The Expositor's Bible: The Book of Daniel
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Title: The Expositor's Bible: The Book of Daniel
Author: F. W. Farrar
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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE EXPOSITOR'S BIBLE: THE BOOK OF DANIEL ***
THE EXPOSITOR'S BIBLE.
_Crown 8vo, cloth, price 7s. 6d. each vol._
FIRST SERIES, 1887-8.
Colossians.
By A. MACLAREN, D.D.
St. Mark.
By Very Rev. the Dean of Armagh.
Genesis.
By Prof. MARCUS DODS, D.D.
1 Samuel.
By Prof. W. G. BLAIKIE, D.D.
2 Samuel.
By the same Author.
Hebrews.
By Principal T. C. EDWARDS, D.D.
SECOND SERIES, 1888-9.
Galatians.
By Prof. G. G. FINDLAY, B.A.
The Pastoral Epistles.
By Rev. A. PLUMMER, D.D.
Isaiah I.-XXXIX.
By Prof. G. A. SMITH, D.D. Vol. I.
The Book of Revelation.
By Prof. W. MILLIGAN, D.D.
1 Corinthians.
By Prof. MARCUS DODS, D.D.
The Epistles of St. John.
By Rt. Rev. W. ALEXANDER, D.D.
THIRD SERIES, 1889-90.
Judges and Ruth.
By R. A. WATSON, M.A., D.D.
Jeremiah.
By Rev. C. J. BALL, M.A.
Isaiah XL.-LXVI.
By Prof. G. A. SMITH, D.D. Vol. II.
St. Matthew.
By Rev. J. MONRO GIBSON, D.D.
Exodus.
By Very Rev. the Dean of Armagh.
St. Luke.
By Rev. H. BURTON, M.A.
FOURTH SERIES, 1890-1.
Ecclesiastes.
By Rev. SAMUEL COX, D.D.
St. James and St. Jude.
By Rev. A. PLUMMER, D.D.
Proverbs.
By Rev. R. F. HORTON, D.D.
Leviticus.
By Rev. S. H. KELLOGG, D.D.
The Gospel of St. John.
By Prof. M. DODS, D.D. Vol. I.
The Acts of the Apostles.
By Prof. STOKES, D.D. Vol. I.
FIFTH SERIES, 1891-2.
The Psalms.
By A. MACLAREN, D.D. Vol. I.
1 and 2 Thessalonians.
By JAMES DENNEY, D.D.
The Book of Job.
By R. A. WATSON, M.A., D.D.
Ephesians.
By Prof. G. G. FINDLAY, B.A.
The Gospel of St. John,
By Prof. M. DODS, D.D. Vol. II.
The Acts of the Apostles.
By Prof. STOKES, D.D. Vol. II.
SIXTH SERIES, 1892-3.
1 Kings.
By Ven. Archdeacon FARRAR.
Philippians.
By Principal RAINY, D.D.
Ezra, Nehemiah, Esther.
By Prof. W. F. ADENEY, M.A.
Joshua.
By Prof. W. G. BLAIKIE, D.D.
The Psalms.
By A. MACLAREN, D.D. Vol. II.
The Epistles of St. Peter.
By Prof. RAWSON LUMBY, D.D.
SEVENTH SERIES, 1893-4.
2 Kings.
By Ven. Archdeacon FARRAR.
Romans.
By H. C. G. MOULE, M.A.
The Books of Chronicles.
By Prof. W. H. BENNETT, M.A.
2 Corinthians.
By JAMES DENNEY, D.D.
Numbers.
By R. A. WATSON, M.A., D.D.
The Psalms.
By A. MACLAREN, D.D. Vol. III.
EIGHTH SERIES, 1895-6.
Daniel.
By Ven. Archdeacon FARRAR.
The Book of Jeremiah.
By Prof. W. H. BENNETT, M.A.
Deuteronomy.
By Prof. ANDREW HARPER, B.D.
The Song of Solomon and Lamentations.
By Prof. W. F. ADENEY, M.A.
Ezekiel.
By Prof. JOHN SKINNER, M.A.
The Minor Prophets.
By Prof. G. A. SMITH, D.D. Two Vols.
THE BOOK OF DANIEL
BY
F. W. FARRAR, D.D., F.R.S.
LATE FELLOW OF TRINITY COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE; ARCHDEACON OF
WESTMINSTER
=London=
HODDER AND STOUGHTON
27, PATERNOSTER ROW
MDCCCXCV
_Printed by Hazell, Watson, & Viney, Ld., London and Aylesbury._
CONTENTS
PART I
_INTRODUCTION_
CHAPTER I
PAGE
THE HISTORIC EXISTENCE OF THE PROPHET DANIEL 3
CHAPTER II
GENERAL SURVEY OF THE BOOK 13
1. THE LANGUAGE 13
2. UNITY 24
3. GENERAL TONE 27
4. STYLE 29
5. STANDPOINT OF ITS AUTHOR 31
6. MORAL ELEMENT 34
CHAPTER III
PECULIARITIES OF THE HISTORICAL SECTION 39
CHAPTER IV
GENERAL STRUCTURE OF THE BOOK 63
CHAPTER V
THE THEOLOGY OF THE BOOK 67
CHAPTER VI
PECULIARITIES OF THE APOCALYPTIC AND PROPHETIC
SECTION OF THE BOOK 71
CHAPTER VII
INTERNAL EVIDENCE 78
CHAPTER VIII
EVIDENCE IN FAVOUR OF THE GENUINENESS UNCERTAIN
AND INADEQUATE 88
CHAPTER IX
EXTERNAL EVIDENCE AND RECEPTION INTO THE
CANON 98
CHAPTER X
SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION 113
PART II
_COMMENTARY ON THE HISTORIC SECTION_
CHAPTER I
THE PRELUDE 123
CHAPTER II
THE DREAM-IMAGE OF RUINED EMPIRES 141
CHAPTER III
THE IDOL OF GOLD, AND THE FAITHFUL THREE 167
CHAPTER IV
THE BABYLONIAN CEDAR, AND THE STRICKEN DESPOT 184
CHAPTER V
THE FIERY INSCRIPTION 203
CHAPTER VI
STOPPING THE MOUTHS OF LIONS 218
PART III
_THE PROPHETIC SECTION OF THE BOOK_
CHAPTER I
VISION OF THE FOUR WILD BEASTS 233
CHAPTER II
THE RAM AND THE HE-GOAT 252
CHAPTER III
THE SEVENTY WEEKS 268
CHAPTER IV
INTRODUCTION TO THE CONCLUDING VISION 292
CHAPTER V
AN ENIGMATIC PROPHECY PASSING INTO DETAILS OF
THE REIGN OF ANTIOCHUS EPIPHANES 299
CHAPTER VI
THE EPILOGUE 319
APPENDIX
APPROXIMATE CHRONOLOGICAL TABLES 333
GENEALOGICAL TABLE OF THE LAGIDÆ, PTOLEMIES,
AND SELEUCIDÆ 334
AUTHORITIES CONSULTED
COMMENTARIES AND TREATISES
The chief Rabbinic Commentaries were those of Rashi († 1105); Abn
Ezra († 1167); Kimchi († 1240); Abrabanel († 1507).[1]
The chief Patristic Commentary is that by St. Jerome. Fragments
are preserved of other Commentaries by Origen, Hippolytus, Ephræm
Syrus, Julius Africanus, Theodoret, Athanasius, Basil, Eusebius,
Polychronius, etc. (Mai, _Script. Vet. Nov. Coll._, i.).
The Scholastic Commentary attributed to St. Thomas Aquinas is spurious.
The chief Commentaries of the Reformation period are those by:--
Luther, _Auslegung d. Proph. Dan._, 1530-46 (_Opp. Germ._, vi., ed.
Walch.)
Œcolampadius, _In Dan. libri duo_. Basle, 1530.
Melancthon, _Comm. in Dan._ Wittenburg, 1543.
Calvin, _Prælect. in Dan._ Geneva, 1563.
Modern Commentaries are numerous; among them we may mention those by:--
Newton, _Observations upon the Prophecies_. London, 1733.
Bertholdt, _Daniel_. Erlangen, 1806-8.
Rosenmüller, _Scholia_. 1832.
Hävernick. 1832 and 1838.
Hengstenberg. 1831.
There are Commentaries by Von Lengerke, 1835; Maurer, 1838; Hitzig,
1850; Ewald, 1867; Kliefoth, 1868; Keil, 1869; Kranichfeld,
1868; Kamphausen, 1868; Meinhold (_Kurzgefasster Kommentar_),
1889; Auberlen, 1857; Archdeacon Rose and Prof. J. M. Fuller
(_Speaker's Commentary_), 1876; Rev. H. J. Deane (Bishop Ellicott's
_Commentary_), 1884; Zöckler (Lange's _Bibelwerk_), 1889; A. A. Bevan
(_Cambridge_), 1893; Meinhold, _Beiträge_, 1888.
The latest Commentary which has appeared is that by Hauptpastor
Behrmann, in the _Handkommentar z. Alten Testament._ Göttingen, 1894.
Discussions in the various Introductions (_Einleitungen_, etc.) by
Bleek, De Wette, Keil, Stähelin, Reuss, Cornely, Dr. S. Davidson,
Kleinert, Cornill, König, etc.
LIVES OF DANIEL
Pseudo-Epiphanius, _Opera_, ii. 243.
H. J. Deane, _Daniel_ (Men of the Bible). 1892.
THERE ARE ARTICLES ON DANIEL IN
Winer's _Realwörterbuch_, Second Edition.
Delitzsch, in Herzog's _Real-Encyclopädie_.
Graf, in Schenkel's _Bibel-Lexicon_, i. 564.
Bishop Westcott, in Dr. W. Smith's _Bible Dictionary_, New Edition.
1893.
Hamburger, _Real-Encyclopädie_, ii., _s.v._ "Geheimlehre," p. 265;
_s.vv._ "Daniel," pp. 223-225; and _Heiliges Schriftthum_.
TREATISES
Russel Martineau, _Theological Review_. 1865.
Prof. Margoliouth, _The Expositor_. April 1890.
Prof. J. M. Fuller, _The Expositor_, Third Series, vols. i., ii.
T. K. Cheyne, _Encyclopædia Britannica_, vi. 803.
Prof. Sayce, _The Higher Criticism and the Monuments_. 1894.
Prof. S. R. Driver, _Introduction to the Literature of the Old
Testament_, pp. 458-483. 1891.
Prof. S. Leathes, in _Book by Book_, pp. 241-251.
C. von Orelli, _Alttestamentliche Weissagung_, p. 454. Wien, 1882.
Meinhold, _Die Geschichtlichen Hagiographen_ (Strack and Zöckler,
_Kurzgefasster Kommentar_, 1889).
Meinhold, _Erklärung des Buches Daniels_. 1889.
TREATISES OR DISCUSSIONS BY
Dr. Pusey, _Daniel the Prophet_. 1864.
T. R. Birks, _The Later Visions of Daniel_. 1846.
Ellicott, _Horæ Apocalypticæ_. 1844.
Tregelles, _Remarks on the Prophetic Visions of Daniel_. 1852.
Hilgenfeld, _Die Propheten Ezra u. Daniel_. 1863.
Baxmann, _Stud. u. Krit._, iii. 489 ff. 1863.
Desprez, _Daniel_. 1865.
Hofmann, _Weissagung und Erfüllung_, i. 276-316.
Kuenen, _Prophets and Prophecy in Israel_, E. Tr. 1877.
Ewald, _Die Propheten des Alten Bundes_, iii. 298. 1868.
Hilgenfeld, _Die jüdische Apokalyptic_. 1857.
Lenormant, _La Divination chez les Chaldeans_. 1875.
Fabre d'Envieu, _Le livre du Prophète Daniel_. 1888.
Hebbelyuck, _De auctoritate libr. Danielis_. 1887.
Köhler, _Bibl. Geschichte_. 1893.
INSCRIPTIONS AND MONUMENTS
Babylonian, Persian, and Median inscriptions bearing on the Book of
Daniel are given by:--
Schrader, _Keilinschriften und d. A. T._, E. Tr., 1885-88; and in
_Records of the Past_. See too _Corpus Inscriptionum Semiticarum_.
Sayce, _The Higher Criticism_, pp. 497-537.
These inscriptions have been referred to also by Cornill, Nestle,
Nöldeke, Lagarde, etc.
HISTORIES AND OTHER BOOKS
Sketches and fragments of many ancient historians:--
Josephus, _Antiquitates Judaicæ_, ll. x., xi., xii.
The Books of Maccabees.
Prideaux, _Connection of the Old and New Testaments_, ed. Oxford. 1828.
Ewald, _Gesch. des Volkes Israel_. 1843-50.
Grätz, _Gesch. der Juden_, Second Edition. 1863.
Jost, _Gesch. d. Judenthums und seinen Sekten_, i. 90-116. Leipzig,
1857.
Herzfeld, _Gesch. des Volkes Israel_, ii. 416. 1863.
Van Oort, _Bible for Young People_, E. Tr. 1877.
Kittel, _Gesch. d. Hebräer_, ii. 1892.
Schürer, _Gesch. d. jüdischen Volkes_. Leipzig, 1890.
Jahn, _Hebrew Commonwealth_, E. Tr. 1828.
Droysen, _Gesch. d. Hellenismus_, ii. 211.
E. Meyer, _Gesch. d. Alterthums_, i.
SPECIAL TREATISES
Delitzsch, _Messianische Weissagangen_. Leipzig, 1890.
Riehm, _Die Messianische Weissagung_. Gotha, 1875.
Knabenbauer, _Comment in Daniel. prophet., Lament., et Baruch_. 1891.
Kuenen, _Religion of Israel_, E. Tr. 1874.
Bludau, _De Alex. interpe. Danielis indole_. 1891.
Nöldeke, _D. Alttest. Literatur_. 1868.
Fraidl, _Exegese d. 70 Wochen Daniels_. 1883.
Menken, _Die Monarchienbild_. 1887.
Kamphausen, _Das Buch Daniel in die neuere Geschichtsforschung_.
Leipzig, 1893.
Lennep, _De Zeventig Jaarweken van Daniel_. Utrecht, 1888.
Dr. M. Joël, _Notizen zum Buche Daniel_. Breslau, 1873.
Derenbourg, _Les Mots grecs dans le Livre biblique de Daniel_.
Mélanges Graux, 1888.
Cornill, _Die Siebzig Jahrwochen Daniels_. 1889.
Wolf, _Die Siebzig Wochen Daniels_. 1859.
Sanday, _Inspiration_ (Bampton Lectures). 1894.
Sayce, _Hibbert Lectures_. 1887.
Roszmann, _Die Makkabeische Erhebung_.
