Dating the Eagle Vision of 4 Ezra: A New Look at an Old Theory

[JSP 20 (1999) 3-38]

DATING THE EAGLE VISION OF 4 EZRA:A NEW LOOK AT AN OLD THEORY

Lorenzo DiTommaso

Department of Religious Studies, McMaster University,Hamilton, Ontario, Canada

1. The Historical Allusions of the Eagle Vision in Previous Scholarship

One of the best-known apocalyptic visions of ancient Jewish literatureis that of the ‘Eagle Vision’ of 4 Ezra 10.60–12.36.1 These chaptersrelate how Ezra, the Seer, has a dream in which a great eagle, festoonedwith three heads and a multitude of wings, rises from the sea. When thedream is interpreted, the eagle’s body parts are identified as kings, eachof whom in his turn holds sway over the earth and its inhabitants.Though no one king is mentioned explicitly by name, the attributes ofseveral of them are more circumscribed than the rest and it is quite clearthat the author of the Vision has specific historical figures in mind. Nearthe end of Ezra’s vision there appears a lion, who is labeled as theMessiah in the interpretation and who takes the eagle to task for itsactions and eventually judges and destroys it.

Scholars have offered a wide range of opinions regarding the identi-ties of these historical personages and thus the issue of the EagleVision’s date. The identification of the three heads lies at the heart ofthe matter, since they appear and are described in detail towards the endof the Vision, thereby suggesting a date of composition. Nearly all the

1. English translations of 4 Ezra vary widely in many key passages, in nosmall part due to the variety of the manuscript tradition. Unless otherwise noted, Ihave employed the translation and verse numbers of M.E. Stone, Fourth Ezra (Her-meneia; Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1990). For a thorough explanation and analy-sis of the textual situation, see Stone, Fourth Ezra, pp. 1-9.

4 Journal for the Study of the Pseudepigrapha 20 (1999)

various theories advanced over the past two centuries can be groupedinto four categories.2 Those constituting the first group, which we mayterm ‘Pre-Flavian’, associate the three heads with major figures fromlate Republican Rome and the wings with either Roman kings andmagistrates or Ptolemaic or Seleucid kings and usurpers.3 Since the lastdecades of the nineteenth century, such proposals have been largelyabandoned4 because they could not accept the overwhelming likelihoodthat 4 Ezra was written after the destruction of Jerusalem by the

2. See Appendix, where the more important variations of each category of the-ories are presented. Summaries of many of these reconstructions are found inJ. Drummond, The Jewish Messiah (London: Longmans, Green and Co., 1877),pp. 98-117; A. Dillmann, ‘Über das Adlergesicht in der Apokalypse des Esra’, Sitz-ungsberichte der Königlich Preussischen Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Berlin,Philos.-histor. Klasse 8 (Berlin, 1888), pp. 215-37; E. Schürer, Geschichte des jüd-ischen Volkes im Zeitalter Jesu Christi, III (Leipzig, 41909), pp. 237ff.; J. Keulers,‘Die eschatologische Lehre des vierten Esrabuches’, Biblische Studien 20.2-3(Freiburg im Brieisgau: Herder, 1922), pp. 116-18; and J.M. Myers, I and II Esdras(AB, 42; New York: Doubleday, 1974), pp. 299ff. The relevant section in the up-dated version of Schürer (The History of the Jewish People in the Age of JesusChrist (175 B.C.–A.D. 135) [rev. and ed. by G. Vermes, et al.; Edinburgh: T. & T.Clark, 1986], III, p. 299) has been abbreviated drastically.

These four categories are demarcated on the basis of what each scholar believesto be the final form of the Eagle Vision. For instance, G.H. Box dates the originalapocalypse to the time of the Emperor Domitian but considers the present version tobe the result of a redactor who reworked 4 Ezra (and the Eagle Vision) in c. 120 CE,during the reign of Hadrian. Accordingly, Box’s hypothesis is consigned to the‘post-Flavian’ category.

3. R. Lawrence, Primi Ezrae libri, qui apud Vulgatam appellatur quartus, ver-sio Aethiopica, nunc primo in medium prolata et Latine Angliceque reddita (Oxford,1820 [Ed. A.F. Gfrörer. Stuttgart, 1840]); C.J. van der Vlis, Disputatio critica deEzrae libro apocrypho vulgo quarto dicto (Amsterdam, 1839) [n.v.]; F. Lücke,Versuch einer vollständigen Einleitung in die Offenbarung des Johannes oder all-gemeine Untersuchungen über die apokalyptische literatur überhaupt und die Apo-kalypse des Johannes insbesondere (2nd edn.; Bonn, 1852), I, pp. 144-212 at 205-206; A. Hilgenfeld, Die jüdische Apokalyptik in ihrer geschichtlichen Entwicklung(Jena, 1857), pp. 185-242 at 218-21; idem, ‘Die jüdische Apokalyptik und die neu-esten Forschungen’, ZWT 3 (1860), pp. 335-58, 10 (1867), pp. 263-95, 31 (1888),pp. 380-84; G. von Kuhn, ‘Zur Assumptio Moses’, ZAW 43 (1925), pp. 124-29.

4. For comprehensive arguments against these proposals, see Drummond, TheJewish Messiah, and Schürer, Geschichte des jüdischen Volkes, III, pp. 238-39(History of the Jewish People, III, pp. 322-23).

DITOMMASO Dating the Eagle Vision of 4 Ezra 5

Romans in 70 CE.5 The second category is composed of those recon-structions equating the three heads with the Flavian emperors: Ves-pasian (reigned 69–79) and his two sons, Titus (79–81) and Domitian(81–96). I employ the aggregate label ‘Flavian theory’ to refer to thehypotheses promoting this identification, although there are a host ofminor variations among the lot. The third group, the ‘post-Flavian’, is acatch-all category for those reconstructions advancing a date for theEagle Vision in the century between Domitian’s death and the acces-sion of Septimius Severus. The postulate of G.H. Box is the most note-worthy here.6 The final category, the ‘Severan theory’, represents thoseproposals that identify the eagle’s heads with Severus (193–211) andhis two sons, Geta (211–212) and Caracalla (211–217).7

Over the past century the Flavian theory has come to dominate schol-arly opinion about the date of the Eagle Vision and, by extension, of 4Ezra as a whole. This hypothesis had always enjoyed the support ofmore scholars than any of its alternatives, although the force of Box’sviews on English-language scholarship should not be underestimated,and both the pre-Flavian and Severan options were once consideredworthy enough contenders to merit serious attention in the works ofJ. Drummond, A. Dillmann and E. Schürer.8 Nevertheless, the present

5. See, among others, Stone, Fourth Ezra, pp. 9-10, 364.6. The Ezra-Apocalypse, Being Chapters 3-14 of the Book Commonly Known

as 4 Ezra (or II Esdras). Translated from a Critically Revised Text, with CriticalIntroductions, Notes and Explanations; with a General Introduction to the Apoca-lypse, and an Appendix Containing the Latin Text (London: Sir Isaac Pitman &Sons, 1912); idem, ‘IV Ezra’, in R.H. Charles, The Apocrypha and Pseudepigraphaof the Old Testament (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1913 [1963]), II, pp. 542-624.

7. A. von Gutschmid, ‘Die Apokalypse des Esra und ihre spätern Bearbeitun-gen’, ZWT 3 (1860), pp. 1-81 at 33-52; A.M. Le Hir, Du IVe livre d’Esdras (Etudesbibliques 1; Paris: Joseph Albanel, 1869), pp. 173-208; C. Clemen, ‘Die Zusam-mensetzung des Buches Henoch, der Apokalypse des Baruch und des viertenBuches Esra’, TSK 71 (1898), pp. 211-46 at 237-46; L. Vaganay, Le problèmeeschatologique dans le IVe livre d’Esdras (Paris: Alphonse Picard et fils, 1906),pp. 21-23; P. Barry, ‘The Apocalypse of Ezra’, JBL 32 (1913), pp. 261-72; D. Völ-ter, ‘Die Gesichte vom Adler und vom Menschen im 4.Esra nebst Bemerkungenüber die Menschensohn-stellen in den Bilderreden Henochs’, Nieuw theologischTijdschrift 8 (1919), pp. 241-73 at 253-67; and L. Gry, Les dires prophétiquesd’Esdras (IV. Esdras) (Paris: Paul Geuthner, 1938), I, pp. xcvii-c.

8. See n. 2, above. Myers’ survey, written a century later than Drummond’s,ignores the pre-Flavian hypotheses but provides a brief outline of the kings asidentified by Gutschmid and Le Hir. When Myers writes that ‘It also appears fairly


ascendancy of the Flavian perspective is such that M.E. Stone can statethat ‘no argument of substance has been added’ since Schürer’s analysisof the debate and conclusion in favour of a Flavian dating.9

Unfortunately, this ascendancy is unwarranted. Indeed, there aremajor and unrecognized weaknesses in the Flavian hypothesis thatundermine its effectiveness as a model for describing the historical cir-cumstances of the Eagle Vision. Yet at the same time there can be littleserious dispute that 4 Ezra is a product of the end of the first centuryCE, even without resorting to a Flavian dating of the Eagle Vision.10

The only solution that permits a first-century date for 4 Ezra while pre-senting the best framework by which to understand the historical dataof the Eagle Vision is to posit that the present vision is a drastic Sev-eran-era reworking of a Flavian-era original. Stone, who relies greatlyon Schürer’s analysis, offers five criticisms of a Severan dating:11

(1) 4 Ezra must have been written before 218, since Clement cites it;(2) the basic unity of 4 Ezra makes it unlikely that the Eagle Vision is alate addition; (3) the first two anti-wings are followed by an ‘inter-regnum’ of troubles and distresses, evidence that is not in harmonyhistorically with the time of Titus and Nerva; (4) the emperors Galba,Otho and Vitellius are ignored in the Severan reconstructions; and(5) the position of Commodus is ‘problematic’.12 But Clement quotes

certain that the three heads stand for the three Flavian emperors’ (I and II Esdras,p. 301), he presumably means that the Severan option is unworkable.

9. ‘2 Esdras’, ABD II, p. 612. Cf. B. Longenecker, 2 Esdras (Sheffield: Shef-field Academic Press, 1995), who asserts that the identification of the heads withthe Flavians is really all we can know about the identities of the characters alludedto by the Eagle Vision (p. 73). A Flavian dating is also assumed by I. Fröhlich,‘Time and Times and Half a Time’: Historical Consciousness in the Jewish Litera-ture of the Persian and Hellenistic Eras (JSPSup, 19; Sheffield: Sheffield AcademicPress, 1996), pp. 188-90.

10. See n. 39, below.11. Fourth Ezra, pp. 363-65. To be fair, Stone notes that ‘some of these dif-

ficulties are avoided’ by considering the Severan theories that consider the presentEagle Vision a third-century reworking of a Domitian-apocalypse, but he never ela-borates on this point (p. 364 n. 20). Myers, too, admits that ‘the [eagle] vision mayhave undergone revision’ (I and II Esdras, p. 129) but does not comment further.

12. Concerning this last, perhaps Stone is referring to the discrepancy betweenGutschmid’s reconstruction (which identifies Commodus as the third anti-wing) andLe Hir’s (which holds that he should be assigned to the position of the twelfth wingalong with his father, Marcus Aurelius). See Schürer, Geschichte des jüdischenVolkes, III, p. 239 (History of the Jewish People, III, p. 323).


from 5.35 (Strom. 3.16), not from 10.59–12.36. At the same time,Stone’s brilliant argument throughout his commentary for the unity of4 Ezra—an argument I accept fully—merely speaks for the inclusion ofan Eagle Vision, not necessarily the Eagle Vision with which we arefamiliar. Put another way, although the core datum of an eagle-empire’sbeing judged and destroyed by a lion-messiah cannot be a late additionto 4 Ezra, the accompanying details (the number and nature of thewings, anti-wings and so forth) must be identified primarily on the basisof the textual evidence and not in light of this core datum. Thereinresides the Flavian theory’s greatest weakness, for while its adherentsvaliantly attempt to align the Eagle Vision’s allusions with thehistorical record, more often than not they fit badly or not at all. On onehand, whereas Stone’s three final points imply that difficulties with afew details present a dilemma for a Severan dating, these details areactually relatively minor. On the other hand, and despite his concernwith these minor details, Stone sees nothing wrong in advocating aFlavian theory that itself cannot identify many of the Vision’s importantfigures and so requires a conclusion that we ought ‘to ascribe to theauthor more detailed knowledge of this period than is availabletoday’.13 Surely this is special pleading.

