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Authorship, date, and setting
The title Apocryphon of Ezekiel gathers fragments attributed to the biblical prophet, but none names the composer of the lost work. According to James Charlesworth, what survives are quotations by the Fathers (two by Epiphanius, Panarion 64.70 and 30.30, one by Clement of Rome and one by Clement of Alexandria) and three fourth-century fragments of Chester Beatty Papyrus 185. Such indirect transmission cannot establish the collection's full extent, original order, or precise date. This collection's five chapters are an editorial arrangement of short materials, not verified chapters of a complete ancient book.
Structure of the five local fragments
Chapter 1 gives the longest account: a king, two men excluded from a feast, and the parable of the lame and the blind. Chapter 2 makes explicit the shared responsibility of soul and body at judgment. Chapter 3 joins short sayings about a heifer and the place of judgment. Chapter 4 contains calls to repentance. Chapter 5 is a biographical account from tradition about Ezekiel, distinct from the opening parable.
Themes and key passages
The opening of 1 announces the resurrection of the dead; the ensuing story shows the lame and the blind cooperating to reach the king's garden. When called to account, each claims inability on his own. Chapter 2 applies the image to body and soul at judgment. Chapter 4 stresses that God desires the sinner's repentance. There is no basis for treating every fragment as the next stage of a continuous argument: different transmitters preserved them.
Summary by parts
1: A king prepares a feast and leaves two men out. They combine their abilities to take fruit from his garden but deny the deed when questioned. The king reunites and judges the partners, an image of the joint accountability of body and soul.
2–3: A reflection rejects separating soul from body at the last judgment. Two brief sayings follow without a narrative linking them to the earlier episode; the surviving text does not clarify their original setting.
4–5: A call to repentance stands beside a tradition about Ezekiel's death in Babylon and signs connected with the river Chebar. This change of subject reveals the composite character of the local collection.
Reception
Epiphanius cites the parable in a discussion of resurrection and judgment, while other Christian writers preserve sayings associated with Ezekiel outside the canonical book. Charlesworth also notes that Josephus mentions two books of Ezekiel, a sign that at least one such writing existed by the first century. The Apocryphon of Ezekiel is outside the biblical canon; the exact relationship among all the fragments remains uncertain.
Sources
- James H. Charlesworth (citado por Peter Kirby), Apocryphon of Ezekiel (1976).