J. F. Hoffmann, _Antiochus IV_. (_Epiphanes_). 1873.
_Speaker's Commentary_ on Tobit, 1, 2 Maccabees, etc. 1888.
FOOTNOTE:
[1] The Commentary which passes as that of Saadia the Gaon is said to
be spurious. His genuine Commentary only exists in manuscript.
PART I
_INTRODUCTION_
Ἐγὼ μὲν οὖν περὶ τούτων ὡς εὗρον καὶ ἀνέγνων, οὕτως ἔγραψα· εἰ
δέ τις ἄλλως δοξάζειν βουλήσεται περὶ αὐτῶν ἀνέγκλητον ἐχέτω τὴν
ἐτερογνωμοσύνην.--JOSEPHUS, _Antt._, X. ii. 7.
CHAPTER I
_THE HISTORIC EXISTENCE OF THE PROPHET DANIEL_
"Trothe is the hiest thinge a man may kepe."--CHAUCER.
We propose in the following pages to examine the Book of the Prophet
Daniel by the same general methods which have been adopted in other
volumes of the Expositor's Bible. It may well happen that the
conclusions adopted as regards its origin and its place in the Sacred
Volume will not command the assent of all our readers. On the other
hand, we may feel a reasonable confidence that, even if some are
unable to accept the views at which we have arrived, and which we have
here endeavoured to present with fairness, they will still read them
with interest, as opinions which have been calmly and conscientiously
formed, and to which the writer has been led by strong conviction.
All Christians will acknowledge the sacred and imperious duty of
sacrificing every other consideration to the unbiassed acceptance of
that which we regard as truth. Further than this our readers will
find much to elucidate the Book of Daniel chapter by chapter, apart
from any questions which affect its authorship or age.
But I should like to say on the threshold that, though I am compelled
to regard the Book of Daniel as a work which, in its present form,
first saw the light in the days of Antiochus Epiphanes, and though I
believe that its six magnificent opening chapters were never meant
to be regarded in any other light than that of moral and religious
_Haggadoth_, yet no words of mine can exaggerate the value which
I attach to this part of our Canonical Scriptures. The Book, as
we shall see, has exercised a powerful influence over Christian
conduct and Christian thought. Its right to a place in the Canon is
undisputed and indisputable, and there is scarcely a single book
of the Old Testament which can be made more richly "profitable
for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in
righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, completely
furnished unto every good work." Such religious lessons are eminently
suitable for the aims of the Expositor's Bible. They are not in the
slightest degree impaired by those results of archæological discovery
and "criticism" which are now almost universally accepted by the
scholars of the Continent, and by many of our chief English critics.
Finally unfavourable to the authenticity, they are yet in no way
derogatory to the preciousness of this Old Testament Apocalypse.
* * * * *
The first question which we must consider is, "What is known about
the Prophet Daniel?"
I. If we accept as historical the particulars narrated of him in
this Book, it is clear that few Jews have ever risen to so splendid
an eminence. Under four powerful kings and conquerors, of three
different nationalities and dynasties, he held a position of high
authority among the haughtiest aristocracies of the ancient world. At
a very early age he was not only a satrap, but the Prince and Prime
Minister over _all_ the satraps in Babylonia and Persia; not only a
Magian, but the Head Magian, and Chief Governor over all the wise
men of Babylon. Not even Joseph, as the chief ruler over all the
house of Pharaoh, had anything like the extensive sway exercised by
the Daniel of this Book. He was placed by Nebuchadrezzar "over the
whole province of Babylon";[2] under Darius he was President of the
Board of Three to "whom all the satraps" sent their accounts;[3] and
he was continued in office and prosperity under Cyrus the Persian.[4]
II. It is natural, then, that we should turn to the monuments and
inscriptions of the Babylonian, Persian, and Median Empires to see if
any mention can be found of so prominent a ruler. But hitherto neither
has his name been discovered, nor the faintest trace of his existence.
III. If we next search other non-Biblical sources of information, we
find much respecting him in the Apocrypha--"The Song of the Three
Children," "The Story of Susanna," and "Bel and the Dragon." But
these additions to the Canonical Books are avowedly valueless for any
historic purpose. They are romances, in which the vehicle of fiction is
used, in a manner which at all times was popular in Jewish literature,
to teach lessons of faith and conduct by the example of eminent
sages or saints.[5] The few other fictitious fragments preserved
by Fabricius have not the smallest importance.[6] Josephus, beyond
mentioning that Daniel and his three companions were of the family
of King Zedekiah,[7] adds nothing appreciable to our information. He
narrates the story of the Book, and in doing so adopts a somewhat
apologetic tone, as though he specially declined to vouch for its
historic exactness. For he says: "Let no one blame me for writing down
everything of this nature, as I find it in our ancient books: for as to
that matter, I have plainly assured those that think me defective in
any such point, or complain of my management, and have told them, in
the beginning of this history, that I intended to do no more than to
translate the Hebrew books into the Greek language, and promised them
to explain these facts, without adding anything to them of my own, or
taking anything away from them."[8]
IV. In the Talmud, again, we find nothing historical. Daniel is
always mentioned as a champion against idolatry, and his wisdom is
so highly esteemed, that, "if all the wise men of the heathen," we
are told, "were on one side, and Daniel on the other, Daniel would
still prevail."[9] He is spoken of as an example of God's protection
of the innocent, and his three daily prayers are taken as our rule
of life.[10] To him are applied the verses of Lam. iii. 55-57: "I
called upon Thy name, O Lord, out of the lowest pit.... Thou drewest
near in the day that I called: Thou saidst, Fear not. O Lord, Thou
hast pleaded the causes of my soul; Thou hast redeemed my life."
We are assured that he was of Davidic descent; obtained permission
for the return of the exiles; survived till the rebuilding of the
Temple; lived to a great age, and finally died in Palestine.[11]
Rav even went so far as to say, "If there be any like the Messiah
among the living, it is our Rabbi the Holy: if among the dead,
it is Daniel."[12] In the _Avoth_ of Rabbi Nathan it is stated
that Daniel exercised himself in benevolence by endowing brides,
following funerals, and giving alms. One of the Apocryphal legends
respecting him has been widely spread. It tells us that, when he
was a second time cast into the den of lions under Cyrus, and was
fasting from lack of food, the Prophet Habakkuk was taken by a hair
of his head and carried by the angel of the Lord to Babylon, to give
to Daniel the dinner which he had prepared for his reapers.[13] It
is with reference to this _Haggada_ that in the catacombs Daniel is
represented in the lions' den standing naked between two lions--an
emblem of the soul between sin and death--and that a youth with a pot
of food is by his side.
There is a Persian apocalypse of Daniel translated by Merx (_Archiv_,
i. 387), and there are a few worthless Mohammedan legends about him
which are given in D'Herbelot's _Bibliothèque orientale_. They only
serve to show how widely extended was the reputation which became
the nucleus of strange and miraculous stories. As in the case of
Pythagoras and Empedocles, they indicate the deep reverence which the
ideal of his character inspired. They are as the fantastic clouds
which gather about the loftiest mountain peaks. In later days he
seems to have been comparatively forgotten.[14]
These references would not, however, suffice to prove Daniel's
_historical_ existence. They might merely result from the literal
acceptance of the story narrated in the Book. From the name "Daniel,"
which is by no means a common one, and means "Judge of God," nothing
can be learnt. It is only found in three other instances.[15]
Turning to the Old Testament itself, we have reason for surprise both
in its allusions and its silences. One only of the sacred writers
refers to Daniel, and that is Ezekiel. In one passage (xxviii. 3)
the Prince of Tyrus is apostrophised in the words, "_Behold, thou
art wiser than Daniel_; there is no secret that they can hide from
thee." In the other (xiv. 14, 20) the word of the Lord declares to
the guilty city, that "though these three men, Noah, Daniel, and
Job, were in it, they should deliver but their own souls by their
righteousness"; "they shall deliver neither son nor daughter."[16]
The last words may be regarded as a general allusion, and therefore
we may pass over the circumstance that Daniel--who was undoubtedly
a eunuch in the palace of Babylon, and who is often pointed to as a
fulfilment of the stern prophecy of Isaiah to Hezekiah[17]--could
never have had either son or daughter.
But in other respects the allusion is surprising.
i. It was very unusual among the Jews to elevate their contemporaries
to such a height of exaltation, and it is indeed startling that
Ezekiel should thus place his youthful contemporary on such a
pinnacle as to unite his name to those of Noah the antediluvian
patriarch and the mysterious man of Uz.
ii. We might, with Theodoret, Jerome, and Kimchi, account for the
mention of Daniel's name at all in this connection by the peculiar
circumstances of his life;[18] but there is little probability in the
suggestions of bewildered commentators as to the reason why his name
should be placed _between_ those of Noah and Job. It is difficult,
with Hävernick, to recognise any _climax_ in the order;[19] nor can
it be regarded as quite satisfactory to say, with Delitzsch, that
the collocation is due to the fact that "as Noah was a righteous man
of the old world, and Job of the ideal world, Daniel represented
immediately the contemporaneous world."[20] If Job was a purely ideal
instance of exemplary goodness, why may not Daniel have been the same?
To some critics the allusion has appeared so strange that they have
referred it to an imaginary Daniel who had lived at the Court of
Nineveh during the Assyrian exile;[21] or to some mythic hero who
belonged to ancient days--perhaps, like Melchizedek, a contemporary
of the ruin of the cities of the Plain.[22] Ewald tries to urge
something for the former conjecture; yet neither for it nor for the
latter is there any tittle of real evidence.[23] This, however, would
not be decisive against the hypothesis, since in 1 Kings iv. 31 we
have references to men of pre-eminent wisdom respecting whom no
breath of tradition has come down to us.[24]
iii. But if we accept the Book of Daniel as literal history, the
allusion of Ezekiel becomes still more difficult to explain; for
Daniel must have been not only a contemporary of the prophet of the
Exile, but a very youthful one. We are told--a difficulty to which we
shall subsequently allude--that Daniel was taken captive in the third
year of Jehoiakim (Dan. i. 1), about the year B.C. 606. Ignatius
says that he was twelve years old when he foiled the elders; and the
narrative shows that he could not have been much older when taken
captive.[25] If Ezekiel's prophecy was uttered B.C. 584, Daniel at
that time could only have been twenty-two: if it was uttered as late
as B.C. 572,[26] Daniel would still have been only thirty-four, and
therefore little more than a youth in Jewish eyes. It is undoubtedly
surprising that among Orientals, who regard age as the chief passport
to wisdom, a living youth should be thus canonised between the
Patriarch of the Deluge and the Prince of Uz.
iv. Admitting that this pinnacle of eminence may have been due to
the peculiar splendour of Daniel's career, it becomes the less easy
to account for the total silence respecting him in the other books
of the Old Testament--in the Prophets who were contemporaneous with
the Exile and its close, like Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi; and
in the Books of Ezra and Nehemiah, which give us the details of the
Return. No post-exilic prophets seem to know anything of the Book of
Daniel.[27] Their expectations of Israel's future are very different
from his.[28] The silence of Ezra is specially astonishing. It has
often been conjectured that it was Daniel who showed to Cyrus the
prophecies of Isaiah.[29] Certainly it is stated that he held the
very highest position in the Court of the Persian King; yet neither
does Ezra mention his existence, nor does Nehemiah--himself a high
functionary in the Court of Artaxerxes--refer to his illustrious
predecessor. Daniel outlived the first return of the exiles under
Zerubbabel, and he did not avail himself of this opportunity to
revisit the land and desolate sanctuary of his fathers which he
loved so well.[30] We might have assumed that patriotism so burning
as his would not have preferred to stay at Babylon, or at Shushan,
when the priests and princes of his people were returning to the
Holy City. Others of great age faced the perils of the Restoration;
and if he stayed behind to be of greater use to his countrymen, we
cannot account for the fact that he is not distantly alluded to in
the record which tells how "the chief of the fathers, _with all
those whose spirit God had raised_, rose up to go to build the House
of the Lord which is in Jerusalem."[31] That the difficulty was felt
is shown by the Mohammedan legend that Daniel _did_ return with
Ezra,[32] and that he received the office of Governor of Syria, from
which country he went back to Susa, where his tomb is still yearly
visited by crowds of adoring pilgrims.
v. If we turn to the New Testament, the name of Daniel only occurs in
the reference to "the abomination of desolation, spoken of by Daniel
the prophet."[33] The Book of Revelation does not name him, but is
profoundly influenced by the Book of Daniel both in its form and in
the symbols which it adopts.[34]
vi. In the Apocrypha Daniel is passed over in complete silence among
the lists of Hebrew heroes enumerated by Jesus the son of Sirach. We
are even told that "neither was there a man born like unto Joseph, a
leader of his brethren, a stay of the people" (Ecclus. xlix. 15). This
is the more singular because not only are the achievements of Daniel
under four heathen potentates greater than those of Joseph under one
Pharaoh, but also several of the stories of Daniel at once remind us of
the story of Joseph, and even appear to have been written with silent
reference to the youthful Hebrew and his fortunes as an Egyptian slave
who was elevated to be governor of the land of his exile.
FOOTNOTES:
[2] Dan. ii. 48.
[3] Dan. v. 29, vi. 2.
[4] Dan. vi. 28. There is a Daniel of the sons of Ithamar in Ezra
viii. 2, and among those who sealed the covenant in Neh. x. 6.
[5] For a full account of the _Agada_ (also called _Agadtha_ and
_Haggada_), I must refer the reader to Hamburger's _Real-Encyklopädie
für Bibel und Talmud_, ii. 19-27, 921-934. The first two forms of the
words are Aramaic; the third was a Hebrew form in use among the Jews
in Babylonia. The word is derived from נָגַד, "to say" or "explain."
_Halacha_ was the rule of religious praxis, a sort of Directorium
Judaicum: _Haggada_ was the result of free religious reflection. See
further Strack, _Einl. in den Thalmud_, iv. 122.
[6] Fabricius, _Cod. Pseudepigr. Vet. Test._, i. 1124.
[7] Jos., _Antt._, X. xi. 7. But Pseudo-Epiphanius (_De Vit. Dan._,
x.) says: Γέγονε τῶν ἐξόχων τῆς βασιλικῆς ὑπηρεσίας. So too the
_Midrash_ on Ruth, 7.
[8] Jos., _Antt._, X. x. 6.
[9] _Yoma_, f. 77.
[10] _Berachôth_, f. 31.
[11] _Sanhedrin_, f. 93. _Midrash Rabba_ on Ruth, 7, etc., quoted by
Hamburger, _Real-Encyclopädie_, i. 225.
[12] _Kiddushin_, f. 72, 6; Hershon, _Genesis acc. to the Talmud_, p.
