18 THE APOSTLE PAUL That this Son of Man, pre-existing in heaven, is to be derived from the symbolic figure of the son of man in the vision of Daniel, is self-evident and is confirmed by the Apocalypse of Ezra, where the seer sees something like a man brought up from the sea by a storm and flying with the clouds of heaven (xiii. 3), which he proceeds to explain as a reference to him “whom the Highest has long held in reserve, through whom He will deliver ‘ the creation, and who will create a new social order among the survivors” (viz. the Messiah). “When the foregoing signs occur, then shall my Son appear, whom thou sawest ascend as a man, and will go up to the summit of Mount Zion, rebuke the nations for their sins, and will annihilate them without effort by his mere word” (82 ff). His rising out of the heart of the sea betokens that “none of the inhabitants of earth shall behold my Son or his companions (angels) before the hour of his day (the day of his revelation) has come” (51 ff.). Here too, therefore, the Messiah shall not come from beneath, but from above, from a heavenly pre-existence, in which God has long kept Him in reserve and hidden Him until His manifestation on the day of redemption. It is true that this higher origin is not quite in accordance with the further saying that the Messiah, with all that draw human breath, shall die after four hundred years, and then will come the Last Judgment and the eternal world (vii. 28 ff. ; of. Apoc. Baruch xxx.). In this contradiction there is betrayed very markedly the (Kautesch, Pseudepigr. d. A. Ts., p. 214). As the whole Fifth Book of these Oracles is a conglomerate of various origin, it is not possible to arrive at any certain conclusion in regard to these verses.