Apocalypse of Pseudo-Ezra

The Apocalypse of Pseudo-Ezra is a set of visions of the end times composed in the Syriac language sometime between the 7th and 12th centuries. It is a pseudepigraphon falsely attributed to Ezra. It is a short text of about seven manuscript pages. It recapitulates history in the form of prophecy using obscure animal imagery. Written to console Christians living under Islamic rule, it predicts the end of such rule in the Near East.

The actual author of the text is anonymous. As the text lacks theological specifics, it cannot be determined to which confession the author belonged. The text itself is often seen as the work of an editor stitching together two preexisting apocalypses, but there is no scholarly agreement on the date of the final text. The Syriac text is preserved in at least sixteen manuscripts, all quite late. Additionally, there is an Arabic recension preserved in a single late manuscript. The Syriac version has been published several times and translated into English.