471.
[13] Bel and the Dragon, 33-39. It seems to be an old Midrashic
legend. It is quoted by Dorotheus and Pseudo-Epiphanius, and referred
to by some of the Fathers. Eusebius supposes another Habakkuk and
another Daniel; but "anachronisms, literary extravagances, or
legendary character are obvious on the face of such narratives. Such
faults as these, though valid against any pretensions to the rank
of authentic history, do not render the stories less effective as
pieces of Haggadic satire, or less interesting as preserving vestiges
of a cycle of popular legends relating to Daniel" (Rev. C. J. Ball,
_Speaker's Commentary_, on Apocrypha, ii. 350).
[14] Höttinger, _Hist. Orientalis_, p. 92.
[15] Ezra viii. 2; Neh. x. 6. In 1 Chron. iii. 1 Daniel is an
alternative name for David's son Chileab--perhaps a clerical error.
If so, the names Daniel, Mishael, Azariah, and Hananiah are only
found in the two post-exilic books, whence Kamphausen supposes them
to have been borrowed by the writer.
[16] No valid arguments can be adduced in favour of Winckler's
suggestion that Ezek. xxviii. 1-10, xiv. 14-20, are late
interpolations. In these passages the name is spelt דָּנִּאֵל; not,
as in our Book, דָנִיֵאל.
[17] Isa. xxxix. 7.
[18] See Rosenmüller, _Scholia_, _ad loc._
[19] _Ezek._, p. 207.
[20] Herzog, _R. E._, _s.v._
[21] Ewald, _Proph. d. Alt. Bund._, ii. 560; De Wette, _Einleit._, §
253.
[22] So Von Lengerke, _Dan._, xciii. ff.; Hitzig, _Dan._, viii.
[23] He is followed by Bunsen, _Gott in der Gesch._, i. 514.
[24] Reuss, _Heil. Schrift._, p. 570.
[25] Ignat., _Ad Magnes_, 3 (Long Revision: see Lightfoot, ii., §
ii., p. 749). So too in _Ps. Mar. ad Ignat._, 3. Lightfoot thinks
that this is a transference from Solomon (_l.c._, p. 727).
[26] See Ezek. xxix. 17.
[27] See Zech. ii. 6-10; Ezek. xxxvii. 9, etc.
[28] See Hag. ii. 6-9, 20-23; Zech. ii. 5-17, iii. 8-10; Mal. iii. 1.
[29] Ezra (i. 1) does not mention the striking prophecies of the
later Isaiah (xliv. 28, xlv. 1), but refers to Jeremiah only (xxv.
12, xxix. 10).
[30] Dan. x. 1-18, vi. 10.
[31] Ezra i. 5.
[32] D'Herbelot, _l.c._
[33] Matt. xxiv. 15; Mark xiii. 14. There can be of course no
certainty that the "spoken of by Daniel the prophet" is not the
comment of the Evangelist.
[34] See Elliott, _Horæ Apocalypticæ_, _passim_.
CHAPTER II
_GENERAL SURVEY OF THE BOOK_
1. THE LANGUAGE
Unable to learn anything further respecting the professed author of
the Book of Daniel, we now turn to the Book itself. In this section
I shall merely give a general sketch of its main external phenomena,
and shall chiefly pass in review those characteristics which, though
they have been used as arguments respecting the age in which it
originated, are not absolutely irreconcilable with the supposition of
_any_ date between the termination of the Exile (B.C. 536) and the
death of Antiochus Epiphanes (B.C. 164).
I. First we notice the fact that there is an interchange of the first
and third person. In chapters i.-vi. Daniel is mainly spoken of in
the third person: in chapters vii.-xii. he speaks mainly in the first.
Kranichfeld tries to account for this by the supposition that
in chapters i.-vi. we practically have extracts from Daniel's
diaries,[35] whereas in the remainder of the Book he describes his
own visions. The point cannot be much insisted upon, but the mention
of his own high praises (_e.g._, in such passages as vi. 4) is
perhaps hardly what we should have expected.
II. Next we observe that the Book of Daniel, like the Book of Ezra[36]
is written partly in the sacred Hebrew, partly in the vernacular
Aramaic, which is often, but erroneously, called Chaldee.[37]
The first section (i. 1-ii. 4_a_) is in Hebrew. The language changes
to Aramaic after the words, "Then spake the Chaldeans to the king _in
Syriac_" (ii. 4_a_);[38] and this is continued to vii. 28. The eighth
chapter begins with the words, "In the third year of the reign of
King Belshazzar a vision appeared unto me, even unto me Daniel"; and
here the Hebrew is resumed, and is continued till the end of the Book.
The question at once arises why the two languages were used in the
same Book.
It is easy to understand that, during the course of the seventy years'
Exile, many of the Jews became practically bilingual, and would be able
to write with equal facility in one language or in the other.
This circumstance, then, has no bearing on the date of the Book. Down
to the Maccabean age some books continued to be written in Hebrew.
These books must have found readers. Hence the knowledge of Hebrew
cannot have died away so completely as has been supposed. The notion
that after the return from the Exile Hebrew was at once superseded
by Aramaic is untenable. Hebrew long continued to be the language
normally spoken at Jerusalem (Neh. xiii. 24), and the Jews did not
bring back Aramaic with them to Palestine, but found it there.[39]
But it is not clear why the linguistic _divisions_ in the Book were
adopted. Auberlen says that, after the introduction, the section
ii. 4_a_-vii. 28 was written in Chaldee, because it describes the
development of the power of the world from a world-historic point
of view; and that the remainder of the Book was written in Hebrew,
because it deals with the development of the world-powers in their
relation to Israel the people of God.[40] There is very little to
be said in favour of a structure so little obvious and so highly
artificial. A simpler solution of the difficulty would be that which
accounts for the use of Chaldee by saying that it was adopted in
those parts which involved the introduction of Aramaic documents.
This, however, would not account for its use in chap. vii., which
is a chapter of visions in which Hebrew might have been naturally
expected as the vehicle of prophecy. Strack and Meinhold think that
the Aramaic and Hebrew parts are of different origin. König supposes
that the Aramaic sections were meant to indicate special reference to
the Syrians and Antiochus.[41] Some critics have thought it possible
that the Aramaic sections were once written in Hebrew. That the text
of Daniel has not been very carefully kept becomes clear from the
liberties to which it was subjected by the Septuagint translators. If
the Hebrew of Jer. x. 11 (a verse which only exists in Aramaic) has
been lost, it is not inconceivable that the same may have happened to
the Hebrew of a section of Daniel.[42]
The Talmud throws no light on the question. It only says that--
i. "The men of the Great Synagogue wrote"[43]--by which is perhaps
meant that they "edited"--"the Book of Ezekiel, the Twelve Minor
Prophets, the Book of Daniel, and the Book of Ezra";[44] and that--
ii. "The Chaldee passages in the Book of Ezra and the Book of Daniel
_defile the hands_."[45]
The first of these two passages is merely an assertion that the
preservation, the arrangement, and the admission into the Canon of
the books mentioned was due to the body of scribes and priests--a
very shadowy and unhistorical body--known as the Great Synagogue.[46]
The second passage sounds startling, but is nothing more than an
authoritative declaration that the Chaldee sections of Daniel and
Ezra are still parts of Holy Scripture, though not written in the
sacred language.
It is a standing rule of the Talmudists that _All Holy Scripture
defiles the hands_--even the long-disputed Books of Ecclesiastes and
Canticles.[47] Lest any should misdoubt the sacredness of the Chaldee
sections, they are expressly included in the rule. It seems to have
originated thus: The eatables of the heave offerings were kept in close
proximity to the scroll of the Law, for both were considered equally
sacred. If a mouse or rat happened to nibble either, the offerings and
the books became defiled, and therefore defiled the hands that touched
them.[48] To guard against this hypothetical defilement it was decided
that _all_ handling of the Scriptures should be followed by ceremonial
ablutions. To say that the Chaldee chapters "defile the hands" is the
Rabbinic way of declaring their Canonicity.
Perhaps nothing certain can be inferred from the philological
examination either of the Hebrew or of the Chaldee portions of the
Book; but they seem to indicate a date not earlier than the age of
Alexander (B.C. 333). On this part of the subject there has been a
great deal of rash and incompetent assertion. It involves delicate
problems on which an independent and a valuable opinion can only be
offered by the merest handful of living scholars, and respecting
which even these scholars sometimes disagree. In deciding upon
such points ordinary students can only weigh the authority and the
arguments of specialists who have devoted a minute and lifelong study
to the grammar and history of the Semitic languages.
I know no higher contemporary authorities on the date of Hebrew
writings than the late veteran scholar F. Delitzsch and Professor
Driver.
1. Nothing was more beautiful and remarkable in Professor Delitzsch
than the open-minded candour which compelled him to the last to
advance with advancing thought; to admit all fresh elements of
evidence; to continue his education as a Biblical inquirer to the
latest days of his life; and without hesitation to correct, modify,
or even reverse his previous conclusions in accordance with the
results of deeper study and fresh discoveries. He wrote the article
on Daniel in Herzog's _Real-Encyclopädie_, and in the first edition
of that work maintained its genuineness; but in the later editions
(iii. 470) his views approximate more and more to those of the Higher
Criticism. Of the Hebrew of Daniel he says that "it attaches itself
here and there to Ezekiel, and also to Habakkuk; in general character
it resembles the Hebrew of the Chronicler who wrote shortly before
the beginning of the Greek period (B.C. 332), and as compared either
with the ancient Hebrew, or with the Hebrew of the _Mishnah_ is full
of singularities and harshnesses of style."[49]
So far, then, it is clear that, if the Hebrew mainly resembles that
of B.C. 332, it is hardly likely that it should have been written
_before_ B.C. 536.
Professor Driver says, "The Hebrew of Daniel in all distinctive
features resembles, not the Hebrew of Ezekiel, or even of Haggai and
Zechariah, but that of the age subsequent to Nehemiah"--whose age
forms the great turning-point in Hebrew style.
He proceeds to give a list of linguistic peculiarities in support of
this view, and other specimens of sentences constructed, not in the
style of classical Hebrew, but in "the later uncouth style" of the
Book of Chronicles. He points out in a note that it is no explanation
of these peculiarities to argue that, during his long exile, Daniel
may have partially forgotten the language of his youth; "for this
would not account for the resemblance of the new and decadent idioms
to those which appeared in Palestine independently two hundred and
fifty years afterwards."[50] Behrmann, in the latest commentary on
Daniel, mentions, in proof of the late character of the Hebrew:
(1) the introduction of Persian words which could not have been
used in Babylonian before the conquest of Cyrus (as in i. 3, 5, xi.
45, etc.); (2) many Aramaic or Aramaising words, expressions, and
grammatical forms (as in i. 5, 10, 12, 16, viii. 18, 22, x. 17, 21,
etc.); (3) neglect of strict accuracy in the use of the Hebrew tenses
(as in viii. 14, ix. 3 f., xi. 4 f., etc.); (4) the borrowing of
archaic expressions from ancient sources (as in viii. 26, ix. 2, xi.
10, 40, etc.); (5) the use of technical terms and periphrases common
in Jewish apocalypses (xi. 6, 13, 35, 40, etc.).[51]
2. These views of the character of the Hebrew agree with those of
previous scholars. Bertholdt and Kirms declare that its character
differs _toto genere_ from what might have been expected had the Book
been genuine. Gesenius says that the language is even more corrupt
than that of Ezra, Nehemiah, and Malachi. Professor Driver says
the _Persian_ words _presuppose_ a period after the Persian Empire
had been well established; the _Greek_ words _demand,_ the _Hebrew
supports_, and the _Aramaic permits_ a date after the conquest of
Palestine by Alexander the Great. De Wette and Ewald have pointed
out the lack of the old passionate spontaneity of early prophecy; the
absence of the numerous and profound paronomasiæ, or plays on words,
which characterised the burning oratory of the prophets; and the
peculiarities of the style--which is sometimes obscure and careless,
sometimes pompous, iterative, and artificial.[52]
3. It is noteworthy that in this Book the name of the great
Babylonian conqueror, with whom, in the narrative part, Daniel
is thrown into such close connexion, is invariably written in
the absolutely erroneous form which his name assumed in later
centuries--Nebuchad_n_ezzar. A contemporary, familiar with the
Babylonian language, could not have been ignorant of the fact that
the only correct form of the name is Nebuchad_r_ezzar--_i.e._,
_Nebu-kudurri-utsur_, "Nebo protect the throne."[53]
4. But the erroneous form Neduchad_n_ezzar is not the only one which
entirely militates against the notion of a contemporary writer.
There seem to be other mistakes about Babylonian matters into which
a person in Daniel's position could not have fallen. Thus the
name Belteshazzar seems to be connected in the writer's mind with
Bel, the favourite deity of Nebuchadrezzar; but it can only mean
_Balatu-utsur_, "his life protect," which looks like a mutilation.
Abed-_nego_ is an astonishingly corrupt form for Abed-_nabu_, "the
servant of Nebo." Hammelzar, Shadrach, Meshach, Ashpenaz, are
declared by Assyriologists to be "out of keeping with Babylonian
science." In ii. 48 _signîn_ means a civil ruler;--does not imply
Archimagus, as the context seems to require, but, according to
Lenormant, a high civil officer.
5. The _Aramaic_ of Daniel closely resembles that of Ezra. Nöldeke
calls it a Palestinian or Western Aramaic dialect, later than that of
the Book of Ezra.[54] It is of earlier type than that of the Targums
of Jonathan and Onkelos; but that fact has very little bearing on
the date of the Book, because the differences are slight, and the
resemblances manifold, and the Targums did not appear till after the
Christian Era, nor assume their present shape perhaps before the
fourth century. Further, "recently discovered inscriptions have shown
that many of the forms in which the Aramaic of Daniel differs from
that of the Targums were actually in use in neighbouring countries
down to the first century A.D."[55]
6. Two further philological considerations bear on the age of the Book.
i. One of these is the existence of no less than fifteen _Persian_
words (according to Nöldeke and others), especially in the Aramaic
part. These words, which would not be surprising after the complete
establishment of the Persian Empire, are surprising in passages which
describe Babylonian institutions before the conquest of Cyrus.[56]
Various attempts have been made to account for this phenomenon.
Professor Fuller attempts to show, but with little success, that
some of them may be Semitic.[57] Others argue that they are amply
accounted for by the Persian trade which, as may be seen from the
_Records of the Past_,[58] existed between Persia and Babylonia as
early as the days of Belshazzar. To this it is replied that some of
the words are not of a kind which one nation would at once borrow
from another,[59] and that "no Persian words have hitherto been found
in Assyrian or Babylonian inscriptions prior to the conquest of
Babylon by Cyrus, except the name of the god Mithra."
ii. But the linguistic evidence unfavourable to the genuineness
of the Book of Daniel is far stronger than this, in the startling
fact that it contains at least three Greek words. After giving the
fullest consideration to all that has been urged in refutation of
the conclusion, this circumstance has always been to me a strong
confirmation of the view that the Book of Daniel in its present form
is not older than the days of Antiochus Epiphanes.