This essay seeks to reintroduce the strengths of the Severan theoryand will argue that the present, redacted form of the Eagle Vision mostlikely dates from c. 218 CE. The hypothesis advanced is a syntheticconstruct that utilizes certain elements from the previous scholarshipbut also contains many fresh arguments and methods of approach.

2. The Constituent Elements of the Eagle Vision

Clearly, the identification of historical figures on the basis of the infor-mation contained in the text requires a close examination of the nature,number, and attributes of its constituent elements.14 What follows belowis an artificial presentation that combines the vision and its interpretation

13. Fourth Ezra, p. 365.14. I am unfamiliar with any work dealing with the procedures and limitations

of deriving primary historical data from an examination of a text’s allusions or ref-erences to past or current persons and events. To be sure, this method of historicalreconstruction is common, and one is as likely to encounter it without comment in astudy about the allusions in the Qumran pesharim as in a footnote to one of thepseudepigrapha as presented in Charlesworth’s Doubleday volumes.


and is manufactured so as to aid in identifying and clarifying theseelements to the greatest detail possible. Each datum is accompanied bya set of parentheses, in which are cited the relevant passage(s) from thevision and the interpretation [e.g. (11.1/12.11)]. If a particular datum ispresent in one half of the Eagle Vision but not the other, the omissionwill be noted as ‘missing’. If a particular datum is not paralleled expli-citly in the opposite half but is clearly meant to be inferred from thesequence of events, the chapter and verse number will be italicized. Noteverything in either the vision or the interpretation has a parallel; theintroduction to the Lion Scene is one such example (11.36). In thesecases only one citation is provided.

The eagle that rose from the sea (11.1/12.11) is first shown to Ezra aspossessing twelve wings and three heads (11.1). The beast is interpretedas being the fourth kingdom of Daniel’s vision (Dan. 7.7-11), which‘shall be more terrifying than all the kingdoms that have been before it’(12.13), but the Seer is also warned that the interpretation that will bepronounced to him will be different from the one that had been given toDaniel (12.12).15 The eagle ‘flew with its wings’ to gain sovereignty

15. Some manuscripts add a clause that reads something to the effect of ‘or [theone] that I have [already] explained’. Cf. B. Violet, Die Apokalypsen des Esra unddes Baruch in deutscher Gestalt (GCS, 32; Leipzig, 1924), p. 162 n.: ‘oder erklärthabe’; W.O.E. Oesterley: ‘or have expounded it’ (II Esdras [The Ezra Apocalypse][Westminster Commentaries; London, 1933]); Myers: ‘as I have interpreted [it]’(I and II Esdras: Introduction, Translation and Commentary [AB; Garden City,NY: Doubleday, 1974], p. 285). The presence of this extra clause is not explainedby any of the commentators satisfactorily. Violet considers it a gloss, while Box(IV Ezra) considers the entire verse the work of a second-century redactor. Stoneargues that Violet’s position ‘can be accepted on exegetical grounds’ but does notelaborate (Fourth Ezra, p. 358). G.K. Beale, who describes in detail how the EagleVision recalls many elements of the visions in the book of Daniel, does not accountfor this curious phrase (The Use of Daniel in Jewish Apocalyptic and in theRevelation of St. John [Lanham, MD, 1984], pp. 112-29) .

The question of why such a gloss should have been inserted in the text at thispoint remains unsolved. From the perspective of the Severan theory, it might repre-sent an indication to the audience of 4 Ezra that the original (Flavian) interpretationof the vision was to have been considered superceded in the same fashion as hadbeen the Danielic explanation. If one adheres to the Flavian theory, however, thepresence of the gloss couches a potentially stickier problem: evidently someonewanted to stress that an interpretation that had been given at some point in the pastwas now to be reckoned as invalid; if this is true, and if the gloss is post-Flavian, isit reasonable to assume that the one wishing to make this point would have been


over the entire earth and its denizens, a dominion so total that no onecould resist it (11.5-6/missing). Then the eagle ‘rose upon his talons’(11.7/missing), spoke to its wings with a voice that came from themiddle of its body (11.10/12.17), and established the sequence of rule:each wing would hold sway in its turn (11.8, 11.12-19/12.14), with theheads being reserved for the last (11.9/12.23). The voice itself, how-ever, is later interpreted as alluding to a time of struggles occurring ‘inthe midst of the time of that kingdom’16 that will threaten to topple it.The troubles will not persist, however, and the kingdom ‘shall regain itsformer power’ (missing/12.18).17

Ezra next sees the right side of the eagle (11.12/missing),18 where onewing rose to power, held sway, and then disappeared without a trace

content with adding this general clause without altering any of the finer details ofthe vision and its interpretation?

16. Although the Latin text reads ‘king’ (? = an attempt to harmonize this versewith the information of 11.13b-17), the oriental versions are to be preferred. A‘time of struggles’ of the magnitude implied by 12.18 certainly did not precedeTiberius, nor was the empire remotely in danger of falling at that time (see, e.g.,Suetonius, Tib. 21-24).

17. As Knibb notes, 12.18 interprets neither 11.7-9 nor 11.16-17 (The First andSecond Books, p. 250).

18. Much has been written about the ‘sides’ of the eagle. Box feels that thephrase ‘on the right side’ at 11.12 is an addition, since nothing in the interpretationappears that explains the significance of ‘right’ and ‘left’ (‘IV Ezra’, p. 610).Oesterley, however, rightly comments that this fact is in itself not significant ‘sinceother points in the Vision are without mention in the interpretation’ (II Esdras,p. 135). The matter is compounded by 11.20, where the Ethiopic manuscripts sub-stitute ‘left side’ for the ‘right side’ of the Latin, Syriac and Armenian versions.Although the significance of ‘right’ and ‘left’ remains unclear, the issue does notbear weight either way on the thrust of this paper and the burden of proof resideswith those who wish to prove that the sides play an important function in thepresent version of the Eagle Vision. Gutschmid, Le Hir, H. Gunkel (‘Das vierteBuch Esra’, Die Apokryphen und Pseudepigraphen des Alten Testaments [ed. E.Kautzch; Tübingen, 1900], II, pp. 331-401), and Oesterley split the 12 wings (andso the historical personages associated with them) into two sides, while G. Volkmar(Handbuch der Einleitung in die Apokryphen. II. Das vierte Buch Esra [‘EsdraPropheta’] [Tübingen, 1863]) believes that because the wings were reckoned inpairs, only six emperors should be counted (see nn. 74 and 82, below). Cf. C.Sigwalt, ‘Die Chronologie des 4. Buches Esras’, BZ 9 (1911), pp. 146-48, who alsoargues for pairs of wings but accepts that all the appendages are original. Volkmaris followed by Box’s reconstruction of the original Eagle Vision, which he dates tothe time of Domitian, though Box himself argues that ‘if pairs of wings were in the


(11.12-13a/12.14, 1619). Then the second wing arose and ruled for along time before it, too, disappeared; yet before it left, a voice (11.15/missing) spoke to it and told it that, ‘After you no one shall rule as longas you’ (11.13b-17a/12.15), ‘nor half as long’ (11.17b/missing).20 Andso the sequence went with all the wings (11.18-19).21

The eagle, as we have seen, has three heads that remain dormant(11.4/12.22) until the last of the twelve wings assumes power and thenvanishes. There are also eight anti-wings22 that spring from the eagle’swings (11.11/12.19), which are puny and petty (11.3/12.20).23 Theseanti-wings are interpreted as being eight relatively insignificant kings‘whose times shall be short and their years swift’; some of them willhold power for but a brief span of time while others will never manageto gain the rule at all (11.20-21/12.20).24 While two of the anti-wings

original writer’s thought here we should expect “the first wing” ’ at 11.12, not thepresent ‘one wing’ (‘IV Ezra’, p. 610). See Appendix for a full presentation of thedetails of these various reconstructions. So far all the attempts to assign the wingsto different sides or to have them considered in pairs have been unpersuasive. Butsee n. 83, below.

19. The sequence of rule having been established at 11.8 and 12.14, it is unnec-essary to expect the interpretation also to contain explicit mention of the first andthird wings (contra Oesterley, II Esdras, p. 139), which are plainly included in thevision merely to provide examples of the mechanics of the sequence of rule and aframework for the exposition of the details of the second wing.

20. It is unclear whether this voice is also the voice that proclaimed that thesecond king’s reign would be longer by more than half than that of any other king(Stone, Fourth Ezra, p. 367).

21. Even though ‘all’ could refer conceivably to the eight anti-wings or the sumtotal of wings and anti-wings, it appears that the context demands that it mean ‘all[twelve] wings’. See note n. 24, below, on 11.20-21. As for the theories of right-side and left-side wings, see n. 18, above.

22. The use of the term ‘anti-wing’ throughout this paper is designed to conveyboth its physiological (‘little’, ‘puny’; also (?): ‘on the opposite [left] side’; see n.18, above) and political (in the sense of ‘rival’ or ‘opposing’ wings/usurpers)aspects. The exact terminology employed varies throughout these two chapters andthe manuscripts.

23. On the ‘sides’ of the eagle, see n. 18, above.24. So Drummond, The Jewish Messiah, pp. 102-103, and Box, The Ezra

Apocalypse, who take this passage as referring to the anti-wings. Stone notes that ‘itis possible that 11.18-19 deals with the fate of the right-hand wings and 11.20-21with that of those on the left hand side’ (Fourth Ezra, p. 350). There is, however, nogood reason to assume that the present form of the Eagle Vision demands or evensuggests that the (major) wings sprout from specific sides of the eagle’s body. What


appear and vanish during the middle of the eagle’s25 time (11.22/12.21a), the remaining six remain inactive until the twelve wings havedisappeared, so that only the three dormant heads and the six anti-wingsare left of the eagle’s body (11.22-23/missing). In the interpretationthere is an additional morsel of information concerning the six anti-wings: four of them are to be preserved for the time when the eagle’send approaches (missing/12.21b), while the other two ‘shall be keptuntil the end’ (12.2b-3a/12.21c). Ezra next sees how two of these sixanti-wings disengaged themselves from the others and took station‘under the head that was on the right side’, while the others ‘remainedin their place’26 (11.24/missing). The four anti-wings that had remainedin their stations then plotted to seize the rule: one held sway but disap-peared almost immediately, while the second ‘disappeared morequickly than the first’ (11.25-27/missing).

The final two of these four anti-wings also schemed to gain powerthemselves27 (11.28, 29a/missing). Even as they plotted, though, themiddle head (which was larger than the other two [11.4, 29/12.26])awoke from its state of dormancy and, ‘allied’28 with the other twoheads, turned and devoured them (11.29-31/missing, except for theawakening of the heads, which is assumed at 12.23). Ezra is then shownhow the middle head subdues the entire earth and its inhabitants ruth-lessly, having ‘greater power over the world than all the wings that hadgone before’ (11.32/missing). The interpretation, however, stresses thatall three heads/kings will rule harshly over the earth and its occupants,

the original apocalypse might have contained is another concern; see above, n. 18(on ‘right’ and ‘left’). Moreover, there is a sense of summation at 11.19 that appearsto preclude its subject matter’s dribbling over into vv. 20 and 21; as Knibb remarks,‘Verse 20 could certainly be interpreted without difficulty as referring to the littlewings’ (Knibb, The Books of Esdras, p. 242).

