Jewish · Latin, from a lost Greek original · c. 100 CE, with 2nd-c. additions
2 Esdras (4 Ezra)
Anonymous; the Jewish apocalypse with later Christian additions
Seven visions given to Ezra after the fall of Jerusalem, and an argument rather than a revelation: Ezra presses the question of why the wicked prosper and is answered mostly by being told the question is beyond him. It matters here because the angel who does the answering is Uriel, whose name appears in no book of the Hebrew Bible and in no book Rome or the Reformers received as canonical — the fourth archangel of popular reckoning enters through this door.
Read 2 Esdras (4 Ezra) in full at the linked edition →What this text attests · 1
| Name here | Rank given | # | Powers described |
|---|---|---|---|
| Angel | — | Sent to answer Ezra and to set him riddles he cannot solve — three of them, and Ezra fails all three, which is the book's way of closing the question he came with. |
What does it actually say?
The passages themselves, as this text gives them. Read them against what the other texts here say about the same figures — that comparison is the point.
“The angel that was sent unto me, whose name was Uriel.”