Those three Greek words occur in the list of musical instruments
mentioned in iii. 5, 7, 10, 15. They are: קיתרם, _kitharos_, κίθαρις,
"harp"; פסנתרין, _psanterîn_, ψαλτήριον, "psaltery";[60] סומפניא,
_sūmpōnyāh_, συμφωνία, A.V. "dulcimer," but perhaps "bagpipes."[61]
Be it remembered that these musical instruments are described as
having (B.C. 550). Now, this is the date at which Pisistratus was
tyrant at Athens, in the days of Pythagoras and Polycrates, before
Athens became a fixed democracy. It is just conceivable that in
those days the Babylonians might have borrowed from Greece the word
_kitharis_.[62] It is, indeed, supremely _unlikely_, because the harp
had been known in the East from the earliest days; and it is at least
as probable that Greece, which at this time was only beginning to sit
as a learner at the feet of the immemorial East, borrowed the idea
of the instrument from Asia. Let it, however, be admitted that such
words as _yayîn_, "wine" (οἶνος), _lappid_, "a torch" (λαμπάς), and a
few others, _may_ indicate some early intercourse between Greece and
the East, and that some commercial relations of a rudimentary kind
were existent even in prehistoric days.[63]
But what are we to say of the two other words? Both are derivatives.
_Psalterion_ does not occur in Greek before Aristotle (d. 322); nor
_sumphonia_ before Plato (d. 347). In relation to music, and probably
as the name of a musical instrument, _sumphonia_ is first used by
Polybius (xxvi. 10, § 5, xxxi. 4, § 8), and _in express connexion_
with the festivities of the very king with whom the apocalyptic
section of Daniel is mainly occupied--Antiochus Epiphanes.[64] The
attempts of Professor Fuller and others to derive these words from
Semitic roots are a desperate resource, and cannot win the assent of
a single trained philologist. "These words," says Professor Driver,
"could not have been used in the Book of Daniel, unless it had been
written after the dissemination of Greek influence in Asia through
the conquest of Alexander the Great."[65]
2. THE UNITY OF THE BOOK
The _Unity_ of the Book of Daniel is now generally admitted. No one
thought of questioning it in days before the dawn of criticism, but
in 1772 Eichhorn and Corrodi doubted the genuineness of the Book.
J. D. Michaelis endeavoured to prove that it was "a collection of
fugitive pieces," consisting of six historic pictures, followed by four
prophetic visions.[66] Bertholdt, followed the erroneous tendency of
criticism which found a foremost exponent in Ewald, and imagined the
possibility of detecting the work of many different hands. He divided
the Book into fragments by nine different authors.[67]
Zöckler, in Lange's _Bibelwerk_, persuaded himself that the old
"orthodox" views of Hengstenberg and Auberlen were right; but he
could only do this by sacrificing the authenticity of parts of the
Book, and assuming more than one redaction. Thus he supposes that
xi. 5-39 are an interpolation by a writer in the days of Antiochus
Epiphanes. Similarly, Lenormant admits interpolations in the _first_
half of the Book. But to concede this is practically to give up the
Book of Daniel as it now stands.
The _unity_ of the Book of Daniel is still admitted or assumed
by most critics.[68] It has only been recently questioned in two
directions.
Meinhold thinks that the Aramaic and historic sections are older
than the rest of the Book, and were written about B.C. 300 to convert
the Gentiles to monotheism.[69] He argues that the apocalyptic
section was written later, and was subsequently incorporated with
the Book. A somewhat similar view is held by Zöckler,[70] and some
have thought that Daniel could never have written of himself in
such highly favourable terms as, _e.g._, in Dan. vi. 4.[71] The
first chapter, which is essential as an introduction to the Book,
and the seventh, which is apocalyptic, and is yet in Aramaic,
create objections to the acceptance of this theory. Further, it is
impossible not to observe a certain unity of style and parallelism
of treatment between the two parts. Thus, if the prophetic section
is mainly devoted to Antiochus Epiphanes, the historic section seems
to have an allusive bearing on his impious madness. In ii. 10, 11,
and vi. 8, we have descriptions of daring Pagan edicts, which might
be intended to furnish a contrast with the attempts of Antiochus to
_suppress_ the worship of God. The feast of Belshazzar may well be
a "reference to the Syrian despot's revelries at Daphne." Again, in
ii. 43--where the mixture of iron and clay is explained by "they
shall mingle themselves with the seed of men"--it seems far from
improbable that there is a reference to the unhappy intermarriages
of Ptolemies and Seleucidæ. Berenice, daughter of Ptolemy II.
(Philadelphus), married Antiochus II. (Theos), and this is alluded
to in the vision of xi. 6. Cleopatra, daughter of Antiochus III.
(the Great), married Ptolemy V. (Epiphanes), which is alluded to
in xi. 17.[72] The style seems to be stamped throughout with the
characteristics of an individual mind, and the most cursory glance
suffices to show that the historic and prophetic parts are united
by many points of connexion and resemblance. Meinhold is quite
unsuccessful in the attempt to prove a sharp contrast of views
between the sections. The interchange of persons--the _third_ person
being mainly used in the first seven chapters, and the first person
in the last five--may be partly due to the final editor; but in any
case it may easily be paralleled, and is found in other writers, as
in Isaiah (vii. 3, xx. 2) and the Book of Enoch (xii.).
But it may be said in general that the authenticity of the Book is
now rarely defended by any competent critic, except at the cost of
abandoning certain sections of it as interpolated additions; and as
Mr. Bevan somewhat caustically remarks, "the defenders of Daniel
have, during the last few years, been employed chiefly in cutting
Daniel to pieces."[73]
3. THE GENERAL TONE OF THE BOOK
The general tone of the Book marks a new era in the education and
progress of the Jews. The lessons of the Exile uplifted them from
a too narrow and absorbing particularism to a wider interest in the
destinies of humanity. They were led to recognise that God "has made
of one every nation of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth,
having determined their appointed seasons, and the bounds of their
habitation; that they should seek God, if haply they might feel after
Him, and find Him, though He is not far from each one of us."[74] The
standpoint of the Book of Daniel is larger and more cosmopolitan in
this respect than that of earlier prophecy. Israel had begun to mingle
more closely with other nations, and to be a sharer in their destinies.
Politically the Hebrew race no longer formed a small though independent
kingdom, but was reduced to the position of an entirely insignificant
sub-province in a mighty empire. The Messiah is no longer the Son of
David, but the Son of Man; no longer only the King of Israel, but of
the world. Mankind--not only the seed of Jacob--fills the field of
prophetic vision. Amid widening horizons of thought the Jews turned
their eyes upon a great past, rich in events, and crowded with the
figures of heroes, saints, and sages. At the same time the world seemed
to be growing old, and its ever-deepening wickedness seemed to call
for some final judgment. We begin to trace in the Hebrew writings the
colossal conceptions, the monstrous imagery, the daring conjectures,
the more complex religious ideas, of an exotic fancy.[75]
"The giant forms of Empires on their way
To ruin, dim and vast,"
begin to fling their weird and sombre shadows over the page of sacred
history and prophetic anticipation.
4. THE STYLE OF THE BOOK
The style of the Book of Daniel is new, and has very marked
characteristics, indicating its late position in the Canon. It is
rhetorical rather than poetic. "Totum Danielis librum," says Lowth,
"e poetarum censu excludo."[76] How widely does the style differ
from the rapt passion and glowing picturesqueness of Isaiah, from
the elegiac tenderness of Jeremiah, from the lyrical sweetness of
many of the Psalms! How very little does it correspond to the three
great requirements of poetry, that it should be, as Milton so finely
said, "simple, sensuous, passionate"! A certain artificiality of
diction, a sounding oratorical stateliness, enhanced by dignified
periphrases and leisurely repetitions, must strike the most casual
reader; and this is sometimes carried so far as to make the movement
of the narrative heavy and pompous.[77] This peculiarity is not
found to the same extent in any other book of the Old Testament
Canon, but it recurs in the Jewish writings of a later age. From the
apocryphal books, for instance, the poetical element is with trifling
exceptions, such as the Song of the Three Children, entirely absent,
while the taste for rhetorical ornamentation, set speeches, and
dignified elaborateness is found in many of them.
This evanescence of the poetic and impassioned element separates
Daniel from the Prophets, and marks the place of the Book among
the Hagiographa, where it was placed by the Jews themselves. In all
the great Hebrew seers we find something of the ecstatic transport,
the fire shut up within the bones and breaking forth from the
volcanic heart, the burning lips touched by the hands of seraphim
with a living coal from off the altar. The word for prophet (_nabî_,
_Vates_) implies an inspired singer rather than a soothsayer or
seer (_roeh_, _chozeh_). It is applied to Deborah and Miriam[78]
because they poured forth from exultant hearts the pæan of victory.
Hence arose the close connexion between music and poetry.[79]
Elisha required the presence of a minstrel to soothe the agitation
of a heart thrown into tumult by the near presence of a revealing
Power.[80] Just as the Greek word μάντις, from μαίνομαι, implies a
sort of madness, and recalls the foaming lip and streaming hair of
the spirit-dilated messenger, so the Hebrew verb _naba_ meant, not
only to proclaim God's oracles, but to be inspired by His possession
as with a Divine frenzy.[81] "Madman" seemed a natural term to apply
to the messenger of Elisha.[82] It is easy therefore to see why
the Book of Daniel was not placed among the prophetic rolls. This
_vera passio_, this ecstatic elevation of thought and feeling, are
wholly wanting in this earliest attempt at a philosophy of history.
We trace in it none of that "blasting with excess of light," none
of that shuddering sense of being uplifted out of self, which marks
the higher and earlier forms of prophetic inspiration. Daniel is
addressed through the less exalted medium of visions, and in his
visions there is less of "the faculty Divine." The instinct--if
instinct it were and not knowledge of the real origin of the
Book--which led the "Men of the Great Synagogue" to place this Book
among the _Ketubhîm_, not among the Prophets, was wise and sure.[83]
5. THE STANDPOINT OF THE AUTHOR
"In Daniel öffnet sich eine ganz neue Welt."--EICHHORN,
_Einleit._, iv. 472.
The author of the Book of Daniel seems naturally to place himself on a
level lower than that of the prophets who had gone before him. He does
not count himself among the prophets; on the contrary, he puts them
far higher than himself, and refers to them as though they belonged
to the dim and distant past (ix. 2, 6). In his prayer of penitence he
confesses, "Neither have we hearkened unto thy servants the prophets,
which spake in Thy Name to our kings, our princes, and our fathers";
"Neither have we obeyed the voice of the Lord our God, to walk in His
laws, which He set before us by His servants the prophets." Not once
does he use the mighty formula "Thus saith Jehovah"--not once does he
assume, in the prophecies, a tone of high personal authority. He shares
the view of the Maccabean age that prophecy is dead.[84]
In Dan. ix. 2 we find yet another decisive indication of the late
age of this writing. He tells us that he "understood by books" (more
correctly, as in the A.V., "by _the_ books"[85]) "the number of the
years whereof the word of the Lord came to Jeremiah the prophet."
The writer here represents himself as a humble student of previous
prophets, and this necessarily marks a position of less freshness and
independence. "To the old prophets," says Bishop Westcott, "Daniel
stands in some sense as a commentator." No doubt the possession of
those living oracles was an immense blessing, a rich inheritance; but
it involved a danger. Truths established by writings and traditions,
safe-guarded by schools and institutions, are too apt to come to men
only as a power from without, and less as "a hidden and inly burning
flame."[86]
By "_the_ books" can hardly be meant anything but some approach to
a definite Canon. If so, the Book of Daniel in its present form can
only have been written subsequently to the days of Ezra. "The account
which assigns a collection of books to Nehemiah (2 Macc. ii. 13),"
says Bishop Westcott, "is in itself a confirmation of the general
truth of the gradual formation of the Canon during the Persian
period. The various classes of books were completed in succession;
and this view harmonises with what must have been the natural
development of the Jewish faith after the Return. The persecution of
Antiochus (B.C. 168) was for the Old Testament what the persecution
of Diocletian was for the New--the final crisis which stamped the
sacred writings with their peculiar character. The king sought
out the Books of the Law (1 Macc. i. 56) and burnt them; and the
possession of a 'Book of the Covenant' was a capital crime. According
to the common tradition, the proscription of the Law led to the
public use of the writings of the prophets."[87]
* * * * *
The whole _method_ of Daniel differs even from that of the later
and inferior prophets of the Exile--Haggai, Malachi, and the second
Zechariah. The Book is rather an apocalypse than a prophecy: "the
eye and not the ear is the organ to which the chief appeal is made."
Though symbolism in the form of visions is not unknown to Ezekiel
and Zechariah, yet those prophets are far from being apocalyptic in
character. On the other hand, the grotesque and gigantic emblems of
Daniel--these animal combinations, these interventions of dazzling
angels who float in the air or over the water, these descriptions of
historical events under the veil of material types seen in dreams--are
a frequent phenomenon in such late apocryphal writings as the Second
Book of Esdras, the Book of Enoch, and the præ-Christian Sibylline
oracles, in which talking lions and eagles, etc., are frequent.
Indeed, this style of symbolism originated among the Jews from their
contact with the graven mysteries and colossal images of Babylonian
worship. The Babylonian Exile formed an epoch in the intellectual
development of Israel fully as important as the sojourn in Egypt.
It was a stage in their moral and religious education. It was the
psychological preparation requisite for the moulding of the last phase
of revelation--that apocalyptic form which succeeds to theophany
and prophecy, and embodies the final results of national religious
inspiration. That the apocalyptic method of dealing with history in a
religious and an imaginative manner naturally arises towards the close
of any great cycle of special revelation is illustrated by the flood
of apocalypses which overflowed the early literature of the Christian
Church. But the Jews clearly saw that, as a rule, an apocalypse is
inherently inferior to a prophecy, even when it is made the vehicle
of genuine prediction. In estimating the grades of inspiration the
Jews placed highest the inward illumination of the Spirit, the Reason,
and the Understanding; next to this they placed dreams and visions;
and lowest of all they placed the accidental auguries derived from
the _Bath Qôl_. An apocalypse may be of priceless value, like the
Revelation of St. John; it may, like the Book of Daniel, abound in the
noblest and most thrilling lessons; but in intrinsic dignity and worth
it is always placed by the instinct and conscience of mankind on a
lower grade than such outpourings of Divine teachings as breathe and
burn through the pages of a David and an Isaiah.