25. The text does not provide the noun. Oesterley is correct when he observesthat this must mean ‘the middle time of the kingdom’ (II Esdras, p. 140). See alsoViolet, Die Apokalypsen, pp. 164-65, n. and compare the datum of 12.18 (n. 17,above). For a wide range of candidates for these and the following anti-wings, seeAppendix.

26. See discussion on ‘right’ and ‘left’, n. 18, above.27. Stone, Fourth Ezra, p. 344 n. k: ‘RSV adds “together”, apparently reflecting

Lat et ipsae, but that reading finds no support in the other versions’.28. Latin: Et uidi quomodo complexa est duo capita secum. Box, ‘IV Ezra’,

p. 611, also has ‘allied’; Oesterley (II Esdras, p. 133), Knibb: ‘joined’; Myers ‘con-joined’.


and omits the datum about having ‘greater power’ but adding that theywill restore much of the empire’s strength (missing/12.23-24a).29 Ezrais also told of the reason why they are called the ‘eagle’s heads’,30

‘since it is they who shall be the heads of wickedness and perform hislast actions’ (12.24b-25).

The next thing that Ezra observes is the disappearance of the middlehead (11.33/12.26), to which is added in the interpretation the note thatthis king will die in his bed, though in anguish (missing/12.26). Thetwo remaining ones will then hold sway over the earth31 (11.34/12.27a)before the head on the right devours the one on the left (11.35/12.28).The interpretation again elaborates: both heads/kings will be consumedby the sword, with the sword of one king devouring his companion32

before he, too, falls ‘by the sword in the last days’ (missing/12.27-28).It is at this point that the sequence of events in the vision and the

interpretation differ enough so as to require separate accounts. In thevision, after the right head devoured the left, a voice spoke to Ezrademanding that he regard and reflect upon what he was about to witness(11.36). A raging, roaring lion appeared from the forest and in ‘a man’svoice’33 pronounced to the eagle how the Most High had established it

29. So Knibb, Books of Esdras, p. 247; he also notes that the Latin text here is‘slightly out of order’ (p. 251), concerning which see the postulate of Oesterley,II Esdras, p. 140. The datum of the three kings’ bringing restoration to the empireis, as we shall see, a key element of the Flavian theory.

30. I.e., the eagle’s last actions. The cause-and-effect relationship explicit in12.23-25 can, by a slight stretch of the imagination, be extended back to 11.32; butit also very clear that the interpretation emphasizes the three heads/kings in a col-lective way that the vision does not. See Violet, Die Apokalypsen, pp. 165-66, forthe word-play on ‘heads’.

31. Recall the previous note on the sequence of rule of the vision and the inter-pretation. What does our author wish to say about the nature of these three heads?Evidently he wanted the three to be identified together; after all, he calls all of them‘heads’. There is also another connexion in their acting together to destroy the lasttwo stationary anti-wings (11.30-31). By the same token, the sequence of rule of theheads implied at 11.32-34 takes the trouble to keep somewhat separate the greatmiddle head and its two lesser neighbours. Is 11.34 our author’s way of communi-cating that these two heads ruled together or are to be considered a pair in somemeaningful fashion? Note well also the qui cum eo of 12.28a.

32. Literally, ‘[the one] who was with him’ (qui cum eo); the majority of theoriental manuscripts omit or truncate the first half of 12.28. On the relationshipbetween the two lesser heads, see the previous note.

33. Not the voice of 11.7-9/12.17, but is it the same as the voice of 11.15-17?


as the last of the four beasts to which he had given the rule over theworld and through which he would effect ‘the end of the times’ (11.37-39). The lion then listed the eagle’s many crimes, highlighted its arro-gance and haughtiness, and stressed again that the ages of the MostHigh have been completed (11.40-44). As a result, the eagle—wings,anti-wings, heads, talons,34 and body alike—will vanish, and the earthwill be relieved, refreshed, delivered from the eagle’s violence, and lefthoping ‘for the judgment and mercy of him who made it’ (11.45-46).While the lion spoke to the eagle, Ezra saw the remaining head disap-pear (12.1-2a). Then the last two anti-wings (those that had earlier goneover to the right-hand head) took power for themselves, but ‘their reignwas brief and full of tumult’; when Ezra looked again, they had van-ished (12.2b-3a). Finally, the entire body of the eagle was burned andthe earth was in great fear (12.3b).

In the interpretation, however, the information that the two lesserheads will die by the sword is presented first (12.27-28; see above),followed by the pronouncement that the two last anti-wings are thosethat ‘the Most High has kept for its35 end’, and whose reign was36 shortand turbulent (12.29-30). It is only after this statement that the figure ofthe lion is interpreted: he is the Messiah of the seed of David, whom theMost High has reserved until the end of days and who upbraids,denounces, and confronts the eagle.37 The Messiah not only will judge,reprove, and then ultimately destroy the eagle (see 12.3a?), but also willdeliver the remnant that had been saved and will make them joyful until

The imperative of command is the same (Latin: Audi [tu]), as is the tenor of thecontent.

34. For the second time the talons are mentioned in the vision but not in theinterpretation. See also 11.7. The origin of these talons presumably is to be found inthe vjnAyd hyrpf of the fourth beast of Dan. 7.19 (but not 7.7). Myers suggests thatthey might represent the imperial armies, which in light of Dan. 7.19 makes goodsense indeed (I and II Esdras, p. 289).

35. Or ‘His’ (i.e., ‘the Most High’s’); see Stone, Fourth Ezra, p. 359 n. e,p. 368, and p. 368 n. 48.

36. Or ‘will be’; see Myers, I and II Esdras, p. 286 n. y. The Latin reads hocerat regnem exile et turbationis plenum; does our author mean that they ruledtogether (cf. 12.2b)?

37. The text at 12.32 and 33 actually reads ‘them’; presumably the entire col-lection of wings, anti-wings and heads is meant, though this is not certain. Cf.Knibb: ‘[The Messiah] will address those rulers, taxing them openly with theirsins…’ (The Books of Esdras).


the end (12.31b-34).38 The Eagle Vision ends with a concluding sen-tence reminiscent of Dan. 2.45 and a notation stressing Ezra’s worthi-ness to learn what has been revealed (12.35-36).

One cannot fail to notice the amount of specific detail accorded tocertain elements of the Eagle Vision, especially in regard to the overallsequence of rule and to the descriptions of the reigns of the three headsand the later anti-wings. Equally striking is the degree to which thevision and the interpretation do not correspond, most notably in theinterpretation’s failing to mention much of the information presented inthe vision concerning the final six anti-wings (11.24-28) and in the dis-crepancy between the vision and the interpretation’s account of thesequence involving the Lion, the two lesser heads and the last two anti-wings. Although this disagreement between vision and interpretationdoes not in itself allow one to posit all sorts of textual interpolationsand redactions, it does force us to consider the evidence in its entirety.Also, neither the vision nor its interpretation enjoys automatic priorityon the basis of its content.

3. The Historical Allusions of the Eagle Vision

Having isolated the constituent elements of the Eagle Vision, the nexttask is to discover which one of the Flavian or Severan theories pro-vides the most convincing identification of these elements with histori-cal figures and events.39 The Eagle Vision follows the Danielic patternof reviews of history in that the comparative bulk of the details arereserved for the latter portions of the vision, that is, the part that corre-

38. This brief summary of these four and a half verses cannot do justice to theirrichness and complexity, nor can it even hint at their importance to the understand-ing of the book as a whole. See Stone, Fourth Ezra, passim.

39. Because the Flavian theories date the Eagle Vision to the time of Domitianon the basis of its internal historical allusions, it is perfectly appropriate to attackthem on these grounds. The evidence of the citations of 4 Ezra by other ancientwriters is in itself extremely slim; as noted, such evidence is also meaningless to theSeveran theory if one holds the present Eagle Vision to be the product of redaction.Internal evidence from 4 Ezra exclusive of the Eagle Vision is extremely vague,except for the statement that the book was composed in the ‘thirtieth year after thedestruction of our city’ (3.1). But even that figure may be typological. For the mod-ern presentations and evaluations of the evidence for the dating of the book, seeMyers, I and II Esdras, pp. 129-31 and Stone, Fourth Ezra, pp. 9-10.


sponds to its author’s recent and very recent past.40 This is not to saythat those parts of the vision that relate the author’s more distant pastwere considered by him to be imaginary or legendary, rather that suchdescriptions are more likely to have been telescoped, schematized orabbreviated.41 Accordingly, it is the final phase of the vision and its

40. In its present form, Dan. 2 contains the dream-vision of the great statuefashioned of four metals and clay. The metals, representing kingdoms, are accordedrelatively short shrift in the interpretation and are almost folklore-like in theirgenerality (the second kingdom is inferior, the fourth strong as iron). By contrast,the feet and toes, being minor elements with respect to the immensity of thecolossus but representing the author’s most recent past (‘appearing’ immediatelybefore the advent of the kingdom of God), are much more fleshed out. In Dan. 7,although the four beasts are detailed somewhat in the vision (but not in the inter-pretation!), the 10 horns/kings are noted but briefly and much of the vision andinterpretation is limited to the span of time corresponding to that of Antiochus IVEpiphanes. The period of Antiochus also receives the bulk of the attention at Dan.8. In both cases, the majority of the concrete details of the vision is reserved for thetime immediately before the (imminent) future-time events. Compare also Dan. 9,where the interpretation of the 70 weeks contains little information prior to the finalseven weeks. The only exception to this pattern is at Dan. 11, where vv. 5-20describe with some elaboration the vicissitudes of certain kings before Antiochus.Still, these events are relatively ‘recent’ from the perspective of a historical reviewthat begins with the kings of Persia. Moreover, the characters from the age of Anti-ochus IV are far and away described in the greatest detail (vv. 21-45), with analmost blow-by-blow account of Epiphanes’ last years (and including a genuineprediction at vv. 40-45).

Another example of a vision that emphasizes an author’s recent past is found inthe Animal Apocalypse of 1 En. 85–90. Disregarding chs. 85–89, where the biblicalaccount has formed the framework into which is fitted a highly idiosyncraticaccount of events from Adam to the rebuilding of the Temple, we observe that ch.90 is basically a highly-schematized review of the period of the Second Temple thatculminates in a long section describing the future-time events. While the bulk of thehistorical review of this chapter is telescoped into a few general statements (vv. 1-6), the much shorter span of time alluding to the time of the Maccabees is recordedin far greater detail.

For its part, 2 Bar. 35–40 is quite like the dream-vision of Dan. 2 in its presenta-tion of the schema of the four empires and in the fact that its interpretation pre-serves an extra degree of detail about the fourth kingdom.

41. Cf, e.g., the ‘four kingdoms’ of Dan. 2.38-40, 7.17 and 8.22 (different king-doms are meant in this last example), the ‘ten horns’ of Dan. 7.24, the ‘four kingsof Persia’ (Dan. 11.2), the ‘seventy shepherds’ of 1 En. 89.59, and so on. So, too,the ‘twelve wings’ of the Eagle Vision (see below). On Dan. 11, see J.J. Collins,Daniel: A Commentary on the Book of Daniel (Hermeneia; Minneapolis: Fortress


interpretation to which we must turn first—that portion involving thesequence of the final six anti-wings, the Lion and the three heads.Although the chronological span covered by this period is not greatwhen compared to the full scope of history reviewed by the EagleVision, most of our author’s attention is plainly focused on the happen-ings of what for him and his contemporaries was the past within livingmemory.

a. The Three Heads: Part IAs mentioned, the defining characteristic of the Flavian theory is that itidentifies the three heads with T. Flavius Vespasianus—known to us asVespasian—and his two sons, Titus and Domitian. On what basis is thisidentification made? The middle head, be it Vespasian or Severus, isdescribed in each half of the Eagle Vision as being larger or greaterthan the other two. Yet all three are called ‘heads’, an occurrence thatintimates some sort of connexion among the three.42 As B. Violet

Press, 1993), p. 26: ‘[The] references to Hellenistic history in ch. 11 are essentiallyaccurate, whereas those to the Babylonian and Persian periods in the earlier chap-ters are notoriously confused’. This telescoping of history is by no means limited tokings and kingdoms; cf. the ‘seventy weeks’ of Dan. 9.24 and even perhaps the‘390 years’ and ‘twenty years’ of CD 1.5-6, 10. In each of these cases, these blocksof time, whatever their symbolic and/or historical value, serve not only to establishthe boundaries of the comparatively distant past but also to set the table for anaccount of the immediate and pressing events of the more recent past, events which,for all intents and purposes, have created the conditions and provided the stimulithat have provoked the literature itself. Moreover, much of these data (periodized ornot) are only fully intelligible in the light of whatever future-time predictions aremade; in other words, the presentation of the distant- and near-past history is bothshaped and is intended to give shape to future expectations.

