the volume. Another book of Eastern fables is well worthy of notice, Buddhaghosha’s Parables, a commentary on the Dhammapada or Buddha’s Paths of Virtue. The original is in Pali, but an English translation of the Burmese version was made by Captain T. Rogers, R.E.

From Hindustan the Sanskrit fables passed to China, Tibet and Persia; and they must have reached Greece at an early age, for many of the fables which passed under the name of Aesop are identical with those of the East. Aesop to us is little more than a name, though, if we may trust a passing notice in Herodotus (ii. 134), he must have lived in the 6th century B.C. Probably his fables were never written down, though several are ascribed to him by Xenophon, Aristotle, Plutarch and other Greek writers, and Plato represents Socrates as beguiling his last days by versifying such as he remembered. Aristophanes alludes to them as merry tales, and Plato, while excluding the poets from his ideal republic, admits Aesop as a moral teacher. Of the various versions of Aesop’s Fables, by far the most trustworthy is that of Babrius or Babrias, a Greek probably of the 3rd century A.D., who rendered them in choliambic verse. These, which were long known in fragments only, were recovered in a MS. found by M. Minas in a monastery on Mount Athos in 1842, now in the British Museum.1 An inferior version of the same in Latin iambics was made by Phaedrus, a slave of Thracian origin, brought to Rome in the time of Augustus and manumitted by him. Phaedrus professes to polish in senarian verse the rough-hewn blocks from Aesop’s quarry; but the numerous allusions to contemporary events, as, for example, his hit at Sejanus in the Frogs and the Sun, which brought upon the author disgrace and imprisonment, show that many of them are original or free adaptations. For some time scholars doubted as to the genuineness of Phaedrus’s fables, but their doubts have been lately dispelled by a closer examination of the MSS. and by the discovery of two verses of a fable on a tomb at Apulum in Dacia. Phaedrus’s style is simple, clear and brief, but dry and unpoetical; and, as Lessing has pointed out, he often falls into absurdities when he deserts his original. For instance, in Aesop the dog with the meat in his mouth sees his reflection in the water as he passes over a bridge; Phaedrus makes him see it as he swims across the river.

To sum up the characteristics of the Aesopian fable, it is artless, simple and transparent. It affects no graces of style, and we hardly need the text with which each concludes, ὁ μῦθος δηλοῖ ὅτι, κ.τ.λ. The moral inculcated is that of Proverbial Philosophy and Poor Richard’s Almanacks. Aesop is no maker of phrases, but an orator who wishes to gain some point or induce some course of action. It is the Aesopian type that Aristotle has in view when he treats of the fable as a branch of rhetoric, not of poetry.

The Latin race was given to moralizing, and the language lent itself to crisp and pointed narrative, but they lacked the free play of fancy, the childlike “make-believe,” to produce a national body of fables. With the doubtful exception of Phaedrus, we possess nothing but solitary examples, such as the famous apologue of Menenius Agrippa to the Plebs and the exquisite Town Mouse and Country Mouse of Horace’s Satires.

The fables of the rhetorician Aphthonius about A.D. 400 in Greek prose, and those in Latin elegiac verse by Avianus, used for centuries as a text-book in schools, form in the history of the apologue a link between classical and medieval times. In a Latin dress, sometimes in prose, sometimes in regular verse, and sometimes in rhymed stanzas, the fable contributed, with other kinds of narratives, to make up the huge mass of stories which has been bequeathed to us by the monastic libraries. These served more uses than one. They were at once easier and safer reading than the classics. To the lazy monk they stood in place of novels; to the more industrious and gifted they furnished an exercise on a par with Latin verse composition in our public schools; the more original transformed them into fabliaux, or embodied them in edifying stories, as in the Gesta Romanorum. It is not in the Speculum Doctrinale of Vincent de Beauvais, a Dominican of the 12th century, nor in the collection of his contemporary Odo de Cerinton, an English Cistercian, nor in Planudes of the 14th century, whose one distinction is to have added to the fables a life of Aesop, that the direct lineage of La Fontaine must be traced. It is the fabliaux that inspired some of his best fables—the Lion’s Court, the Young Widow, the Coach and the Fly.