6. THE MORAL ELEMENT
Lastly, among these salient phenomena of the Book of Daniel we are
compelled to notice the absence of the predominantly moral element
from its prophetic portion. The author does not write in the tone
of a preacher of repentance, or of one whose immediate object it
is to ameliorate the moral and spiritual condition of his people.
His aims were different.[88] The older prophets were the ministers
of dispensations between the Law and the Gospel. They were, in the
beautiful language of Herder,--
"Die Saitenspiel in Gottes mächtigen Händen."
Doctrine, worship, and consolation were their proper sphere. They
were "_oratores Legis_, _advocati patriæ_." In them prediction is
wholly subordinate to moral warning and instruction. They denounce,
they inspire: they smite to the dust with terrible invective; they
uplift once more into glowing hope. The announcement of events yet
future is the smallest part of the prophet's office, and rather
its sign than its substance. The highest mission of an Amos or an
Isaiah is not to be a prognosticator, but to be a religious teacher.
He makes his appeals to the conscience, not to the imagination--to
the spirit, not to the sense. He deals with eternal principles, and
is almost wholly indifferent to chronological verifications. To
awaken the death-like slumber of sin, to fan the dying embers of
faithfulness, to smite down the selfish oppressions of wealth and
power, to startle the sensual apathy of greed, were the ordinary
and the noblest aims of the greater and the minor prophets. It was
their task far rather to _forth-tell_ than to _fore-tell_; and if
they announce, in general outline and uncertain perspective, things
which shall be hereafter, it is only in subordination to high ethical
purposes, or profound spiritual lessons. So it is also in the
Revelation of St. John. But in the "prophetic" part of Daniel it is
difficult for the keenest imagination to discern any deep moral, or
any special doctrinal significance, in all the details of the obscure
wars and petty diplomacy of the kings of the North and South.
In point of fact the Book of Daniel, even as an apocalypse, suffers
severely by comparison with that latest canonical Apocalypse of the
Beloved Disciple which it largely influenced. It is strange that
Luther, who spoke so slightingly of the Revelation of St. John,
should have placed the Book of Daniel so high in his estimation.
It is indeed a noble book, full of glorious lessons. Yet surely it
has but little of the sublime and mysterious beauty, little of the
heart-shaking pathos, little of the tender sweetness of consolatory
power, which fill the closing book of the New Testament. Its imagery
is far less exalted, its hope of immortality far less distinct and
unquenchable. Yet the Book of Daniel, while it is one of the earliest,
still remains one of the greatest specimens of this form of sacred
literature. It inaugurated the new epoch of "apocalyptic" which in
later days was usually pseudepigraphic, and sheltered itself under the
names of Enoch, Noah, Moses, Ezra, and even the heathen Sibyls. These
apocalypses are of very unequal value. "Some," as Kuenen says, "stand
comparatively high; others are far below mediocrity." But the genus to
which they belong has its own peculiar defect. They are works of art:
they are not spontaneous; they smell of the lamp. A fruitless and an
unpractical peering into the future was encouraged by these writings,
and became predominant in some Jewish circles. But the Book of Daniel
is incomparably superior in every possible respect to Baruch, or the
Book of Enoch, or the Second Book of Esdras; and if we place it for
a moment by the side of such books as those contained in the _Codex
Pseudepigraphus_ of Fabricius, its high worth and Canonical authority
are vindicated with extraordinary force. How lofty and enduring are the
lessons to be learnt alike from its historic and predictive sections we
shall have abundant opportunities of seeing in the following pages. So
far from undervaluing its teaching, I have always been strongly drawn
to this Book of Scripture. It has never made the least difference in my
reverent acceptance of it that I have, for many years, been convinced
that it cannot be regarded as literal history or ancient prediction.
Reading it as one of the noblest specimens of the Jewish Haggada or
moral Ethopœia, I find it full of instruction in righteousness, and
rich in examples of life. That Daniel was a real person, that he lived
in the days of the Exile, and that his life was distinguished by the
splendour of its faithfulness I hold to be entirely possible. When we
regard the stories here related of him as moral legends, possibly based
on a groundwork of real tradition, we read the Book with a full sense
of its value, and feel the power of the lessons which it was designed
to teach, without being perplexed by its apparent improbabilities, or
worried by its immense historic and other difficulties.
The Book is in all respects unique, a writing _sui generis_; for
the many imitations to which it led are but imitations. But, as the
Jewish writer Dr. Joël truly says, the unveiling of the secret as to
the real lateness of its date and origin, so far from causing any
loss in its beauty and interest, enhance both in a remarkable degree.
It is thus seen to be the work of a brave and gifted anonymous author
about B.C. 167, who brought his piety and his patriotism to bear
on the troubled fortunes of his people at an epoch in which such
piety and patriotism were of priceless value. We have in its later
sections no voice of enigmatic prediction, foretelling the minutest
complications of a distant secular future, but mainly the review of
contemporary events by a wise and an earnest writer whose faith and
hope remained unquenchable in the deepest night of persecution and
apostasy.[89] Many passages of the Book are dark, and will remain
dark, owing partly perhaps to corruptions and uncertainties of the
text, and partly to imitation of a style which had become archaic,
as well as to the peculiarities of the apocalyptic form. But the
general idea of the Book has now been thoroughly elucidated, and the
interpretation of it in the following pages is accepted by the great
majority of earnest and faithful students of the Scriptures.
FOOTNOTES:
[35] Kranichfeld, _Das Buch Daniel_, p. 4.
[36] See Ezra iv. 7, vi. 18, vii. 12-26.
[37] "The term 'Chaldee' for the Aramaic of either the Bible or
the Targums is a misnomer, the use of which is only a source of
confusion" (Driver, p. 471). A single verse of Jeremiah (x. 11) is in
Aramaic: "Thus shall ye say unto them, The gods who made not heaven
and earth shall perish from the earth and from under heaven." Perhaps
Jeremiah gave the verse "to the Jews as an answer to the heathen
among whom they were" (Pusey, p. 11).
[38] אֲרָמִית; LXX., Συριστι--_i.e._, in Aramaic. The word may be a
gloss, as it is in Ezra iv. 7 (Lenormant). See, however, Kamphausen, p.
14. We cannot here enter into minor points, such as that in ii.-vi. we
have אֲלוּ for "see," and in vii. 2, 3, אֲרוּ; which Meinhold takes to
prove that the historic section is earlier than the prophetic.
[39] Driver, p. 471; Nöldeke, _Enc. Brit._, xxi. 647; Wright,
_Grammar_, p. 16. Ad. Merx has a treatise on _Cur in lib. Dan. juxta
Hebr. Aramaica sit adhibita dialectus_, 1865; but his solution,
"Scriptorem omnia quæ rudioribus vulgi ingeniis apta viderentur
Aramaice præposuisse" is wholly untenable.
[40] Auberlen, _Dan._, pp. 28, 29 (E. Tr.).
[41] _Einleit._, § 383.
[42] Cheyne, _Enc. Brit._, _s.v._ "Daniel."
[43] כתבו. See 2 Esdras xiv. 22-48: "In forty days they _wrote_ two
hundred and four books."
[44] _Baba-Bathra_, f. 15, 6: comp. _Sanhedrin_, f. 83, 6.
[45] _Yaddayim_, iv.; _Mish._, 5.
[46] See Rau, _De Synag. Magna._, ii. 66 ff.; Kuenen, _Over de Mannen
der Groote Synagoge_, 1876; Ewald, _Hist. of Israel_, v. 168-170 (E.
Tr.); Westcott, _s.v._ "Canon" (Smith's _Dict._, i. 500).
[47] _Yaddayim_, iii.; _Mish._, 5; Hershon, _Treasures of the
Talmud_, pp. 41-43.
[48] Hershon (_l.c._) refers to _Shabbath_, f. 14, 1.
[49] Herzog, _l.c._; so too König, _Einleit._, § 387: "Das Hebr. der
B. Dan. ist nicht blos nachexilisch sondern auch nachchronistisch."
He instances _ribbo_ (Dan. xi. 12) for _rebaba_, "myriads" (Ezek.
xvi. 7); and _tamîd_, "the daily burnt offering" (Dan. viii. 11),
as post-Biblical Hebrew for _'olath hatamîd_ (Neh. x. 34), etc.
Margoliouth (_Expositor_, April 1890) thinks that the Hebrew proves a
date before B.C. 168: on which view see Driver, p, 483.
[50] _Lit. of Old Test._, pp. 473-476.
[51] _Das Buch Dan._, iii.
[52] See Glassius, _Philol. Sacr._, p. 931; Ewald, _Die Proph. d. A.
Bundes_, i. 48; De Wette, _Einleit._, § 347.
[53] Ezekiel always uses the correct form (xxvi. 7, xxix. 18, xxx.
10). Jeremiah uses the correct form except in passages which properly
belong to the Book of Kings.
[54] Nöldeke, _Semit. Spr._, p. 30; Driver, p. 472; König, p. 387.
[55] Driver, p. 472, and the authorities there quoted; as against
McGill and Pusey (_Daniel_, pp. 45 ff., 602 ff.). Dr. Pusey's is
the fullest repertory of arguments in favour of the authenticity of
Daniel, many of which have become more and more obviously untenable
as criticism advances. But he and Keil add little or nothing to what
had been ingeniously elaborated by Hengstenberg and Hävernick. For a
sketch of the peculiarities in the Aramaic see Behrmann, _Daniel_,
v.-x. Renan (_Hist. Gén. des Langues Sém._, p. 219) exaggerates when
he says, "La langue des parties chaldénnes est beaucoup plus basse
que celle des fragments chaldéens du Livre d'Esdras, et s'incline
_beaucoup_ vers la langue du Talmud."
[56] Meinhold, _Beiträge_, pp. 30-32; Driver, p. 470.
[57] _Speaker's Commentary_, vi. 246-250.
[58] New Series, iii. 124.
[59] _E.g._, הדם, "limb"; רז, "secret"; פתגם, "message." There are
no Persian words in Ezekiel, Haggai, Zechariah, or Malachi; they
are found in Ezra and Esther, which were written long after the
establishment of the Persian Empire.
[60] The change of _n_ for _l_ is not uncommon: comp. βέντιον,
φίντατος, etc.
[61] The word שָׂבֽכָא, _Sab'ka_, also bears a suspicious resemblance
to σαμβύκη, but Athenæus says (_Deipnos._, iv. 173) that the
instrument was invented by the Syrians. Some have seen in _kārôz_
(iii. 4, "herald") the Greek κήρυξ, and in _hamnîk_, "chain," the
Greek μανιάκης: but these cannot be pressed.
[62] It is true that there was _some_ small intercourse between even
the Assyrians and Ionians (Ja-am-na-a) as far back as the days of
Sargon (B.C. 722-705); but not enough to account for such words.
[63] Sayce, _Contemp. Rev._, December 1878.
[64] Some argue that in this passage συμφωνία means "a concert"
(comp. Luke xv. 25); but Polybius mentions it with "a horn"
(κεράτιον). Behrmann (p. ix) connects it with σίφων, and makes it
mean "a pipe."
[65] Pusey says all he can on the other side (pp. 23-28), and has
not changed the opinion of scholars (pp. 27-33). Fabre d'Envieu (i.
101) also desperately denies the existence of any Greek words. On the
other side see Derenbourg, _Les Mots grecs dans le Livre biblique de
Daniel_ (Mélanges Graux, 1884).
[66] _Orient. u. Exeg. Bibliothek_, 1772, p. 141. This view was
revived by Lagarde in the _Göttingen Gel. Anzeigen_, 1891.
[67] _Daniel neu Übersetz. u. Erklärt._, 1808; Köhler, _Lehrbuch_,
ii. 577. The first who suspected the unity of the Book because of the
two languages was Spinoza (_Tract-historicopol_, x. 130 ff.). Newton
(_Observations upon the Prophecies of Daniel and the Apocalypse_,
i. 10) and Beausobre (_Remarques sur le Nouv. Test._, i. 70) shared
the doubt because of the use of the first person in the prophetic
(Dan. vii.-xii.) and the third in the historic section (Dan. i.-vi.).
Michaelis, Bertholdt, and Reuss considered that its origin was
fragmentary; and Lagarde (who dated the seventh chapter A.D. 69)
calls it "a bundle of flyleaves." Meinhold and Strack, like Eichhorn,
regard the historic section as older than the prophetic; and Cornill
thinks that the Book was put together in great haste. Similarly,
Graf (_Der Prophet Jeremia_) regards the Aramaic verse, Jer. x. 11,
as a marginal gloss. Lagarde argues, from the silence of Josephus
about many points, that he could not have had the present Book of
Daniel before him (_e.g._, Dan. vii. or ix.-xii.); but the argument
is unsafe. Josephus seems to have understood the Fourth Empire to be
the Roman, and did not venture to write of its destruction. For this
reason he does not explain "the stone" of Dan. ii. 45.
[68] By De Wette, Schrader, Hitzig, Ewald, Gesenius, Bleek,
Delitzsch, Von Lengerke, Stähelin, Kamphausen, Wellhausen, etc.
Reuss, however, says (_Heil. Schrift._, p. 575), "Man könnte auf die
Vorstellung kommen das Buch habe mehr als einen Verfasser"; and König
thinks that the original form of the book may have ended with chap.
vii. (_Einleit._, § 384).
[69] _Beiträge_, 1888. See too Kranichfeld, _Das Buch Daniel_, p. 4.
The view is refuted by Budde, _Theol. Lit. Zeitung_, 1888, No. 26.
The conjecture has often occurred to critics. Thus Sir Isaac Newton,
believing that Daniel wrote the last six chapters, thought that the
six first "are a collection of historical papers written by others"
(_Observations_, i. 10).
[70] _Einleit._, p. 6.
[71] Other critics who incline to one or other modification of this
view of the _two_ Daniels are Tholuck, _d. A.T. in N.T._, 1872; C. v.
Orelli, _Alttest. Weissag._, 1882; and Strack.
[72] Hengstenberg also points to verbal resemblances between ii. 44
and vii. 14; iv. 5 and vii. 1; ii. 31 and vii. 2; ii. 38 and vii. 17,
etc. (_Genuineness of Daniel_, E. Tr., pp. 186 ff.).
[73] _A Short Commentary_, p. 8.
[74] Acts xvii. 26, 27.
[75] See Hitzig, p. xii; Auberlen, p. 41.
[76] Reuss says too severely, "Die Schilderungen aller dieser
Vorgänge machen keinen gewinnenden Eindruck.... Der Stil ist
unbeholfen, die Figuren grotesk, die Farben grell." He admits,
however, the suitableness of the Book for the Maccabean epoch, and
the deep impression it made (_Heil. Schrift. A. T._, p. 571).