42. See nn. 31-32, above. Box’s view (‘IV Ezra’, p. 612) that the heads are to beequated with Trajan, Hadrian and Lusius Quietus cannot stand even in the light ofthis basic datum. Where Trajan and Hadrian were emperors who each enjoyed longreigns, Quietus never held the imperial power, nor was he even considered to havebeen an emperor by any of the classical histories. Box notes that ‘in the Rabbinicsources [Quietus] is sometimes spoken of as if he were actual emperor’, but doesnot give details. While it true that Quietus was active in suppressing Jewish rebel-lions in Mesopotamia and Judaea, he quickly fell out of favour with Hadrian andshortly thereafter was put to death for his role in a plot to murder the emperor (HA,Had. 5.8, 7.1-3). Box’s reconstruction is confounded even further by his confusionover the assertion that, early in his reign, Hadrian ‘put to death four consular sena-tors, his personal enemies, and men who had been judged worthy of empire’


remarks, such criteria leads one naturally to consider Vespasian, Titusand Domitian as suitable candidates.43 This evidence alone, however,supports equally an identification of the heads with Septimius Severusand his two sons, Geta and Caracalla. On a general level the parallelsbetween these alternatives are strong. In both cases the father hadentered the spotlight in the midst of a crisis of empire, where a despisedtyrant (Nero/Commodus) had recently been murdered and the imperialpower subsequently claimed by several rivals. Both Vespasian andSeverus were field commanders who took the throne not through apraetorian coup but on the strength of the acclamation as emperorawarded them by their legions. After having dealt with their rivals, bothmen very much restored domestic tranquility and the pax. Vespasianand Severus each had two sons who also became emperor, one ofwhom (Titus/Geta) ruled for a considerably shorter span than hisbrother. Finally, the reigns of Domitian and Caracalla were similarlyterminated by assassination.44 Evidently, the answer to the question ofthe Eagle Vision’s historical allusions must be sought in its finer details.

(E. Gibbon, The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire [6 vols.;London: The Folio Society, 1983], I, p. 91). Box identifies these men as the fouranti-wings of 12.21b (‘IV Ezra’, p. 613) without realizing that Lusius Quietus wasone of those ‘consular senators’ and that the event to which Gibbon refers is theplot on Hadrian’s life mentioned by the Historia augusta, above. Lusius Quietuscannot be both a head and one of the anti-wings whom the heads destroy.

Concerning the Historia augusta (for many years known as the Scriptores histo-riae augustae), many questions remain unanswered with respect to its date, prove-nance, redaction, and the nature of the documents it claims to have used. Still, muchof it remains a very valuable account of the events of the second and third centuries.One matter that is now fairly clear is that only one author is responsible for thefinished product; as a result, I have chosen to simply label the work HA and not toemploy the traditional ‘author’ abbreviations. See Z. Rubin, Civil-War Propagandaand Historiography (Collection Latomus, 173; Brussels, 1980), pp. 17-19 and thesources cited there; Ronald Syme, Historia Augusta Papers (Oxford: Oxford Uni-versity, 1983); and Anthony R. Birley, ‘Ancient Evidence and Modern Scholar-ship’, in The African Emperor: Septimius Severus (rev. edn; New Haven: Yale Uni-versity Press, 1988), pp. 203-11.

43. Violet, Die Apokalypsen, p. 155, who argues that the ‘greater than’ of themanuscript tradition is rooted in the Hebrew expression ˆm lwdg.

44. For the period of the Flavians, see Tacitus, Ann.; Suetonius, Ves., Tit. andDom.; the epitomes of Cassius Dio (D.C.) 63-67; and, to a far lesser extent, Aure-lius Victor, De Caes. 5-11. Concerning D.C., the numbering of the chapters followsthat of the Loeb edition, and not that of Boissevain’s. For the Severans, see the


b. The Second Pair of Anti-WingsBefore the middle head awoke, the first two of the four anti-wings thathad remained stationary plotted to seize the rule (11.28-29a). (Recallthat six of the eight anti-wings are preserved until the disappearance ofthe twelve wings, four of which remain inactive until the time when theend of the eagle approaches, while two move over to the right-handhead to wait until the very end). The first of these plotters held swayvery briefly and the second vanished even more rapidly. Supporters ofthe Flavian theory either offer a host of nominees for these two roles ordecline to render a decision on the basis that the text does not provideenough information.45 Candidates include Galba and Otho (both ofwhom ruled for a short while in the ‘long year’ between Nero and Ves-pasian), Galba and his adopted son L. Calpurnius Piso Licinianus, andeven local Palestinian figures such as Eleazar and John of Gischala.There are a host of difficulties with all these suggestions. The view thatthese two anti-wings (or any of the eagle’s features) should be equatedwith local Jewish dirigeants is quite untenable.46 The Eagle Vision isconcerned with the fourth beast of Daniel’s vision, the fourth and lastkingdom before the arrival of the expected future-time events. There isno indication that the appendages of the eagle are meant to representanything but Roman kings or usurpers. As for proposals that wouldidentify the two anti-wings with figures prominent during the troubledyears of 68–69, the major objection is that there were three men (Galba,Otho and Vitellius) who gained the throne before Vespasian. Such evi-dence cannot be ignored. If as the Flavian theory asserts, the EagleVision was composed toward the end of Domitian’s reign, the crisis ofempire that succeeded Nero’s death would have been very much withinthe scope of living memory, and all the more so because of the relent-less Flavian propaganda that presented them as the saviors of theRoman Empire and the restorers of concord.47 It is highly unlikely that

epitomes of D.C. 73-79.10.3; HA, Comm. to Macr.; Herodian 1-4; Aurelius Victor,De Caes. 17-21. Citations will be henceforth reserved for specific historical details.Sib.Or. 12 also preserves a review of history to Alexander Severus, beginning withAugustus.

45. Here (and wherever the Flavian theories cited), see Appendix for the fullrange of possibilities.

46. A. Gfrörer, Geschichte des Urchristentums (Stuttgart, 1838), pp. 69-93;Oesterley, II Esdras, pp. 146-47.

47. For the numismatic evidence, see H. Mattingly, Coins of the Roman Empirein the British Museum (second edn prepared by R.A.G. Carson; London: British


any one of the emperors Galba, Otho or Vitellius would have been ‘for-gotten’ by our author,48 especially given his attention to detail: the firstanti-wing that appeared before the middle head awoke reigned briefly,the second one even less. Lastly, since nothing in the evidence suggeststhat this second figure did not hold power, identifications with Piso orany other claimant to the throne must be considered suspect.

Is it necessary to agree with most modern commentators and to assignquestion marks to the identities of these two anti-wings, or can a rea-sonable solution be gleaned from a much later time, in the period imme-diately prior to the reign of Severus? In fact, there is a better solution,and the agreement here is much more concrete. After the mad emperorCommodus was strangled on the last day of the year 192, the praetorianprefect Laetus offered the throne to P. Helvius Pertinax, a formergeneral who was at the time both praefectus urbanus and consul. Asemperor, however, Pertinax soon lost the support of Laetus and thepraetorians and was himself assassinated in a palace coup on 28 March.He had reigned for 87 days.49 Shortly afterward, an auction for thethrone was held between M. Didius Severus Julianus and T. FlaviusSulpicianus, whereupon Julianus emerged triumphant, having offeredthe praetorians per capita HS 25,000.50 Yet as emperor Julianus faredno better than his predecessor. Septimius Severus had already beenacclaimed as emperor by his legions and was marching on the capital,while the praetorians, disaffected by Julianus’s failure to pay them theagreed price, deserted the palace. Charges were brought against Julia-nus by hostile senators, and some time around 1 June he was killed,

Museum Publications, 1976), II, pp. 2.xxvi-lxix, esp. xxxiii-xxxiv. While it is truethat coin types and legends are at some level the products of the imperial bureau-cracy and that stock terms like concordia and pax are to be found on the issues ofmost emperors, the Flavians could make a real claim to having saved the empirefrom a succession of barracks-emperors. See C.H.V. Sutherland, Roman Coins(New York: Barrie & Jenkins, 1974), pp. 180-81. My gratitude is extended to MrBruce Brace, president of the Classical and Mediaeval Numismatic Society.

48. As they were not forgotten by the authors of the Sibylline Oracles. SeeSib.Or. 5.35, composed near the turn of the first century CE, and Sib.Or. 12.95-98,which must date from the decades after Severus. Sib.Or. 8.138 implies the threeemperors.

49. So D.C. (Xiph.) 74.10.3. Aurelius Victor provides a figure of 80 days andgives Pertinax the praenomen Aulus (De Caes. 17-18); Eutropius 8.16 also adheresto 80 days. HA, Pert. 15.6, tells that Pertinax ‘imperavit mensibus II diebus XXV’.

50. D.C. (Xiph.) 74.11.5-6.


having held the imperial power for 66 days.51 Within a few weeksSeverus was emperor and began to consolidate his rule. If the middlehead is assumed to be Severus, the internal evidence of the EagleVision concerning these two anti-wings plainly fits the historical figuresof Pertinax and Didius Julianus.52

c. The Third Pair of Anti-WingsThe last two anti-wings that remained stationary also plotted to achieverule but, as the vision relates, the middle head suddenly awoke and,‘allied’ with the two other heads, turned and consumed these two anti-wings. Once again the partisans of the Flavian theory either offer whatamounts to be a galaxy of candidates for these two positions or resignthemselves to the conclusion that such precise identifications are im-possible.53 The fact is that our sources fail to tell us of any notable andserious claimant to Vespasian’s throne, and much less two claimants. Incontrast, Severus had to put down two dangerous rivals during the earlyyears of his reign, C. Pescennius Niger and Decimus Clodius SeptimiusAlbinus. Niger had much support in the Near East, and the nine easternlegions declared for him at Syrian Antioch while Severus was still busyseizing Rome. The next two years saw a series of battles wagedthroughout Syria and Asia Minor, wherein Severus slowly but inexor-ably threw back Niger and his supporters. The end of the revolt camesoon after, with Niger’s death near the Euphrates. It had taken two longyears for Severus to quash this rebellion, but no sooner had he finishedwith Niger in the eastern provinces than another threat emerged in theperson of Albinus, the governor of Britain. Fearing—correctly, as itturned out—that Severus would limit the supreme imperium to his

51. D.C. (Xiph.) 74.17.5. HA, Did. Jul. 9.3 has 2 months, 5 days. Eutropius,8.17-18 gives a figure of 7 months.

52. Le Hir, IVe livre d’Esdras, pp. 187-88. Gutschmid proposes Commodus andPertinax, ‘Die Apokalypse’, p. 42.

53. See Appendix. As mentioned, Box offers those ‘four consular senators’ asthe two pairs of stationary, plotting anti-wings; see the criticism of this at n. 42. OnGfrörer and Oesterley’s understanding of the anti-wings as Jewish characters, seetext above. Both Myers (I and II Esdras, p. 290) and Knibb (The Books of Esdras,p. 243) hold out tentatively the names of Otho and Vitellius, but both emperorswere dead by the time that Vespasian took the throne. This contradicts the evidenceof the text, which declares that the middle head awoke (= came to power, an equa-tion established in the sequence of rule given to the 12 wings at 11.8-9) beforedevouring these two anti-wings.


immediate family, Albinus crossed the channel and took up head-quarters in Gaulish Lugdunum (Lyons) with plans to invade Italy andseize Rome. But Severus managed to hold the Alpine passes and thecritical German legions remained staunchly loyal to him. In February197 a great battle was fought near Lugdunum, from which Severusemerged triumphant and Albinus dead.54 Thus, if we posit that Severuswas the middle head of the Eagle Vision, then Niger and Albinus makea perfectly suitable match for the pair of anti-wings that are devouredby this head.

d. The Three Heads: Part IIAs noted, where the vision affirms that the middle head ruled ruthlesslywith greater power than any of its predecessors, the interpretationasserts that all three reigned harshly but adds that they somehowrestored or renewed the kingdom. ‘Greater power’ being a somewhatsubjective conception, this datum could apply equally to Vespasian orto Severus; likewise, both the Flavians and the Severans were in manyways ‘restorers’ of the empire after the crises that followed the deathsof Nero and Commodus. The oppressive nature of the middle head’srule might be a description of the harsh measures taken against the Jewsby Vespasian at the end of the Great Revolt,55 although we cannot besure of the relations between Severus and the Jews during the first yearsof his reign, and it is not too far-fetched to assume that Niger, whosepower base was in Egypt and the east, also had supporters in Pales-tine.56 Yet, while there is no doubting that Vespasian and Titus greatly

54. For the sources, see n. 44, above. To be sure, the presentation here of thesefirst four years of Severus’s reign is an extremely sketchy conflation of the sources.On Pescennius Niger, see also Sib.Or. 12.250-55, though Albinus is not mentioned.