As the supremacy of Latin declined and modern languages began to be turned to literary uses, the fable took a new life. Not only were there numerous adaptations of Aesop, known as Ysopets, but Marie de France in the 13th century composed many original fables, some rivalling La Fontaine’s in simplicity and gracefulness. Later, also, fables were not wanting, though not numerous, in the English tongue. Chaucer has given us one, in his Nonne Preste’s Tale, which is an expansion of the fable Don Coc et don Werpil of Marie de France; another is Lydgate’s tale of The Churl and the Bird.

Several of Odo’s tales, like Chaucer’s story, can be ultimately traced to the History of Reynard the Fox. This great beast-epic has been referred by Grimm as far back as the 10th century, and is known to us in three forms, each with independent episodes, but all woven upon a common basis. The Latin form is probably the earliest, and the poems Reinardus and Ysengrinus date from the 10th or 11th century. Next come the German versions. The most ancient, that of a minnesinger Heinrich der Glichesaere (probably a Swabian), was analysed and edited by Grimm in 1840. The French poem of more than 30,000 lines, the Roman du Rénard, belongs probably to the 13th century. In 1498 appeared Reynke de Voss, almost a literal version in Low Saxon of the Flemish poem of the 12th century, Reinaert de Vos. Hence the well-known version of Goethe into modern German hexameters was taken. The poem has been well named “an unholy world Bible.” In it the Aesopian fable received a development which was in several respects quite original. We have here no short and unconnected stories. Materials, partly borrowed from older apologues, but in a much greater proportion new, are worked up into one long and systematic tale. The moral, so prominent in the fable proper, shrinks so far into the background, that the epic might be considered a work of pure fiction, an animal romance. The attempts to discover in it personal satire have signally failed; some critics deny even the design to represent human conduct at all; and we can scarcely get nearer to its signification than by regarding it as being, in a general way, what Carlyle has called “a parody of human life.” It represents a contest maintained successfully, by selfish craft and audacity, against enemies of all sorts, in a half-barbarous and ill-organized society. With his weakest foes, like Chaunteclere the Cock, Reynard uses brute-force; over the weak who are protected, like Kiward the Hare and Belin the Ram, he is victorious by uniting violence with cunning; Bruin, the dull, strong, formidable Bear, is humbled by having greater power than his own enlisted against him; and the most dangerous of all the fox’s enemies, Isengrim, the obstinate, greedy and implacable Wolf, after being baffled by repeated strokes of malicious ingenuity, forces Reynard to a single combat, but even thus is not a match for his dexterous adversary. The knavish fox has allies worthy of him in Grimbart the watchful badger, and in his own aunt Dame Rukenawe, the learned She-ape; and he plays at his pleasure on the simple credulity of the Lion-King, the image of an impotent feudal sovereign. The characters of these and other brutes are kept up with a rude kind of consistency, which gives them great liveliness; many of the incidents are devised with much force of humour; and the sly hits at the weak points of medieval polity and manners and religion are incessant and palpable.

It is needless to trace the fable, or illustrations borrowed from fables, that so frequently occur as incidental ornaments in the older literature of England and other countries. It has appeared in every modern nation of Europe, but has nowhere become very important, and has hardly ever exhibited much originality either of spirit or of manner. In English, Prior transplanted from France some of La Fontaine’s ease of narration and artful artlessness, while Gay took as his model the Contes rather than the Fables. Gay’s fables are often political satires, but some, like the Fox on his Deathbed, have the true ring, and in the Hare with many Friends there is genuine pathos. To Dryden’s spirited remodellings of old poems, romances and fabliaux, the name of fables, which he was pleased to give them, is quite inapplicable. In German, Hagedorn and Gellert, both famous in their day and the latter extolled by Goethe, are quite forgotten; and even Lessing’s fables are read by few but schoolboys. In Spanish, Yriarte’s fables on literary subjects are sprightly and graceful, but the critic is more than the fabulist. A spirited version of the best appeared in Blackwood’s Magazine, 1839. Among Italians Pignotti is famous for versatility and command of rhythm, as amongst Russians is Kriloff for his keen satire on Russian society. He has been translated into English by Ralston.

