2 Esdras
2 Esdras is the great apocalypse of the Apocrypha. Its core (chapters 3–14, often called 4 Ezra) is a Jewish work wrestling with God's justice after Jerusalem's fall: Ezra debates the angel Uriel through three anguished dialogues, then receives visions of a mourning woman transfigured into Zion, an eagle judged by a lion, a man rising from the sea, and the restoration of the ninety-four books. Christian chapters frame it at both ends. Not in the Hebrew or Greek canons, it stands in the Vulgate appendix and Protestant Apocrypha; some Eastern churches transmit it. Its 'lux perpetua' echoes in the requiem.
Unknown; core Jewish apocalypse with later Christian framing chapters
Core c. AD 100; frame chapters 2nd–3rd century AD
Jews, later Christians, grieving Jerusalem's fall and questioning God's justice
To wrestle honestly with evil, mercy, and the fate of the many, and to anchor hope in God's coming judgment and new age.