55. Josephus, War 6-7. Also, E.M. Smallwood, The Jews under Roman Rule:From Pompey to Diocletian (SJLA, 20; Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1976), pp. 327-51, andthe battalion of literary sources and epigraphic material cited there. Barry’s point isuntenable: ‘[Vespasian] was a wise and able ruler—even a hostile Semitic imagina-tion could not make him a prototype of the great tyrant of the Apocalypse’ (‘TheApocalypse of Ezra’, p. 264).

56. Orosius (7.17.3) and Eusebius (Chr., Sev. 5) tell of a revolt involving theJews and Samaritans that erupted after Niger’s death, but Dio, the HA and Herodianare silent. Smallwood cites this and other evidence as proof of sporadic, limitedunrest in the area at the time (Jews under Roman Rule, pp. 487-89). But see Gib-bon, Decline and Fall: ‘Many cities of the east were stript [sic] of their ancienthonours, and obliged to pay, into the treasury of Severus, four times the amount of


affected the course of Judaism, there is nothing in the data of 11.32/12.23b-24a that begs a specifically Jewish referent. In fact, both thevision and the interpretation emphasize that the entire earth and all ofits denizens fell under the compass of the repressive rule. This state-ment hints that our author understands events on a scale grander thanthat of Palestine proper. Such a perspective is also borne out by theobservation that his overarching concern is with the last world-empirebefore the advent of the end-time happenings and its sequence of rulersand usurpers. As a final point, even if we assume that the text makesreference to the heads’ treatment of the Jews, the Flavian theory holdsthat the Eagle Vision was composed less than 30 years after the mostcalamitous decade in Palestine since the Maccabean Revolt and that itsauthor chose to identify the Flavian emperors with the heads of theeagle, the focus and climax of the final kingdom of history. Recogniz-ing that our author does not shirk from describing the reign of theseheads in a poor light (esp. 12.24b-25), how likely is it that he would failto mention, if only allusively, Vespasian’s and Titus’s actions withrespect to the destruction of Jerusalem and the razing of the Temple?57

We are told that the disappearance of middle head means that thisking ‘shall die in his bed, but in agonies’ (12.26). If a king’s dying inhis bed signifies nothing more than the general fact that he did not per-ish by the sword (e.g. in battle or by assassination), then this datumapplies equally to Vespasian and Severus. Consider, however, Sueto-nius’s account of Vespasian’s death:58

the sums contributed by them for the service of Niger’ (I, p. 127). See also n. 98,below.

57. This is not strictly an argument from silence, though it is one that rests fun-damentally on suppositions rather than facts. Compare the review of history foundin Sib.Or. 4, written shortly after the eruption of Vesuvius in 79 CE (and only 10–15short years before the date assigned to the Eagle Vision by the Flavian theory).Lines 125–27 read, ‘A leader of Rome will come to Syria who will burn/ theTemple of Jerusalem with fire, at the same time slaughter/ many men and destroythe great land of the Jews with its broad roads’ (J.J. Collins, ‘Sibylline Oracles’,OTP I, p. 387) Note also Sib.Or. 5.397-413. T. Rajak writes, ‘Rabbinic literatureand Jewish folk memory persistently represent Titus as the wicked agent ofdestruction, and stories have clustered around the theme of his punishment’(Josephus: The Historian and his Society [London: Gerald Duckworth, 1982]), p.210.

58. English translation by J.C. Rolfe (LCL; Cambridge, MA: HarvardUniversity Press, 1974). We also find Vespasian’s words about an emperor’s


In his ninth consulship [Vespasian] had a slight illness in Campania, andreturning at once to the city, he left for Cutilae and the country aboutReate, where he spent the summer every year. There, in addition to anincrease in his illness, having contracted a bowel complaint by too freeuse of the cold waters, he nevertheless continued to perform his duties asemperor even receiving embassies as he lay in bed. Taken on a suddenwith such an attack of diarrhoea that he all but swooned, he said: ‘Anemperor ought to die standing’, and while he was struggling to get on hisfeet, he died in the arms of those who tried to help him… (Vesp. 24).

Unless one envisions that the attack of diarrhoea that killed Vespasianwas painful, there simply is no mention of ‘agonies’ either here or inany other source. More to the point, Vespasian rose from his death-bedwith words to the effect that an emperor ought to expire on his feet. Thefact that this tradition about Vespasian’s need to face death whilestanding was extant by the time of Suetonius undermines any effort tolink the middle head with Vespasian.59 In contrast, our sources revealthat Septimius Severus died at Eboricum (York) as a result of a drawn-out, grievous disease.60 Furthermore, Severus suffered terribly from thegout during his final years,61 so much so that he once was forced todelay the start of a military campaign.62 While these data are not enough

needing to die while standing up in D.C. (Xiph.) 66.17.2-3. Here, though, Ves-pasian’s remark is made in response to the incessant chiding of his physicians, whowished the emperor to delegate more of his responsibilities during his final illness.

59. Those who make the link include Myers (I and II Esdras, pp. 293-94),Knibb (The Books of Esdras, p. 251), and Stone (Fourth Ezra, p. 368). Stone is cor-rect, though, when he notes that Box’s view about the agonies being Vespasian’sremorse is at odds with the very specific nature of the information presented in thisverse.

60. HA, Sev. 19.1; Aurelius Victor, De Caes. 20; Eutropius, 8.19; Herodian3.15.1-3; and perhaps implied in D.C. (Xiph.) 77.16.1. Barry asserts that Severuswas despondent over the condition of his health and the unpleasant character of hisson Caracalla. Failing to find poison, the emperor gorged himself with rich food andexpired of acute indigestion (‘The Apocalypse’, p. 266). Such a statement is jar-ringly out of step with the primary sources.

61. D.C. (Xiph.) 77.16.1; HA, Sev. 23.3. See also Le Hir, IVe livre d’Esdras,p. 190.

62. HA, Sev. 18.9-11 (paralleled in Aurelius Victor, De Caes. 20). This delayprompted some of Severus’s soldiers to confer on his son, Bassianus (Caracalla) thetitle ‘Augustus’. In response, Severus had himself lifted up and carried to a spotwhere he proclaimed that everyone involved (excepting his son) would be punished.When the condemned begged for mercy, Severus touched his hand to head andquipped that the conspirators finally understood that it was Severus’s head that did


to establish an unimpeachable connexion between the figure of Severusand the information of 12.26, the match is both fairly close and a gooddeal better than the one offered by the Flavian theory.

As for the two lesser heads, we are told that they rule over the earthbut that the one on the right eventually consumes the one on the leftbefore it, too, vanishes. That these two heads may have ruled togetherexcludes neither the Flavian nor the Severan theory. Although Titusheld the supreme imperium alone, he nevertheless considered his brotherto be his partner and successor,63 while Geta and Caracalla held jointpower in the year after their father’s death.64 The interpretation of thevision, however, adds that neither king will die in his bed: ‘the sword ofone shall devour him who was with him; but he also shall fall by thesword in the last days’. (12.28) Both Domitian and Caracalla wereassassinated—that much is clear.65 But did Titus also ‘fall by thesword?’ Concentrating on the datum that one head consumed its com-rade and ignoring completely the information about the manner ofdeath, Knibb concludes that the lesser heads must represent Titus andDomitian.66 Myers, while conceding that Titus died of fever, similarlyasserts that the ‘head on the right must be Domitian and the one on theleft Titus’.67 Stone also consents that Titus was not killed by Domitian,but cites the presumption of Schürer that the charge of assassinationleveled against Domitian was widely believed to be true.68 Schürer’sconclusion, though, rests on the testimony of the fourth-century bio-grapher Aurelius Victor that Domitian poisoned Titus,69 and on the cir-

the ruling, not his feet. The fact that Severus was remembered as having been chair-bound and unable to rise is important.

63. Suetonius, Tit. 9.3.64. D.C. (Xiph.), 78.1.1; Herodian 4.3.1-9.65. Domitian: Suetonius, Dom. 17; D.C. (Xiph.), 67.16.1-3; Caracalla: HA,

Carac. 6.6; D.C. (Cod. Vat. 1288 [V]) 79.5.1-5; Herodian 4.13.3-5. The right-handhead’s dying by the sword may be an expected, future-time happening or a recollec-tion of an event from our author’s very recent past; see below for details.

66. The Book of Esdras, pp. 243-44, 251.67. II Esdras, pp. 290, 294.68. Fourth Ezra, p. 368 nn. 45, 47. See Schürer, Geschichte des jüdischen

Volkes, III, p. 241 (History of the Jewish People, III, p. 326). Compare M. Lagrange,‘Notes sur le messianisme au temps de Jésus’, RB 14 (1905), pp. 481-514: ‘Titus nefut assassiné par son frère, mais le bruit général courut que Domitien l’avait fait dis-paraîte et même spécialement l’avait empoisonné’ (p. 496).

69. De Caes. 10-11. See H.W. Bird, Aurelius Victor: De Caesaribus, (Liver-


cumstantial evidence that Suetonius, Dio Cassius and the writer of thetwelfth Sibylline Oracle all considered Domitian to have been an invet-erate plotter.70 Indeed, given that both this Oracle and Dio’s historiesdate from the third century, only Suetonius can be regarded in any wayas reflective of contemporary attitudes with respect to Domitian, and hisaccount lacks utterly any hint that Domitian poisoned his brother.

Once more the Severan theory provides a more suitable alternative.During their father’s reign, Geta and Caracalla had fought with suchrelentless abandon that on his deathbed Severus himself had urged themto make peace with each other for the good of the empire.71 But thiswas not to be. In the winter of 211, almost a year after Severus’s deathand having since then ruled the empire with his brother as joint augusti,Caracalla arranged a plot wherein Geta was cut down in his mother’sarms by a group of loyal centurions.72 In addition, Caracalla then took itupon himself to rid Rome and the Empire of all references to hisbrother, a lunatic task that included murdering his dead brother’s sup-porters and defacing images and erasing inscriptions that bore referenceto him.73 On the basis of the evidence of the text, therefore, the theorythat identifies the two lesser heads with the figures of Geta and Cara-calla has a distinct edge over the one that favours Titus and Domitian.

pool: Liverpool: University Press, 1994), p. 76: ‘Suetonius (Tit. 9.5; Domit. 2.6)notes Domitian’s plots against Titus but never suggests that Titus was poisoned.Eutropius (7.22) and the Epitomator (10.15) merely state that he died of an ailment(morbo or febri), which is presumably the correct version since Domitian’s numer-ous detractors would certainly have mentioned it had there been any suspicion offoul play. Either Victor or a scribe was responsible for this error’.