[77] See iii. 2, 3, 5, 7; viii. 1, 10, 19; xi. 15, 22, 31, etc.
[78] Exod. xv. 20; Judg. iv. 4.
[79] 1 Sam. x. 5; 1 Chron. xxv. 1, 2, 3.
[80] 2 Kings iii. 15.
[81] Jer. xxix. 26; 1 Sam. xviii. 10, xix. 21-24.
[82] 2 Kings ix. 11. See Expositor's Bible, _Second Book of Kings_,
p. 113.
[83] On this subject see Ewald, _Proph. d. A. Bundes_, i. 6; Novalis,
_Schriften_, ii. 472; Herder, _Geist der Ebr. Poesie_, ii. 61;
Knobel, _Prophetismus_, i. 103. Even the Latin poets were called
_prophetæ_, "bards" (Varro, _De Ling. Lat._, vi. 3). Epimenides
is called "a prophet" in Tit. i. 12. See Plato, _Tim._, 72, A.;
_Phædr._, 262, D.; Pind., _Fr._, 118; and comp. Eph. iii. 5, iv. 11.
[84] Dan. ix. 6, 10. So conscious was the Maccabean age of the
absence of prophets, that, just as after the Captivity a question
is postponed "till there should arise a priest with the Urim and
Thummin," so Judas postponed the decision about the stones of the
desecrated altar "until there should come a prophet to show what
should be done with them" (1 Macc. iv. 45, 46, ix. 27, xiv. 41).
Comp. Song of the Three Children, 15; Psalm lxxiv. 9; _Sota_, f. 48,
2. See _infra_, Introd., chap. viii.
[85] Dan. ix. 2, _hassepharîm_, τὰ βίβλια.
[86] Ewald, _Proph. d. A. B._, p. 10. Judas Maccabæus is also said to
have "restored" (ἐπισυνήγαγε) the lost (διαπεπτωκότα) sacred writings
(2 Macc. ii. 14).
[87] Smith's _Dict. of the Bible_, i. 501. The daily lesson from the
Prophets was called the _Haphtarah_ (Hamburger, _Real-Encycl._, ii.
334).
[88] On this subject see Kuenen, _The Prophets_, iii. 95 ff.;
Davison, _On Prophecy_, pp. 34-67; Herder, _Hebr. Poesie_, ii. 64; De
Wette, _Christl. Sittenlehre_, ii. 1.
[89] Joël, _Notizen_, p. 7.
CHAPTER III
_PECULIARITIES OF THE HISTORIC SECTION_
No one can have studied the Book of Daniel without seeing that, alike
in the character of its miracles and the minuteness of its supposed
predictions, it makes a more stupendous and a less substantiated
claim upon our credence than any other book of the Bible, and a
claim wholly different in character. It has over and over again been
asserted by the uncharitableness of a merely traditional orthodoxy
that inability to accept the historic verity and genuineness of the
Book arises from secret faithlessness, and antagonism to the admission
of the supernatural. No competent scholar will think it needful to
refute such calumnies. It suffices us to know before God that we are
actuated simply by the love of truth, by the abhorrence of anything
which in us would be a pusillanimous spirit of falsity. We have too
deep a belief in the God of the Amen, the God of eternal and essential
verity, to offer to Him "the unclean sacrifice of a lie." An error
is not sublimated into a truth even when that lie has acquired a
quasi-consecration, from its supposed desirability for purposes of
orthodox controversy, or from its innocent acceptance by generations
of Jewish and Christian Churchmen through long ages of uncritical
ignorance. Scholars, if they be Christians at all, can have no possible
_a-priori_ objection to belief in the supernatural. If they believe,
for instance, in the Incarnation of our Lord and Saviour Jesus
Christ, they believe in the most mysterious and unsurpassable of all
miracles, and beside that miracle all minor questions of God's power or
willingness to manifest His immediate intervention in the affairs of
men sink at once into absolute insignificance.
But our belief in the Incarnation, and in the miracles of Christ,
rests on evidence which, after repeated examination, is to us
overwhelming. Apart from all questions of personal verification, or
the Inward Witness of the Spirit, we can show that this evidence
is supported, not only by the existing records, but by myriads of
external and independent testimonies. The very same Spirit which
makes men believe where the demonstration is decisive, compels them
to refuse belief to the literal verity of unique miracles and unique
predictions which come before them without any convincing evidence.
The narratives and visions of this Book present difficulties on
every page. They were in all probability never intended for anything
but what they are--_Haggadoth_, which, like the parables of Christ,
convey their own lessons without depending on the necessity for
accordance with historic fact.
Had it been any part of the Divine will that we should accept these
stories as pure history, and these visions as predictions of events
which were not to take place till centuries afterwards, we should
have been provided with some aids to such belief. On the contrary,
in whatever light we examine the Book of Daniel, the evidence _in
its favour_ is weak, dubious, hypothetical, and _a priori_; while
the evidence _against_ it acquires increased intensity with every
fresh aspect in which it is examined. The Book which would make the
most extraordinary demands upon our credulity if it were meant for
history, is the very Book of which the genuineness and authenticity
are decisively discredited by every fresh discovery and by each new
examination. There is scarcely one learned European scholar by whom
they are maintained, except with such concessions to the Higher
Criticism as practically involve the abandonment of all that is
essential in the traditional theory.
And we have come to a time when it will not avail to take refuge in
such transferences of the discussions in _alteram materiam_, and such
purely vulgar appeals _ad invidiam_, as are involved in saying, "Then
the Book must be a forgery," and "an imposture," and "a gross lie." To
assert that "to give up the Book of Daniel is to betray the cause of
Christianity,"[90] is a coarse and dangerous misuse of the weapons of
controversy. Such talk may still have been excusable even in the days
of Dr. Pusey (with whom it was habitual); it is no longer excusable
now. Now it can only prove the uncharitableness of the apologist, and
the impotence of a defeated cause. Yet even this abandonment of the
sphere of honourable argument is only one degree more painful than the
tortuous subterfuges and wild assertions to which such apologists as
Hengstenberg, Keil, and their followers were long compelled to have
recourse. Anything can be proved about anything if we call to our aid
indefinite suppositions of errors of transcription, interpolations,
transpositions, extraordinary silences, still more extraordinary
methods of presenting events, and (in general) the unconsciously
disingenuous resourcefulness of traditional harmonics. To maintain that
the Book of Daniel, as it now stands, was written by Daniel in the days
of the Exile is to cherish a belief which can only, at the utmost,
be extremely uncertain, and which must be maintained in defiance of
masses of opposing evidence. There can be little intrinsic value in a
determination to believe historical and literary assumptions which can
no longer be maintained except by preferring the flimsiest hypotheses
to the most certain facts.
My own conviction has long been that in these _Haggadoth_, in which
Jewish literature delighted in the præ-Christian era, and which
continued to be written even till the Middle Ages, there was not the
least pretence or desire to deceive at all. I believe them to have
been put forth as moral legends--as avowed fiction nobly used for
the purposes of religious teaching and encouragement. In ages of
ignorance, in which no such thing as literary criticism existed, a
popular _Haggada_ might soon come to be regarded as historical, just
as the Homeric lays were among the Greeks, or just as Defoe's story
of the Plague of London was taken for literal history by many readers
even in the seventeenth century.
Ingenious attempts have been made to show that the author of this
Book evinces an intimate familiarity with the circumstances of the
Babylonian religion, society, and history. In many cases this is the
reverse of the fact. The instances adduced in favour of any knowledge
except of the most general description are entirely delusive. It
is frivolous to maintain, with Lenormant, that an exceptional
acquaintance with Babylonian custom was required to describe
Nebuchadrezzar as consulting diviners for the interpretation of a
dream! To say nothing of the fact that a similar custom has prevailed
in all nations and all ages from the days of Samuel to those of
Lobengula, the writer had the prototype of Pharaoh before him, and
has evidently been influenced by the story of Joseph.[91] Again, so
far from showing surprising acquaintance with the organisation of
the caste of Babylonian diviners, the writer has made a mistake in
their very name, as well as in the statement that a faithful Jew,
like Daniel, was made the chief of their college![92] Nor, again, was
there anything so unusual in the presence of women at feasts--also
recognised in the _Haggada_ of Esther--as to render this a sign of
extraordinary information. Once more, is it not futile to adduce the
allusion to punishment by burning alive as a proof of insight into
Babylonian peculiarities? This punishment had already been mentioned
by Jeremiah in the case of Nebuchadrezzar. "Then shall be taken up
a curse by all the captivity of Judah which are in Babylon, saying,
The Lord make thee like Zedekiah and like Ahab" (two false prophets),
"_whom the King of Babylon roasted in the fire_."[93] Moreover, it
occurs in the Jewish traditions which described a miraculous escape
of exactly the same character in the legend of Abraham. He, too, had
been supernaturally rescued from the burning fiery furnace of Nimrod,
to which he had been consigned because he refused to worship idols in
Ur of the Chaldees.[94]
When the instances _mainly_ relied upon prove to be so evidentially
valueless, it would be waste of time to follow Professor Fuller
through the less important and more imaginary proofs of accuracy
which his industry has amassed. Meanwhile the feeblest reasoner will
see that while a writer may easily be accurate in general facts, and
even in details, respecting an age long previous to that in which
he wrote, the existence of violent errors as to matters with which a
contemporary must have been familiar at once refutes all pretence of
historic authenticity in a book professing to have been written by an
author in the days and country which he describes.
Now such mistakes there seem to be, and not a few of them, in the pages
of the Book of Daniel. One or two of them can perhaps be explained
away by processes which would amply suffice to show that "yes" means
"no," or that "black" is a description of "white"; but each repetition
of such processes leaves us more and more incredulous. If errors be
treated as corruptions of the text, or as later interpolations, such
arbitrary methods of treating the Book are practically an admission
that, as it stands, it cannot be regarded as historical.
I. We are, for instance, met by what seems to be a remarkable error
in the very first verse of the Book, which tells us that "_In the
third year of Jehoiakim, King of Judah_, came Nebuchad_n_ezzar"--as
in later days he was incorrectly called--"King of Babylon, unto
Jerusalem, and besieged it."
It is easy to trace whence the error sprang. Its source lies in a
book which is the latest in the whole Canon, and in many details
difficult to reconcile with the Book of Kings--a book of which the
Hebrew resembles that of Daniel--the Book of Chronicles. In 2 Chron.
xxxvi. 6 we are told that Nebuchad_n_ezzar came up against Jehoiakim,
and "bound him in fetters to carry him to Babylon"; and also--to
which the author of Daniel directly refers--that he carried off some
of the vessels of the House of God, to put them in the treasure-house
of his god. In this passage it is _not_ said that this occurred "_in
the third year_ of Jehoiakim," who reigned eleven years; but in 2
Kings xxiv. 1 we are told that "in his days Nebuchad_n_ezzar came
up, and Jehoiakim _became his servant three years_." The passage in
Daniel looks like a confused reminiscence of the "three years" with
"the third year of Jehoiakim." The elder and better authority (the
Book of Kings) is silent about any deportation having taken place in
the reign of Jehoiakim, and so is the contemporary Prophet Jeremiah.
But in any case it seems impossible that it should have taken place
so early as the _third year_ of Jehoiakim, for at that time he was a
simple vassal of the King of Egypt. If this deportation took place in
the reign of Jehoiakim, it would certainly be singular that Jeremiah,
in enumerating three others, in the seventh, eighteenth, and
twenty-third year of Nebuchadrezzar,[95] should make no allusion to
it. But it is hard to see how it could have taken place before Egypt
had been defeated in the Battle of Carchemish, and that was not till
B.C. 597, the _fourth_ year of Jehoiakim.[96] Not only does Jeremiah
make no mention of so remarkable a deportation as this, which as the
earliest would have caused the deepest anguish, but, in the _fourth_
year of Jehoiakim (Jer. xxxvi. 1), he writes a roll to threaten evils
which are still future, and in the _fifth_ year proclaims a fast in
the hope that the imminent peril may even yet be averted (Jer. xxxvi.
6-10). It is only after the violent obstinacy of the king that the
destructive advance of Nebuchadrezzar is finally prophesied (Jer.
xxxvi. 29) as something which has not yet occurred.[97]
II. Nor are the names in this first chapter free from difficulty.
Daniel is called Belteshazzar, and the remark of the King of
Babylon--"whose name was Belteshazzar, _according to the name of
my god_"--certainly suggests that the first syllable is (as the
Massorets assume) connected with the god Bel. But the name has
nothing to do with Bel. No contemporary could have fallen into such
an error;[98] still less a king who spoke Babylonian. Shadrach _may_
be _Shudur-aku_, "command of Aku," the moon-god; but Meshach is
inexplicable; and Abed-nego is a strange corruption for the obvious
and common Abed-nebo, "servant of Nebo." Such a corruption could
hardly have arisen till Nebo was practically forgotten. And what is
the meaning of "the _Melzar_" (Dan. i. 11)? The A.V. takes it to
be a proper name; the R.V. renders it "the steward." But the title
is unique and obscure.[99] Nor can anything be made of the name of
Ashpenaz, the prince of the eunuchs, whom, in one manuscript, the
LXX. call Abiesdri.[100]
III. Similar difficulties and uncertainties meet us at every step.
Thus, in the second chapter (ii. 1), the dream of Nebuchadrezzar
is fixed in the _second_ year of his reign. This does not seem to
be in accord with i. 3, 18, which says that Daniel and his three
companions were kept under the care of the prince of the eunuchs for
three years. Nothing, of course, is easier than to invent harmonistic
hypotheses, such as that of Rashi, that "the second year _of the
reign of Nebuchadrezzar_" has the wholly different meaning of "the
second year after _the destruction of the Temple_"; or as that of
Hengstenberg, followed by many modern apologists, that Nebuchadrezzar
had previously been associated in the kingdom with Nabopolassar, and
that this was the second year of his independent reign. Or, again,
we may, with Ewald, read "the twelfth year." But by these methods we
are not taking the Book as it stands, but are supposing it to be a
network of textual corruptions and conjectural combinations.