France alone in modern times has attained any pre-eminence in the fable, and this distinction is almost entirely owing to one author. Marie de France in the 13th century, Gilles Corrozet, Guillaume Haudent and Guillaume Gueroult in the 16th, are now studied mainly as the precursors of La Fontaine, from whom he may have borrowed a stray hint or the outline of a story. The unique character of his work has given a new word to the French language: other writers of fables are called fabulistes, La Fontaine is named le fablier. He is a true poet; his verse is exquisitely modulated; his love of nature often reminds us of Virgil, as do his tenderness and pathos (see, for instance, The Two Pigeons and Death and the Woodcutter). He is full of sly fun and delicate humour; like Horace he satirizes without wounding, and “plays around the heart.” Lastly, he is a keen observer of men. The whole society of the 17th century, its greatness and its foibles, its luxury and its squalor, from Le grand monarque to the poor manant, from his majesty the lion to the courtier of an ape, is painted to the life. To borrow his own phrase, La Fontaine’s fables are “une ample comédie à cent actes divers.” Rousseau did his best to discredit the Fables as immoral and corruptors of youth, but in spite of Émile they are studied in every French school and are more familiar to most Frenchmen than their breviary. Among the successors of La Fontaine the most distinguished is Florian. He justly estimates his own merits in the pretty apologue that he prefixed to his Fables. He asks a sage whether a fabulist writing after La Fontaine would not be wise to consign his work to the flames. The sage replies by a question: “What would you say did some sweet, ingenuous Maid of Athens refuse to let herself be seen because there was once a Helen of Troy?”

The fables of Lessing represent the reaction against the French school of fabulists. “With La Fontaine himself,” says Lessing, “I have no quarrel, but against the imitators of La Fontaine I enter my protest.” His attention was first called to the fable by Gellert’s popular work published in 1746. Gellert’s fables were closely modelled after La Fontaine’s, and were a vehicle for lively railings against the fair sex, and hits at contemporary follies. Lessing’s early essays were in the same style, but his subsequent study of the history and theory of the fable led him to discard his former model as a perversion of later times, and the “Fabeln,” published in 1759, are the outcome of his riper views. Lessing’s fables, like all that he wrote, display his vigorous common sense. He has, it is true, little of La Fontaine’s curiosa felicitas, his sly humour and lightness of touch; and Frenchmen would say that his criticism of La Fontaine is an illustration of the fable of the sour grapes. On the other hand, he has the rare power of looking at both sides of a moral problem; he holds a brief for the stupid and the feeble, the ass and the lamb; and in spite of his formal protest against poetical ornament, there is in not a few of his fables a vein of true poetry, as in the Sheep (ii. 13) and Jupiter and the Sheep (ii. 18). But the monograph which introduced the Fabeln is of more inportance than the fables themselves. According to Lessing the ideal fable is that of Aesop. All the elaborations and refinements of later authors, from Phaedrus to La Fontaine, are perversions of this original. The fable is essentially a moral precept illustrated by a single example, and it is the lesson thus enforced which gives to the fable its unity and makes it a work of art. The illustration must be either an actual occurrence or represented as such, because a fictitious case invented ad hoc can appeal but feebly to the reader’s judgment. Lastly, the fable requires a story or connected chain of events. A single fact will not make a fable, but is only an emblem. We thus arrive at the following definition:—“A fable is a relation of a series of changes which together form a whole. The unity of the fable consists herein, that all the parts lead up to an end, the end for which the fable was invented being the moral precept.”