70. Suetonius, Dom. 2.3; D.C. (Xiph.) 66.26.2-4. Sib.Or. 12.122-23 states thatTitus (he is not named, though the identification is clear enough) will be ‘smitten onthe soil of Rome with a double-edged bronze’ (Collins, ‘Sibylline Oracles’, OTP, I,p. 448) Collins adds laconically, ‘This is incorrect. Titus died of fever’ (OTP, I,p. 348 n. x).

71. HA, Sev. 23.3-7.72. D.C. (Xiph.) 78.2.1-6. Herodian 4.4.3 relates that Geta’s blood was spilled

on his mother’s breast. HA, Carac. 2.4.5 does not record the detail of the mother’sarms, but the entire account and its aftermath has been reduced to a few sentences.Sib.Or. 12 makes no mention of either Geta or Caracalla.

73. Birley, Septimus Severus, p. 189: ‘It was if Geta had never existed. Eveninscriptions that merely presumed his existence by the abbreviation Auggg. to showthree emperors and in some cases from the past year Augg. (for the two brothers)were doctored by the deletion of a g’. See also Birley, Septimus Severus, pl. 16.


5. The Fourth Pair of Anti-WingsAs we have indicated, the sequence of events at the end of the visiondiffers somewhat from that which is implied by the interpretation ofthese events. It is unwarranted to posit prima facie that the text has beenredacted here solely on the basis of this difference, since the criteria ofconsistency in matters of both the content and internal order of apoca-lyptic literature are too fluid to permit this. By the same token, the dis-crepancy in the sequence is important when we contemplate the fate ofthe final pair of anti-wings, those two who had earlier moved to theeagle’s right-hand head. On one hand, if these anti-wings are eschato-logical features, that is, if they ‘appertain to the end time’,74 then it ismeaningless to attempt to identify them, because their presence fallsbeyond the pale of the review of history as envisioned by our authorand into the range of future-time events. In the vision, the reign of thefinal anti-wings ensues after the appearance of the Lion/Messiah, asdoes the disappearance of the right-side head. Accordingly, some sup-porters of the Flavian theory hold that, ex eventu, the Eagle Vision wascomposed in the hope of Domitian’s demise and so ought to be dated tothe last years of his rule. In the interpretation, though, the fates of thelesser heads and the last pair of anti-wings are presented to Ezra beforethe explanation of the nature and actions of the Lion/Messiah, an orderimplying that the anti-wings are historical rather than eschatologicalfigures. Can an attempt thus be made to identify these final two person-ages?

Four points must be clarified before exploring this possibility. First,neither the vision nor the interpretation’s sequence of events isautomatically the ‘correct’ one; the burden of proof falls on he or shewho decides that one particular order is preferable to the other. Second,the information in the vision alone that a final pair of anti-wings willappear after the last head/king vanishes may itself be incompatible withthe view that this king is still living at the time when the Eagle Visionwas redacted. While the imminent death of an oppressive ruler is oftenpart of the expected future-time happenings in apocalyptic visions, thedata about two more kings and the rather specific description of theirreigns smacks far more of ex eventu prophecy than it does of adescription of anticipated eschatological events. This would lendprimacy to the order exhibited by the interpretation. Third, the Severan

74. This is Stone’s argument (Fourth Ezra, p. 368, citing Schürer).


theory no more requires the positive identification of these two anti-wings than does the Flavian. At every stage so far the Severan proposalconcords with the internal data of the text extremely well and sig-nificantly better than the Flavian alternative. If one chooses to accordmore weight to the sequence of the vision (and so consigns the finalpair of anti-wings to an eschaton), a date of c. 215–217 (i.e. the lastyears of Caracalla’s reign) is perfectly acceptable within the context ofthe evidence. Fourth, we will discover that whereas the Severan theorycan tolerate and indeed welcome an identification of the final anti-wings, the Flavian hypothesis simply cannot.75

These last two anti-wings, having progressed previously to a placeunder the right-hand head, set themselves up to rule after its disappear-ance. Their reign, though, ‘was brief and full of tumult’, and they soonvanished. The two emperors who followed Domitian were Nerva(r. 96–98) and Trajan (r. 98–117). While Nerva’s rule was both shortand a bit tempestuous, Trajan’s was neither. Of course, one could arguethat our author lived under Trajan’s early reign and so hoped for theemperor’s speedy demise (with the expected future-time tumult). Still,this argument does not explain the anti-wings’ moving over to the right-hand head, nor the datum that suggests that the anti-wings ruledtogether.

Let us move more than a century into the future. In 217 Caracallawas murdered at the instigation of one of his praetorian prefects, a cer-tain M. Opellius Macrinus, who had concluded from his fortuitousstudy of the emperor’s personal correspondence that his own life wasimperiled and as a result had decided to strike first. Soon after Cara-calla’s death, Macrinus was hailed as emperor by the troops. His reign,however, was a disaster from the start: he failed to hold the loyalty of

75. Volkmar (Das vierte Buch Esra, see n. 18, above) is an exception, since heequates Nerva with the final two anti-wings. His proposal, though, necessitates thatthe wings and anti-wings be reckoned in pairs. While this eliminates the ‘duplica-tion’ (the Flavian emperors as both heads and wings) that plagues many of thereconstructions adhering to the Flavian theory, it contravenes the data of 11.26-27(where the third and fourth anti-wings are clearly individual entities) and 11.12-17(where the first and second wings are separate kings). See also Drummond, TheJewish Messiah, pp. 105-106 and Stone, Fourth Ezra, p. 365 n. 21. See also thetheories at n. 82, below. H.G.A. Ewald, who dates the Vision to around 80 CE,oddly equates both the three heads and the last three anti-wings with the Flavians(Das vierte Esrabuch: Nach seinem Zeitalter, seinen aräbischen Übersetzung undeiner neuen Weiderherstellung [AKGWG, 11; Göttingen, 1863]).


the soldiers, he never gained the respect of the Senate, and he suffered amajor foreign-policy fiasco at the hands of the Parthians early in 218.By the summer of that year a coup was underway, centred in the Eastaround the person of Septimius Severus’s 14-year-old grand-nephew,Varius Avitus Bassianus (later the emperor Elagabalus). In response,Macrinus sent an army to the region and had his son Diadumenianusproclaimed as co-emperor. The inevitable battle between Macrinus andVarius Avitus was fought near Antioch in Syria; Macrinus, deserted bywhole legions and then abandoned by the army, fled but was capturedand executed along with his son.76 Like the final two anti-wings of theEagle Vision, Macrinus and his son Diadumenianus held sway together,but their reign was exceedingly brief and turbulent. And what of theassertion that these anti-wings crossed over to the right-hand head? Itcould be that our author refers to the fact that Macrinus held theinfluential and trusted position of praetorian prefect under Caracalla.

Summarizing the argument so far, and with respect to the long por-tion of the Eagle Vision that alludes to its author’s recent past, it isapparent that the particulars of the Severan theory are much more inharmony with the finer points of the text than those of the Flavian alter-native. When examined in the light of almost every datum involving thefinal six anti-wings and the three heads, the Flavian hypothesis exhibitsserious, if not fatal, flaws. It is not too much to posit that had the Fla-vian theory been the only option, we would have considered this all-important section of the Eagle Vision to have been composed by some-one who was relatively unfamiliar with the history of the period. Butthis is not what the Flavian theory claims; on the contrary and often inspite of the evidence, it stubbornly asserts correspondence between thehistorical record and the literary allusions. What remains is to discussthe portion of the Eagle Vision that tells of the sequence and nature ofthe twelve wings and the first pair of anti-wings. As noted, whereas thisportion is intended to cover a far greater stretch of history chronologic-ally, because it alludes to the author’s most distant past, it is compara-tively lacking in specific details.

76. The identification of Macrinus and his son as the last two anti-wings wasfirst proposed by Gutschmid, ‘Die Apokalypse’, pp. 47-48. See also Le Hir, IVe

livre d’Esdras, p. 191. For the historical accounts of this period, see HA, Macr. toElag.; the epitomes of D.C. 79.4.1-41.4; Herodian 4.12.–5.4.12; and Aurelius Vic-tor, De Caes. 22-23. There is a lacuna in Sib.Or. 12 following the account ofSeverus.


6. The Twelve WingsThe eagle has 12 wings, each of which rises to power in its turn. Thesecond, we are told, enjoys such an extended rule that no other managesto hold sway for even half as long (11.17b). Almost every commentatoragrees that Augustus is this second wing/king of the Eagle Vision: ifone dates the beginning of his rule from Actium,77 as many ancientwriters do, then he held supreme power for a shade under 44 years.78

The problem with this identification is that the next emperor, Tiberius,ruled for almost 23 years,79 or over half as long as Augustus did. Thecontradiction is difficult to explain. The possibility that the author of theEagle Vision was simply unaware of this is rather implausible. He hasalready demonstrated a predilection for specific detail, including thedatum about the difference in the duration of the reigns of the first pairof stationary anti-wings, those who took the throne for a short whilebefore the awakening of the middle head. A happier option resides inthe view that our author reckoned Augustus took power immediatelyafter the death of Julius Caesar.80 This would produce a figure of over

77. Caesar’s death = 15 March 44 BCE; Actium = September 31 BCE; Octaviandeclared ‘Augustus’ = 13 January 27 BCE; Augustus’s death = 19 August 14 CE.Barry prefers a 27 BCE date, and posits the Eagle Vision to be an original Hadrian-apocalypse that was updated by an Alexandrian Jew during the reign of Caracalla.He argues that the prediction that no subsequent ruler would hold sway for evenhalf as long as the second wing would have been rendered meaningless only afterHadrian, who, along with Antoninus Pius, ‘did indeed reign for a longer time thanhalf the years of Augustus’ (‘The Apocalypse of Ezra’, pp. 270-71). Thus, theintention of the author of the original Eagle Vision was to demonstrate that ‘Had-rian…was destined to be cast down to perdition by the hand of the Lord ere he hadfilled out a reign half as long as that of Augustus (p. 271). Hadrian reigned for 21years, from 117–138 CE. Barry must have reckoned Augustus’s rule to have begunin 27, since the alternate date of 31 results in a figure of 44 years, and that wouldhave been too long for this theory. A 27 BCE date, however, presents a figure of 40years, 7 months for Augustus’s reign, so implying that the only years in whichBarry’s Hadrian-apocalypse cannot be dated are 137 and 138, since Hadrian wouldhave in those years held sway longer than half the duration of Augustus’s rule. ButBarry’s entire enterprise is undermined by the fact Tiberius reigned for almost 23years.

78. Suetonius, Aug. 8.3: ‘44 years’; D.C. 56.31.1; Aurelius Victor, De Caes. 1:‘roughly 44 years’; Eutropius 7.8.

79. A figure also well-documented: Suetonius, Tib. 73.1; Tacitus, Ann. 6.50;D.C. 58.28.5; Aurelius Victor, De Caes. 3.

80. Josephus, Ant. 18.32, followed by Eusebius, Hist. Eccles 1.9.2. So also Gut-


57 years’ reign for Augustus, more than long enough to fulfil the crite-rion of 11.17b. If this is the case, then our author regarded the RomanEmpire as having sprung into existence with Caesar and havingextended in an unbroken line of ‘kings’ down to his present time.81

If Augustus is the second wing, then Julius Caesar is the first andTiberius the third. But who are the next nine? The range of possibilitiesoffered by supporters of a Flavian dating are staggering. Some prefer toidentify all 12 with the ‘twelve Caesars’ of Suetonius, while othersattempt to insert various pretenders and usurpers into the mix.82 Thecomplication with the first solution is that Vespasian, Titus and Domi-tian are an inseparable part of Suetonius’s list. ‘Wings’ obviously can-not also be ‘heads’; moreover, all the wings have disappeared by thetime the heads become animate. As for assigning places to men likePiso, Nymphidius Sabinus or C. Iulius Vindex, this practice seems ten-dentious at best, plucking personages from the annals of the Principatemerely in order to fill a roster. For instance, no commentator considersthe person of L. Aelius Seianus, though he is as suitable a candidate asis Nymphidius or Vindex. The extreme option for adherents of a Fla-vian dating is to agree with Stone in that ‘there are too many wings’ andthat we ought to admit that our author knew a great deal more about thisperiod than we do now.83

schmid, ‘Die Apokalypse’, p. 37; Box, ‘IV Ezra’, p. 610; P. Riessler, AltjüdischesSchrifttum (Freiburg, 1929), p. 1284, and hinted at by Knibb, Books of Esdras,p. 240 (but see his chart at p. 241 [!]). See also A.A. Bell, Jr, ‘The Date of John’sApocalypse: The Evidence of Some Roman Historians Reconsidered’, NTS 25(1977–78), pp. 93-102.