IV. In ii. 2 the king summons four classes of hierophants to
disclose his dream and its interpretation. They are the magicians
(_Chartummîm_), the enchanters (_Ashshaphîm_), the sorcerers
(_Mechashsh'phîm_), and the Chaldeans (_Kasdîm_).[101] The
_Chartummîm_ occur in Gen. xli. 8 (which seems to be in the writer's
mind); and the _Mechashsh'phîm_ occur in Exod. vii. 11, xxii. 18;
but the mention of _Kasdîm_, "Chaldeans," is, so far as we know, an
immense anachronism. In much later ages the name was used, as it was
among the Roman writers, for wandering astrologers and quacks.[102]
But this degenerate sense of the word was, so far as we can judge,
wholly unknown to the age of Daniel. It never once occurs in this
sense on any of the monuments. Unknown to the Assyrian-Babylonian
language, and only acquired long after the end of the Babylonian
Empire, such a usage of the word is, as Schrader says, "an indication
of the post-exilic composition of the Book."[103] In the days of
Daniel "Chaldeans" had no meaning resembling that of "magicians" or
"astrologers." In every other writer of the Old Testament, and in all
contemporary records, _Kasdîm_ simply means the Chaldean nation, and
_never_ a learned caste.[104] This single circumstance has decisive
weight in proving the late age of the Book of Daniel.
V. Again, we find in ii. 14, "Arioch, the chief of the executioners."
Schrader precariously derives the name from _Eri-aku_, "servant of
the moon-god"; but, however that may be, we already find the name as
that of a king Ellasar in Gen. xiv. 1, and we find it again for a
king of the Elymæans in Judith i. 6. In ver. 16 Daniel "went in and
desired of the king" a little respite; but in ver. 25 Arioch tells
the king, as though it were a sudden discovery of his own, "I have
found a man of the captives of Judah, that will make known unto the
king the interpretation." This was a surprising form of introduction,
after we have been told that the king himself had, by personal
examination, found that Daniel and his young companions were "_ten
times better than all the magicians and astrologers that were in all
his realm_." It seems, however, as if each of these chapters was
intended to be recited as a separate _Haggada_.
VI. In ii. 46, after the interpretation of the dream, "_the King
Nebuchadnezzar fell upon his face, and worshipped Daniel, and commanded
that they should offer an oblation and sweet odours unto him_." This
is another of the immense surprises of the Book. It is exactly the kind
of incident in which the haughty theocratic sentiment of the Jews found
delight, and we find a similar spirit in the many Talmudic inventions
in which Roman emperors, or other potentates, are represented as paying
extravagant adulation to Rabbinic sages. There is (as we shall see) a
similar story narrated by Josephus of Alexander the Great prostrating
himself before the high priest Jaddua, but it has long been relegated
to the realm of fable as an outcome of Jewish self-esteem.[105] It is
probably meant as a concrete illustration of the glowing promises of
Isaiah, that "kings and queens shall bow down to thee with their faces
towards the earth, and lick up the dust of thy feet";[106] and "the
sons of them that despised thee shall bow themselves down at the soles
of thy feet."[107]
VII. We further ask in astonishment whether Daniel could have
accepted without indignant protest the offering of "an oblation
and sweet odours." To say that they were only offered to God in
the person of Daniel is the idle pretence of all idolatry. They
are expressly said to be offered "to Daniel." A Herod could accept
blasphemous adulations;[108] but a Paul and a Barnabas deprecate such
devotions with intense disapproval.[109]
VIII. In ii. 48 Nebuchadrezzar appoints Daniel, as a reward for
his wisdom, to rule over the whole province of Babylon, and to
be _Rab-signîn_, "chief ruler," and to be over all the wise men
(_Khakamim_) of Babylon. Lenormant treats this statement as an
interpolation, because he regards it as "_evidently_ impossible."
We know that in the Babylonian priesthood, and especially among
the sacred caste, there was a passionate religious intolerance. It
is inconceivable that they should have accepted as their religious
superior a monotheist who was the avowed and uncompromising enemy
to their whole system of idolatry. It is equally inconceivable
that Daniel should have accepted the position of a hierophant in a
polytheistic cult. In the next three chapters there is no allusion to
Daniel's tenure of these strange and exalted offices, either civil or
religious.[110]
IX. The third chapter contains another story, told in a style of
wonderful stateliness and splendour, and full of glorious lessons; but
here again we encounter linguistic and other difficulties. Thus in iii.
2, though "all the rulers of the provinces" and officers of all ranks
are summoned to the dedication of Nebuchadrezzar's colossus, there is
not an allusion to Daniel throughout the chapter. Four of the names of
the officers in iii. 2, 3, appear, to our surprise, to be Persian;[111]
and, of the six musical instruments, three--the lute, psaltery, and
bagpipe[112]--have obvious Greek names, two of which (as already
stated) are of late origin, while another, the _sab'ka_, resembles the
Greek σαμβύκη, but may have come to the Greeks from the Aramæans.[113]
The incidents of the chapter are such as find no analogy throughout the
Old or New Testament, but exactly resemble those of Jewish moralising
fiction, of which they furnish the most perfect specimen. It is
exactly the kind of concrete comment which a Jewish writer of piety
and genius, for the encouragement of his afflicted people, might have
based upon such a passage as Isa. xliii. 2, 3: "When thou walkest
through the fire, thou shalt not be burned; neither shall the flame
kindle upon thee. For I am the Lord thy God, the Holy One of Israel,
thy Saviour." Nebuchadrezzar's decree, "That every _people, nation,
and language_, which speak anything amiss against the God of Shadrach,
Meshach, and Abed-nego, _shall be cut in pieces, and their houses shall
be made a dunghill_," can only be paralleled out of the later Jewish
literature.[114]
X. In chap. iv. we have another monotheistic decree of the King of
Babylon, announcing to "all people, nations, and languages" what
"the high God hath wrought towards me." It gives us a vision which
recalls Ezek. xxxi. 3-18, and may possibly have been suggested by
that fine chapter.[115] The language varies between the third and the
first person. In iv. 13 Nebuchadrezzar speaks of "a watcher and a
holy one." This is the first appearance in Jewish literature of the
word _'ir_, "watcher," which is so common in the Book of Enoch.[116]
In ver. 26 the expression "after thou shalt have known that _the
heavens_ do rule" is one which has no analogue in the Old Testament,
though exceedingly common in the superstitious periphrases of the
later Jewish literature. As to the story of the strange lycanthropy
with which Nebuchadrezzar was afflicted, though it receives nothing
but the faintest shadow of support from any historic record, it may
be based on some fact preserved by tradition. It is probably meant
to reflect on the mad ways of Antiochus. The general phrase of
Berossus, which tells us that Nebuchadrezzar "fell into a sickness
and died,"[117] has been pressed into an historical verification of
this narrative! But the phrase might have been equally well used
in the most ordinary case,[118] which shows what fancies have been
adduced to prove that we are here dealing with history. The fragment
of Abydenus in his _Assyriaca_, preserved by Eusebius,[119] shows
that there was _some_ story about Nebuchadrezzar having uttered
remarkable words upon his palace-roof. The announcement of a coming
irrevocable calamity to the kingdom from a Persian mule, "the son of
a Median woman," and the wish that "_the alien conqueror_" might be
driven "through the desert where wild beasts seek their food, and
birds fly hither and thither," has, however, very little to do with
the story of Nebuchadrezzar's madness. Abydenus says that, "when he
had thus prophesied, he suddenly vanished"; and he adds nothing about
any restoration to health or to his kingdom. All that can be said is
that there was current among the Babylonian Jews some popular legend
of which the writer of the Book of Daniel availed himself for the
purpose of his edifying _Midrash_.
XI. When we reach the fifth chapter, we are faced by a new king,
Belshazzar, who is somewhat emphatically called the son of
Nebuchadrezzar.[120]
History knows of no such king.[121] The prince of whom it _does_ know
was never king, and was a son, not of Nebuchadrezzar, but of the
usurper Nabunaid; and between Nebuchadrezzar and Nabunaid there were
three other kings.[122]
There _was_ a Belshazzar--_Bel-sar-utsur_, "Bel protect the
prince"--and we possess a clay cylinder of his father Nabunaid, the
last king of Babylon, praying the moon-god that "my son, the offspring
of my heart, might honour his godhead, and not give himself to
sin."[123] But if we follow Herodotus, this Belshazzar never came to
the throne; and according to Berossus he was conquered in Borsippa.
Xenophon, indeed, speaks of "an impious king" as being slain in
Babylon; but this is only in an avowed romance which has not the
smallest historic validity.[124] Schrader conjectures that Nabunaid may
have gone to take the field against Cyrus (who conquered and pardoned
him, and allowed him to end his days as governor of Karamania), and
that Belshazzar may have been killed in Babylon. These are mere
hypotheses; as are those of Josephus,[125] who identifies Belshazzar
with Nabunaid (whom he calls Naboandelon); and of Babelon, who tries
to make him the same as Maruduk-shar-utsur (as though Bel was the
same as Maruduk), which is impossible, as this king reigned _before_
Nabunaid. No contemporary writer could have fallen into the error
either of calling Belshazzar "king"; or of insisting on his being "the
son" of Nebuchadrezzar;[126] or of representing him as Nebuchadrezzar's
successor. Nebuchadrezzar was succeeded by--
Evil-merodach _circ._ B.C. 561 (Avil-marduk).[127]
Nergal-sharezer " 559 (Nergal-sar-utsur).
Lakhabbashi-marudu } " 555 (an infant).
(Laborosoarchod) }
Nabunaid " 554.
Nabunaid reigned till about B.C. 538, when Babylon was taken by Cyrus.
The conduct of Belshazzar in the great feast of this chapter is
probably meant as an allusive contrast to the revels and impieties of
Antiochus Epiphanes, especially in his infamous festival at the grove
of Daphne.
XII. "That night," we are told, "Belshazzar, the Chaldean king,
was slain." It has always been supposed that this was an incident
of the capture of Babylon by assault, in accordance with the story
of Herodotus, repeated by so many subsequent writers. But on this
point the inscriptions of Cyrus have _revolutionised_ our knowledge.
"_There was no siege and capture of Babylon_; the capital of
the Babylonian Empire opened its gates to the general of Cyrus.
Gobryas and his soldiers entered the city without fighting, and
the daily services in the great temple of Bel-merodach suffered no
interruption. Three months later Cyrus himself arrived, and made his
peaceful entry into the new capital of his empire. We gather from the
contract-tablets that even the ordinary business of the place had not
been affected by the war. The siege and capture of Babylon by Cyrus
_is really a reflection into the past of the actual sieges undergone
by the city in the reigns of Darius, son of Hystaspes and Xerxes_.
It is clear, then, that the editor of the fifth chapter of the Book
of Daniel could have been as little a contemporary of the events he
professes to record as Herodotus. For both alike, the true history
of the Babylonian Empire has been overclouded and foreshortened by
the lapse of time. The three kings who reigned between Nebuchadrezzar
and Nabunaid have been forgotten, and the last king of the Babylonian
Empire has become the son of its founder."[128]
Snatching at the merest straws, those who try to vindicate the accuracy
of the writer--although he makes Belshazzar a king, which he never was;
and the son of Nebuchadrezzar, which is not the case; or his grandson,
of which there is no tittle of evidence; and his successor, whereas
four kings intervened;--think that they improve the case by urging
that Daniel was made "the third ruler in the kingdom"--Nabunaid being
the first, and Belshazzar being the second! Unhappily for their very
precarious hypothesis, the translation "third ruler" appears to be
entirely untenable. It means "one of a board of three."
XIII. In the sixth chapter we are again met by difficulty after
difficulty.
Who, for instance, was Darius the Mede? We are told (v. 30, 31) that,
on the night of his impious banquet, "Belshazzar the king of the
Chaldeans" was slain, "and Darius the Median took the kingdom, being
about threescore and two years old." We are also told that Daniel
"prospered in the reign of Darius, and in the reign of Cyrus the
Persian" (vi. 28). But this Darius is not even noticed elsewhere.
Cyrus was the conqueror of Babylon, and between B.C. 538-536 there is
no room or possibility for a Median ruler.
The inference which we should naturally draw from these statements
in the Book of Daniel, and which all readers have drawn, was that
Babylon had been conquered by the Medes, and that only after the
death of a Median king did Cyrus the Persian succeed.
But historic monuments and records entirely overthrow this
supposition. Cyrus was the king of Babylon from the day that his
troops entered it without a blow. He had conquered the Medes
and suppressed their royalty. "The numerous contract-tables of
the ordinary daily business transactions of Babylon, dated as
they are month by month, and almost day by day from the reign of
Nebuchadrezzar to that of Xerxes, prove that between Nabonidus and
Cyrus _there was no intermediate ruler_." The contemporary scribes
and merchants of Babylon knew nothing of any King Belshazzar, and
they knew even less of any King Darius the Mede. No contemporary
writer could possibly have fallen into such an error.[129]
And against this obvious conclusion, of what possible avail is it for
Hengstenberg to quote a late Greek lexicographer (_Harpocration_,
A.D. 170?), who says that the coin "a daric" was named after a Darius
earlier than the father of Xerxes?--or for others to identify this
shadowy Darius the Mede with Astyages?[130]--or with Cyaxares II.
in the romance of Xenophon?[131]--or to say that Darius the Mede
is Gobryas (Ugbaru) of Gutium[132]--a Persian, and not a king at
all--who under no circumstances could have been called "the king" by
a contemporary (vi. 12, ix. 1), and whom, apparently for three months
only, Cyrus made governor of Babylon? How could a contemporary
governor have appointed "one hundred and twenty princes which should
be over the whole kingdom,"[133] when, even in the days of Darius
Hystaspis, there were only twenty or twenty-three satrapies in the
Persian Empire?[134] And how could a mere provincial viceroy be
approached by "_all the presidents of the kingdom_, the governors,
and the princes, the counsellors, and the captains," to pass a decree
that any one who for thirty days offered any prayer to God or man,
except to him, should be cast into the den of lions? The fact that
such a decree could only be made by _a king_ is emphasised in the
narrative itself (vi. 12: comp. iii. 29). The supposed analogies
offered by Professor Fuller and others in favour of a decree so
absurdly impossible--except in the admitted licence and for the high
moral purpose of a Jewish Haggada--are to the last degree futile.
In any ordinary criticism they would be set down as idle special
pleading. Yet this is only one of a multitude of wildly improbable
incidents, which, from misunderstanding of the writer's age and
purpose, have been taken for sober history, though they receive from
historical records and monuments no shadow of confirmation, and are
in not a few instances directly opposed to all that we now know to
be certain history. Even if it were conceivable that this hypothetic
"Darius the Mede" was Gobryas, or Astyages, or Cyaxares, it is plain
that the author of Daniel gives him a name and national designation
which lead to mere confusion, and speaks of him in a way which would
have been surely avoided by any contemporary.
"Darius the Mede," says Professor Sayce, "is in fact a _reflection_
into the past of _Darius the son of Hystaspes_,[135] just as the
siege and capture of Babylon by Cyrus are a reflection into the past
of its siege and capture by the same prince. The name of Darius and
the story of the slaughter of the Chaldean king go together. They
are alike derived from the unwritten history which, in the East of
to-day, is still made by the people, and which blends together in a
single picture the manifold events and personages of the past. It
is a history which has no perspective, though it is based on actual
facts; the accurate combinations of the chronologer have no meaning
for it, and the events of a century are crowded into a few years.