81. Sib.Or. 5.13-15: ‘[Caesar] will conquer long in wars./ He will have his firstletter of ten, so that after him/ will reign whoever obtained as initial the first letterof the alphabet [Augustus]’ (Collins’s translation).

82. Compare Lagrange, ‘Note sur le messianisme’, p. 497: ‘Dans l’interpréta-tion, les douze ailes règnent sans interruption et les huit ailerons viennent ensuite.C’est l’ordre primitif.’

83. Fourth Ezra, p. 365. Although I have consistently avoided offering opinionson the nature and extent of an original Eagle Vision that lies behind its present,redacted form (for it is the date of the present Vision with which I am concerned),the wings-in-pairs solution of Volkmar is most attractive (if utterly unprovable).Here the six pairs of wings are the six Caesars from Julius to Nero, the heads are theFlavian emperors, and the three pairs of anti-wings are Galba, Otho and Vitellius.The anti-wings pose the greatest difficulty, where the figure of Galba does notmatch the data of the text (in actuality, Seianus fits here rather well). Despite itsattractions, Volkmar’s theory cannot be used to explain the final form of the Vision


Supporters of the Severan hypothesis fare little better at reconstruct-ing the roster of the 12. The dilemma with the Severan dating is that asimple head-count of the emperors from Caesar to Commodus produces20 names,84 entailing that the one who wishes to identify the wings withhistorical personages must choose to omit several emperors from his orher list on the basis of no textual evidence whatsoever.85 Perhaps suchattempts at creating an artificial and arbitrary roll-call of wing/kings aremisplaced. The number ‘twelve’ may be symbolic, though it is hard toconceive of what exactly our author may have had in mind.86 The men-tion of the eight kings at Rev. 17.9-14 might shed light on the subject,wherein a simple count of emperors is at odds with the other indicationsof the book’s dating. The count itself may be off, or the number ‘seven’(the eighth king is ejk tw`n eJptav ejstin) may be symbolic, as it certainlyis throughout the rest of the book. What if, however, the figure of 12wings in the Eagle Vision was a round number, instead of an exact orsymbolic one? As indicated previously, the telescoping or abbreviatingof the more distant-past events is a technique that is by no means for-

(cf. nn. 18 and 75, above), where it is clear that the wings and anti-wings are not tobe taken in pairs.

84. Caesar, Augustus, Tiberius, Gaius, Claudius, Nero, Galba, Otho, Vitellius,Vespasian, Titus, Domitian, Nerva, Trajan, Hadrian, Antoninus Pius, Lucius Verus,Marcus Aurelius and Commodus. The name of Lucius Verus might be excised,perhaps, on the grounds that he was joint emperor with Marcus Aurelius from 161–169.

85, To give one example, Le Hir (IVe livre d’Esdras, pp. 185-86) chooses toignore Galba, Otho, and Vitellius on the basis of the evidence of several latechronologies that consider Vespasian the successor to Nero. Titus and Nerva heomits also, identifying them instead as the first two anti-wings because of theircomparatively short reigns. This seems an arbitrary at best, and one wonders whyGaius (who ruled for four years) might not also be included on these grounds. Inaddition, Le Hir fails to account for the emperor Lucius Verus and, unlike Gut-schmid, decides to list Commodus as the twelfth wing with his father, MarcusAurelius. On the exclusion of Nero’s three successors, note Vaganay, Le problèmeeschatologique, p. 18: ‘Galba, Othon et Vitellius seraient omis suivant l’usage desorientaux.’

86. Without a doubt, the number ‘twelve’ is significant for both Jews andChristians. But our author is concerned with Roman history, where the only refer-ents could be the signs of the Zodiac, the major gods of the Pantheon and the XIITables of Roman law. None of these is appropriate. Suetonius’s twelve Caesars is aquantitative figure, not a symbolic one.


eign to other apocalyptic reviews of history,87 and even at Rev. 17.9-14the focus is on the last few kings. If our author indeed refashioned anold Domitian-apocalypse and updated all those portions correspondingto his recent past in the light of the events of 192–218 CE, he may havefound himself left with the datum of the 12 wings (or more or less) butwithout a clear understanding of the names of all the kings since JuliusCaesar. The great Caesar himself would not likely have been forgotten,nor Augustus—and so perhaps the preservation of the information aboutthe extraordinary length of his reign—but what about Nerva, LuciusVerus or Otho?88 The argument that no presidential historian wouldomit the name of William Harrison, despite his barely serving a monthin office, is hardly convincing.89 More importantly, the climax andfocus of the Eagle Vision is the arrival and actions of the Lion/Messiah:the sequence of heads, wings and anti-wings ultimately serve only to setthe stage for this event. The wings are historical data, to be sure, butthese data are both given place in the historical record and derive fullmeaning from their relationship with the author’s present and hiseschatological expectations.

87. See n. 41, above. This telescoping of history also tells against the Flaviantheory, in that while Nero’s reign might be lost in the recesses of time from thepoint of view of someone writing in the early third century, it would have not beenso completely ignored by a Jew writing no more than a generation after his reign.Again, this is an argument from silence, but note that the Sibylline Oracles com-posed in the last three decades of the first century record the legend of Nero redi-vivus, which also might apply the eighth king of Revelation who is of the seven(17.11). But the Eagle Vision is utterly unconcerned with Nero.

88. The view of ‘twelve’ as a round number is difficult to apply to the Flaviantheory, since it is far less likely than any of the emperors would have been ‘for-gotten’ by the 90s CE.

89. So Bell, ‘The Date of John’s Apocalypse’, NTS 25 (1978–79), pp. 98-99. Toassume that what rings true in modern America must also ring true in ancient Romeis faulty. To my mind, Bell’s argument about the consular lists is much better: theRomans had a tradition of consular fasti stretching back many centuries (and someof the various earliest names—from patrician lines long extinct by even the middleRepublic—are considered trustworthy). But the fact that such lists existed does notnecessarily mean that they were followed; a quick glance at the many discrepanciesin the magisterial lists (among the literary sources, and between these sources andthe various fasti) is all that is needed here. See T.R.S. Broughton, The Magistratesof the Roman Republic (3 vols.; American Philological Association Monographs,15.1-3; Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1986 [1951–1952]).


g. The First Pair of Anti-WingsThere remain the data of the first two anti-wings, who disappear fromEzra’s view during the middle of the eagle’s time (12.21a), and of thetime of troubles that will descend upon the kingdom, also in the middleof its time (12.18).90 What seems to make the most sense is that thetime of struggles alludes to the great crisis that wracked the empire afterNero’s death in 68 and that lasted until Vespasian ascended to theimperial power late in 69. The anti-wings, then, would be part of thisperiod, though the lack of specific information makes it exceedinglydifficult to be more precise. The problem with this identification fromthe perspective of the Flavian theory is that a 68–69 time of crisis doesnot occur in the ‘midst of the time’ of the kingdom.91 This is truewhether one believes that our author reckoned the number of years thathad passed (since the period of 68–69 is far from ‘the middle’ of the 44BCE to 96 CE span assumed by the theory) or, less likely, merelycounted the number of emperors. Some Flavian theories avoid thislatter problem by including pretenders and claimants among the tally,but we have seen how this explanation has its own set of problems. Onesolution might be to date the apocalypse to the reigns of Trajan (in itsredacted form; so Box) or Hadrian (in its original form; so Barry,Schwartz), where the years 68–69 fall much more in ‘the middle’.These explanations, though, are contraindicated by their incompatibilitywith the other evidence of the Eagle Vision.92 A better possibility isoffered by the Severan theory, inasmuch as an early third-centuryauthor might have looked back over centuries of Roman rule andconsidered the crisis of 68–69 to have been roughly the middle-point inthe years since the time of Julius Caesar.

4. Observations

So, whither the Flavian theory? On the level of the general informationof the Eagle Vision, very little seems to match except a basic identifica-tion of the heads with Vespasian and his sons. Concerning the morespecific details of the data, the parallels are even poorer. Time andagain the elements of the Flavian hypothesis are contradicted by the

90. See n. 16, above. It is uncertain if these two periods of time were meant tobe understood as the same.

91. Contra Lagrange, ‘Notes sur le Messianisme’, p. 496.92. See nn. 42, 77, above.


internal evidence of the text,93 and often to the degree that the onlyoption remaining is to concede that no concrete conclusions can bereached. On the other hand, the Severan theory presents both a viablealternate to the Flavian proposal and a reconstruction that fits the datavery nicely. More to the point, it fits these data far better than does theFlavian hypothesis. Admittedly, there are one or two minor placeswhere we have had to extrapolate (and the Flavian theory can provideno happier solution at these places), but overall its particulars squareextremely well with the details of the Eagle Vision. In sum, then, theSeveran theory easily tenders the best explanation of the internal evi-dence, namely, that the present Eagle Vision dates from c. 218 CE.

It is unclear as to what the implications of this 218 CE dating areregarding 4 Ezra as a whole. First, unlike most adherents of post-Fla-vian or Severan theories, I have refused steadfastly to speculate on thenature of the structure or content of an original Vision. Although thethree heads—minus most of the extant details—could have at one timerepresented the Flavian emperors (see below), almost all of the finerdetails find reflection in the events of the early third century. As aresult, there is no firm bedrock upon which to ground any of the pro-posals that would supply a first-century reconstruction of an originalEagle Vision; hypotheses that speak of so many original wings or somany secondary anti-wings are unprovable at best, and more often thannot anticipate the evidence rather than derive from it. Second, and asnoted in the introduction to this essay, the postulate that a Flavian orig-inal might have been at the root of the present Eagle Vision is recom-mended by Stone’s lucid arguments as to the cohesiveness of 4 Ezraand the few but persuasive indications (but not including references tochs. 11 and 12!) that it was composed around the time of Domitian. Thepresent Eagle Vision is thus not likely a late, 218 CE addition that wasinserted as a whole into the apocalypse, but rather the result of a pro-cess of updating and redaction from an existing, integral part of thebook. The evidence of the citation in Clement is telling,94 as is the the-

93. As Barry remarks, ‘If a theory is to be worth anything at all, it must be onethat follows the facts, instead of preceding them. The Flavian theory breaks downbecause it is made to precede the facts’ (‘The Apocalypse’, p. 265).

94. Again, the use of 4 Ezra by Clement does not contraindicate a later redac-tion of the Vision. But recall Stone, Fourth Ezra, pp. 9-10, where the strongestargument for a Flavian dating for 4 Ezra is the Flavian dating proposed for theEagle Vision!


matic unity of chs. 3–14. The ‘thirty years’ at 3.1, while not in itselfconclusive, fits in nicely. But too often these arguments have beenemployed to inform implicitly the Flavian origins of the Eagle Vision.The present approach, however, has been to examine the evidence ofthe Eagle Vision as it now stands, precipitating conclusions from itshistorical allusions in order to establish its date. Third, the historicalallusions of 6 Ezra, the two chapters that are appended to the Ezra-apocalypse in the Apocrypha, most likely were composed by a Christianand refer to the events of 262–313 CE.95 Thus the hand that composed6 Ezra was not the one that redacted the Eagle vision into its presentform. Indeed, there is nothing specifically Christian about the EagleVision and, as Box remarks, ‘It is impossible to suppose that a Christianredactor would have placed the appearance of the Messiah in 218 AD’.96

Too little is known about either Palestinian or Diapora Judaism in thetime of Caracalla and his successors97 to draw firm conclusions hereabout a possible Sitz im Leben for the redactor and his immediate com-munity. Given the need that he felt to update the old Flavian-era apo-calypse, we might suggest that he understood his present situation tohave been similar to the one his forefathers experienced under Domi-tian. The overwhelming message, like that articulated in much apo-calyptic literature, is one of perseverence and trust in God to effect abetter future. Beyond this, though, lies only speculation.98 Finally, tothe one who charges that the present approach is too mechanical, wemight again recall that the supporters of the Flavian theory themselvesrely almost exclusively on these paint-by-number historical identifica-

95. So T.A. Bergren, Sixth Ezra (New York, 1998), pp. 116-32, although heallows that the historical allusions of 6 Ezra might instead be ‘an imaginative con-struction of eschatological prophecy’, and so could be dated anywhere between 95(post-Revelation) and 313. Gutschmid had dated it precisely at 263.

96. Ezra-Apocalypse, p. 263.97. Smallwood, Jews under Roman Rule, chapters 18–19, esp. pp. 501-504.98. According to D.C. (Xiph.) 78.22.1-23.4 and Herodian 4.9.2-3, Caracalla

annihilated much of Alexandria’s population in 215, and also expelled the foreign-ers from that city. Recall also that Niger’s power base was in the east, especiallyEgypt (Birley, Septimius Severus, pp. 98, 107), and that he had the support of manyof the eastern legions (W. Reusch, “Pescennius (2)’, RE 19.1, cols. 1086-1102 at1093-1096). Indeed, the focus of a good deal of the most recent history as expressedby the author of the Eagle Vision is the east, and Egypt and Syria in particular, notexcepting Macrinus’s defeat at Antioch and Elagabalus’s being saluted as emperorin Emesa in Syria.


tions to fix the date of the Eagle Vision. And, as demonstrated, theseidentifications are often tenuous at best. Indeed, such a charge in noway relieves an adherent of the Flavian dating of having to prove faultythe many points of strong agreement between the Eagle Vision and theSeveran theory.

APPENDIX I:AN OVERVIEW OF THE HISTORICAL RECONSTRUCTIONS

What follows is a brief survey of several of the more important hypotheses on theidentification of the Eagle Vision’s historical allusions. Note that some hypothesesdo not identify every allusion.

a. Flavian TheoriesWith one exception, the hypotheses that date the Eagle Vision to the middle of the90s identify the three heads with the three Flavian emperors, Vespasian, Titus andDomitian. Exemplars of this theory include Gfrörer, Geschichte des Urchristen-tums, pp. 69-93; K. Wieseler, ‘Das vierte Buch Esra, nach Inhalt und Alter unter-sucht’, TSK 43 (1870), pp. 263-304; Ewald, Das vierte Esrabuch (so also Drum-mond, The Jewish Messiah, pp. 107-10); Gunkel, ‘Das 4. Buch Esra’, II, pp. 331-401 (see also R. Kabisch, Das vierte Buch Esra auf seine Quellen untersucht[Göttingen, 1889]); Oesterley, II Esdras; Myers, I and II Esdras; Knibb The SecondBook of Esdras; and Stone, Fourth Ezra. The exception is C.C. Torrey (The Apoc-ryphal Literature: A Brief Introduction [New Haven: Yale University Press, 1945]),who understands the three heads to be Nero, Galba and Otho. Torrey argues that theoriginal Ezra apocalypse spoke of eight wings only and dated from the monthsimmediately preceding Otho’s suicide on 16 April 69. A later hand, writing threeemperors later under Domitian, felt the need to increase the number of wings fromeight to 12 (a ‘sacred number,’ according to Torrey, and one that would point theway to the next emperor, after Domitian), and from there to ‘twenty or twenty-threewings’ so ‘that the history of the empire could, if necessary, be carried on farther’(p. 120). Thus, a later editing of the three heads gained them new identities in thethree Flavian emperors.

There is little consensus on the identities of the 12 wings. Gfrörer and Ewaldagree on the order Caesar, Augustus, Tiberius, Gaius, Claudius, Nero, with Gfrörerfurther suggesting Vindex, Nymphidius, Galba, Piso, Otho and Vitellius, and Ewaldopting for Galba, Otho, Vitellius, Vespasian, Titus and Domitian. Both Gunkel andOesterley offer the possibility of left- and right-side wings: Gfrörer and Ewald’sfirst six emperors as right-side wings, and Galba, Otho, Vitellius, Vindex, Nymphi-dius and Piso (Gunkel) or Vindex, Nymphidius, Galba, Piso, Otho, and Vitellius(Oesterley) as the six left-side wings. Myers and Knibb also see the first six wingsas the first six emperors, with Myers tentatively offering Galba, Otho, Vitellius,


Vespasian, Titus and Domitian and Knibb just as cautiously positing Vindex, Nym-phidius, Galba, Piso, Otho and Vitellius. Stone refuses to speculate on much morethan the three heads (the Flavians) and the first two wings (Caesar and Augustus),concluding that ‘there are too many wings, and it must be admitted that no simplesolution to this problem has been found. Consequently, we are forced…to ascribe tothe author more detailed knowledge of this period than is available today’ (FourthEzra, p. 365). Concerning this attitude, see n. 10, above. Longenecker, 2 Esdras,p. 73 is even more cautious, committing only to identifying the three heads as theFlavian emperors.

The eight anti-wings fare little better in the Flavian hypotheses, many of whicheither offer partial repetition of the wing-lists (Ewald, Knibb) or simply hesitate tooffer concrete identifications (Gunkel, Torrey, Stone, Longenecker). Both Gfrörerand Oesterley prefer to rely on local figures like Herod the Great, Herod Antipas,and Berenice. Torrey, reading regnum exile in a political sense at 12.2b (‘feeblekingdom’), concludes that the author of the original apocalypse was alluding to the‘Judean kingdom’ and so the two last wings he identifies as Agrippa I and AgrippaII (Apocryphal Literature, pp.120-21). On the identifications of Jewish figures aswings or anti-wings, see text above.

b. Post-Flavian TheoriesExemplars here include G. Volkmar, Das vierte Buch Esra (followed by J. Well-hausen, Skizzen und Vorarbeiten [Berlin, 1899], VI, pp. 241ff.; note also C. Sig-walt, ‘Die Chronologie des 4. Buches Esras’, BZ 9 [1911], pp. 146-48); Kabisch,Das vierte Buch Esra; and Box, ‘IV Ezra’, II, pp. 542-624. Both Volkmar and Box(regarding the original version of the Eagle Vision) dictate that the wings ought tobe apprehended in pairs: Vespasian, Titus and Domitian (three heads), with Caesar,Augustus, Tiberius, Gaius, Claudius and Nero (six pairs of wings). Their anti-wingsdiffer: Galba, Otho, Vitellius and Nerva (four pairs of anti-wings, according toVolkmar), or Vindex, Nymphidius, Galba, Otho, Civilis, Vitellius, Agrippa II (?),and Berenice (?) (Eight anti-wings, according to Box). Volkmar sees the presentEagle Vision as a product of c. 97 CE, during the reign of Nerva (the last anti-wingpair). Box advances a c. 120 redaction, wherein the third to sixth anti-wings are tobe associated with the four consular senators mentioned by Gibbon: ‘Yet in the firstdays of his reign, [Hadrian] put to death four consular senators, his personal ene-mies, and men who had been judged worthy of empire.’ On this, see n. 38 above.

c. Severan TheoriesTo my mind, most of the current Severan hypotheses suffer serious drawbacks intheir extrapolation of the finer details of the Eagle Vision. These include von Gut-schmid, ‘Die Apokalypse’, pp. 1-81; Le Hir, IVe livre d’Esdras, I, pp. 173-208; andBarry, ‘The Apocalypse’, pp. 261-72, each of which connects the three heads withSeverus, Geta and Caracalla and the first six wings with the first six emperors. Whatis inexplicable, however, is the tendency of the various Severan hypotheses to iden-tify the Severan emperors with the later wings. Also, there is no clear consensus asto the figures represented by the anti-wings; for example, von Gutschmid lists Titus,


Nerva, Commodus, Pertinax, Didius Julianus, Pescennius, Macrinus and Diadu-menianus, while Le Hir proposes Titus, Nerva, Pertinax, Didius Julianus, Pescen-nius, Albinus, Macrinus and Diadumenianus. Both Gutschmid and Le Hir omitGalba, Otho and Vitellius from their schemata on the testimony of certain ancientauthors (but not Suetonius!) who do not include these three in their imperialchronologies (see n. 84, above).

Barry names only four anti-wing figures (Pertinax, Didius Julianus, Pescennius,Albinus). As noted, he posits an original Hadrian Ezra-apocalypse that was subse-quently updated by an Alexandrian Jew during the reign of Caracalla (see n. 76,above). J. Schwartz, seemingly unaware of Barry’s thesis, offers a schema that ismore or less identical (‘Sur la date de IV Esdras’, Mélanges André Neher (Paris: A.Maisonneuve, 1975), pp. 191-96. Schwartz argues that the first two little wingsrepresent Galba and Otho, Vitellius being excluded on the basis of Suetonius, Vit.8: Consentiente deinde etiam superioris provinciae exercitu, qui prior a Galba adsenatum defecerat, cognomen Germanici delatum ab universis cupide recepit,Augusti distulit, Caesaris in perpetuum recusavit. Like von Gutschmid and Le Hir,Schwartz identifies the last pair of little wings with Macrinus and Diadumenianus,but dates the final form of the apocalypse to 217 CE.

L. Vaganay, Le problème eschatologique, pp. 20-23, argues that Le Hir’s recon-struction represents a redacted form of an extant Domitian-apocalypse, wherein theredactor added much detail at 11.3, 10-11, 22-32 and 12.1-3. This essentially is thepoint of the present paper, though I would hesitate to draw such sharp lines around‘original’ and ‘redacted’ passages. Vaganay does not flesh out the implications ofthis perspective, nor does he weigh them against the Flavian hypotheses. Vaganayalso fails to explain adequately why the 12 wings were not reworked. See alsoClemen, ‘Die Zusammensetzung des Buches Henoch’, pp. 211-46 at 242-44.

Note also J. Keulers, ‘Die eschatologische Lehre’, pp. 118-22. Based in part onthe six wing + six anti-wing reconstruction of the original Domitian-apocalypseadvanced by Lagrange (‘Notes sur le Messianisme’, pp. 481-515), Keulers arguesthat ‘der christliche Interpolator des 3. Jahrhunderts hat in der Vision die Verse11,11 und 11,20-23, in der Deutung die Worte: Zwei davon gehen schon zugrunde,wenn die Mitte herannaht (12,20f.), eingefügt; außerdem hat er in 11,1; 12, 14 16die Zahl 6 in 12 und in 12,20 die Zahl 6 in 8 geändert. So erklärt sich, weshalb 11,3die Zahl der Gegenflügel aus den Flügeln entstehen, folgt ja, daß sie in gleicherAnzahl sind wie die Flügel. Die zwei Gegegenflügel in 11,22 [recall Volkmar’shypothesis], von denen nicht einmal gesagt wird, daß sie regieren, hat der christ-liche Verfasser eingeschaltet, weil er mit der Verdoppelung der Flügel noch nichtganz auskam.’ (pp. 121-22) Again, there is no textual evidence for the sort oforiginal vision that Lagrange and Keulers find so attractive. Besides, the last twoanti-wings do not have to be additions; see Völter, ‘Die Gesichte vom Adler’,pp. 241-73.

Dating the Eagle Vision of 4 Ezra: A New Look at an Old Theory

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