This is the kind of history which the Jewish _mind in the age of the
Talmud loved to adapt to moral and religious purposes_. This kind of
history then becomes as _it were a parable, and under the name of
Haggada serves to illustrate that teaching of the law_."[136]
The favourable view given of the character of the imaginary Darius
the Mede, and his regard for Daniel, may have been a confusion with
the Jewish reminiscences of Darius, son of Hystaspes, who permitted
the rebuilding of the Temple under Zerubbabel.[137]
If we look for the _source_ of the confusion, we see it perhaps in
the prophecy of Isaiah (xiii. 17, xiv. 6-22), that the _Medes_ should
be the destroyers of Babylon; or in that of Jeremiah--a prophet
of whom the author had made a special study (Dan. ix. 2)--to the
same effect (Jer. li. 11-28); together with the tradition that _a_
Darius--namely, the son of Hystaspes--_had_ once conquered Babylon.
XIV. But to make confusion worse confounded, if these chapters were
meant for history, the problematic "Darius the Mede" is in Dan. ix. 1
called "the son of Ahasuerus."
Now Ahasuerus (Achashverosh) is the same as Xerxes, and is the
_Persian_ name Khshyarsha; and Xerxes was the _son_, not the father,
of Darius Hystaspis, who was a _Persian_, not a Mede. Before Darius
Hystaspis could have been transformed into the son of his own son
Xerxes, the reigns, not only of Darius, but also of Xerxes, must have
long been past.
XV. There is yet another historic sign that this Book did not
originate till the Persian Empire had long ceased to exist. In xi.
2 the writer only knows of _four_ kings of Persia.[138] These are
evidently Cyrus, Cambyses, Darius Hystaspis, and Xerxes--whom he
describes as the richest of them. This king is destroyed by the
kingdom of Grecia--an obvious confusion of popular tradition between
the defeat inflicted on the Persians by the Republican Greeks in the
days of Xerxes (B.C. 480), and the overthrow of the Persian kingdom
under Darius Codomannus by Alexander the Great (B.C. 333).
* * * * *
These, then, are some of the apparent historic impossibilities by which
we are confronted when we regard this Book as professed history. The
doubts suggested by such seeming errors are not in the least removed
by the acervation of endless conjectures. They are greatly increased
by the fact that, so far from standing alone, they are intensified by
other difficulties which arise under every fresh aspect under which the
Book is studied. Behrmann, the latest editor, sums up his studies with
the remark that "there is an almost universal agreement that the Book,
in its present form and as a whole, had its origin in the Maccabean
age; while there is a widening impression that in its purpose it is
not an exclusive product of that period." No amount of casuistical
ingenuity can long prevail to overthrow the spreading conviction that
the views of Hengstenberg, Hävernick, Keil, Pusey, and their followers,
have been refuted by the light of advancing knowledge--which is a light
kindled for us by God Himself.
FOOTNOTES:
[90] Thus Dr. Pusey says: "The Book of Daniel is especially fitted
to be a battle-field _between faith and unbelief_. It admits of no
half-measures. It is either Divine or an imposture. To write any
book under the name of another, and to give it out to be his, is,
in any case, a forgery dishonest in itself, and destructive of all
trustworthiness. But the case of the Book of Daniel, if it were not
his, would go far beyond even this. The writer, were _he_ not Daniel,
_must_ have _lied_ on a frightful scale. In a word, the whole Book
would be one lie in the Name of God." Few would venture to use such
language in _these_ days. It is always a perilous style to adopt,
but now it has become suicidal. It is founded on an immense and
inexcusable anachronism. It avails itself of an utterly false misuse
of the words "faith" and "unbelief," by which "faith" becomes a mere
synonym for "that which I esteem orthodox," or that which has been
the current opinion in ages of ignorance. Much truer faith may be
shown by accepting arguments founded on unbiassed evidence than by
rejecting them. And what can be more foolish than to base the great
truths of the Christian religion on special pleadings which have now
come to wear the aspect of ingenious sophistries, such as would not
be allowed to have the smallest validity in any ordinary question
of literary or historic evidence? Hengstenberg, like Pusey, says in
his violent ecclesiastical tone of autocratic infallibility that
the interpretation of the Book by most eminent modern critics "will
remain false so long as the word of Christ is true--that is, for
ever." This is to make "the word of Christ" the equivalent of a mere
theological blindness and prejudice! Assertions which are utterly
baseless can only be met by assertions based on science and the love
of truth. Thus when Rupprecht says that "the modern criticism of the
Book of Daniel is unchristian, immoral, and unscientific," we can
only reply with disdain, _Novimus istas_ ληκύθους. In the present day
they are mere bluster of impotent _odium theologicum_.
[91] Gen. xli.
[92] See Lenormant, _La Divination_, p. 219.
[93] Jer. xxix. 22. The tenth verse of _this very chapter_ is
referred to in Dan. ix. 2. The custom continued in the East centuries
afterwards. "And if it was known to a Roman writer (Quintus Curtius,
v. 1) in the days of Vespasian, why" (Mr. Bevan pertinently asks)
"should it not have been known to a Palestinian writer who lived
centuries earlier?" (A. A. Bevan, _Short Commentary_, p. 22).
[94] _Avodah-Zarah_, f. 3, 1; _Sanhedrin_, f. 93, 1; _Pesachim_, f.
118, 1; _Eiruvin_, f. 53, 1.
[95] Jer. lii. 28-30. These were in the reign of Jehoiachin.
[96] Jer. xlvi. 2: comp. Jer. xxv. The passage of Berossus, quoted in
Jos., _Antt._ X. xi. 1, is not trustworthy, and does not remove the
difficulty.
[97] The attempts of Keil and Pusey to get over the difficulty,
if they were valid, would reduce Scripture to a hopeless riddle.
The reader will see all the latest efforts in this direction in
the _Speaker's Commentary_ and the work of Fabre d'Envieu. Even
such "orthodox" writers as Dorner, Delitzsch, and Gess, not to
mention hosts of other great critics, have long seen the desperate
impossibility of these arguments.
[98] _Balatsu-utsur_, "protect his life." The root _balâtu_, "life,"
is common in Assyrian names. The mistake comes from the wrong
vocalisation adopted by the Massorets (Meinhold, _Beiträge_, p. 27).
[99] Schrader dubiously connects it with _matstsara_, "guardian."
[100] Lenormant, p. 182, regards it as a corruption of Ashbenazar,
"the goddess has pruned the seed" (??); but assumed corruptions of
the text are an uncertain expedient.
[101] On these see Rob. Smith, _Cambr. Journ. of Philol._, No. 27, p.
125.
[102] Juv., _Sat._, x. 96: "Cum grege Chaldæo"; Val. Max., iii. 1;
Cic., _De Div._, i. 1, etc.
[103] _Keilinschr._, p. 429; Meinhold, p. 28.
[104] Isa. xxiii. 13; Jer. xxv. 12; Ezek. xii. 13; Hab. i. 6.
[105] Jos., _Antt._, XI. viii. 5.
[106] Isa. xlix. 23.
[107] Isa. lx. 14.
[108] Acts xii. 22, 23.
[109] Acts xiv. 11, 12, xxviii. 6.
[110] See Jer. xxxix. 3. And if he held this position, how could he
be absent in chap. iii.?
[111] Namely, the words for "satraps," "governors," "counsellors,"
and "judges," as well as the courtiers in iii. 24. Bleek thinks that
to enhance the stateliness of the occasion the writer introduced as
many official names as he knew.
[112] _Supra_, p. 23.
[113] Athen., _Deipnos._, iv. 175.
[114] The Persian titles in iii. 24 alone suffice to indicate that
this could not be Nebuchadrezzar's actual decree. See further,
Meinhold, pp. 30, 31. We are evidently dealing with a writer who
introduces many Persian words, with no consciousness that they could
not have been used by Babylonian kings.
[115] The writer of Daniel was evidently acquainted with the Book of
Ezekiel. See Delitzsch in Herzog, _s.v._ "Daniel," and Driver, p. 476.
[116] See iv. 16, 25-30.
[117] Preserved by Jos.: comp. _Ap._, I. 20.
[118] The phrase is common enough: _e.g._, in Jos., _Antt._, X. xi. 1
(comp. _c. Ap._, I. 19); and a similar phrase, ἐμπεσὼν εἰς ἀῤῥωστίαν,
_is used of Antiochus Epiphanes_ in 1 Macc. vi. 8.
[119] _Præp. Ev._, ix. 41. Schrader (_K. A. T._, ii. 432) thinks that
Berossus and the Book of Daniel may both point to the same tradition;
but the Chaldee tradition quoted by the late writer Abydenus errs
likewise in only recognising _two_ Babylonish kings instead of
_four_, exclusive of Belshazzar. See, too, Schrader, _Jahrb. für
Prot. Theol._, 1881, p. 618.
[120] Dan. v. 11. The emphasis seems to show that "son" is really
meant--not grandson. This is a little strange, for Jeremiah
(xxvii. 7) had said that the nations should serve Nebuchadrezzar,
"and his son, _and his son's son_"; and in no case was Belshazzar
Nebuchadrezzar's _son's son_, for his father Nabunaid was an usurping
son of a Rab-mag.
[121] Schrader, p. 434 ff.; and in Riehm, _Handwörterb._, ii. 163;
Pinches, in Smith's _Bibl. Dict._, i. 388, 2nd edn. The contraction
into Belshazzar from _Bel-sar-utsur_ seems to show a late date.
[122] That the author of Daniel should have fallen into these errors
is the more remarkable because Evil-merodach is mentioned in 2 Kings
xxv. 27; and Jeremiah in his round number of seventy years includes
_three_ generations (Jer. xxvii. 7). Herodotus and Abydenus made the
same mistake. See Kamphausen, pp. 30, 31.
[123] Herod., i. 191. See Rawlinson, _Herod._, i. 434.
[124] Xen., _Cyrop._, VII. v. 3.
[125] _Antt._, X. xi. 2. In _c. Ap._, I. 20, he calls him Nabonnedus.
[126] This is now supposed to mean "grandson by marriage," by
inventing the hypothesis that Nabunaid married a daughter of
Nebuchadrezzar. But this does not accord with Dan. v. 2, 11, 22; and
so in Baruch i. 11, 12.
[127] 2 Kings xxv. 27.
[128] Sayce, _The Higher Criticism and the Monuments_, p. 527.
[129] I need not enter here upon the confusion of the Manda with the
Medes, on which see Sayce, _Higher Criticism and Monuments_, p. 519 ff.
[130] Winer, _Realwörterb._, _s.v._ "Darius."
[131] So Bertholdt, Von Lengerke, Auberlen. It is decidedly rejected
by Schrader (Riehm, _Handwörterb._, i. 259). Even Cicero said,
"Cyrus ille a Xenophonte non ad historiæ fidem scriptus est" (_Ad
Quint. Fratr._, Ep. i. 3). Niebuhr called the _Cyropædia_ "einen
_elenden_ und läppischen Roman" (_Alt. Gesch._, i. 116). He classes
it with _Télémaque_ or _Rasselas_. Xenophon was probably the ultimate
authority for the statement of Josephus (_Antt._, X. xi. 4), which
has no weight. Herodotus and Ktesias know nothing of the existence of
any Cyaxares II., nor does the Second Isaiah (xlv.), who evidently
contemplates Cyrus as the conqueror and the first king of Babylon.
Are we to set a professed romancer like Xenophon, and a late compiler
like Josephus, against these authorities?
[132] T. W. Pinches, in Smith's _Bibl. Dict._, i. 716, 2nd edn. Into
this theory are pressed the general expressions that Darius "received
the kingdom" and was "made king," which have not the least bearing
on it. They may simply mean that he became king by conquest, and not
in the ordinary course--so Rosenmüller, Hitzig, Von Lengerke, etc.;
or perhaps the words show some sense of uncertainty as to the exact
course of events. The sequence of Persian kings in _Seder Olam_,
28-30, and in Rashi on Dan. v. 1, ix. 1, is equally unhistorical.
[133] This is supported by the remark that this three-months viceroy
"appointed governors in Babylon"!
[134] Herod., iii. 89; _Records of the Past_, viii. 88.
[135] See, too, Meinhold (_Beiträge_, p. 46), who concludes his
survey with the words, "Sprachliche wie sachliche Gründe machen
es _nicht nur wahrscheinlich sondern gewiss_ dass an danielsche
Autorschaft von Dan. ii.-vi., überhanpt an die Entstehung zur Zeit
der jüdischen Verbannung nicht zu denken ist." He adds that almost
all scholars believe the chapters to be no older than the age of the
Maccabees, and that even Kahnis (_Dogmatik_, i. 376) and Delitzsch
(Herzog, _s.v._ "Dan.") give up their genuineness. He himself
believes that these Aramaic chapters were _incorporated_ by a later
writer, who wrote the introduction.
[136] Sayce. _l.c._, p. 529.
[137] Kamphausen, p. 45.
[138] Sayce, _l.c._ The author of the Book of Daniel seems only
to have known of _three_ kings of Persia after Cyrus (xi. 2). But
five are mentioned in the Old Testament--Cyrus, Darius, Artaxerxes,
Xerxes, and Darius III. (Codomannus, Neh. xii. 22). There were three
Dariuses and three Artaxerxes, but he only knows one of each name
(Kamphausen, p. 32). He might easily have overlooked the fact that
the Darius of Neh. xii. 22 was a wholly different person from the
Darius of Ezra vi. 1.
CHAPTER IV
_GENERAL STRUCTURE OF THE BOOK_
In endeavouring to see the idea and construction of a book there is
always much room for the play of subjective considerations. Meinhold
has especially studied this subject, but we cannot be certain that
his views are more than imaginative. He thinks that chap. ii.,
in which we are strongly reminded of the story of Joseph and of
Pharaoh's dreams, is intended to set forth God as Omniscient, and
chap. iii. as Omnipotent. To these conceptions is added in chap. iv.
the insistence upon God's All-holiness. The fifth and sixth chapters
form one conception. Since the death of Belshazzar is assigned to the
night of his banquet no edict could be ascribed to him resembling
those attributed to Nebuchadrezzar. The effect of Daniel's character
and of the Divine protection accorded to him on the mind of Darius
is expressed in the strong edict of the latter in vi. 26, 27. This
is meant to illustrate that the All-wise, Almighty, All-holy God is
the Only Living God. The consistent and homogeneous object of the
whole historic section is to set forth the God of the Hebrews as
exalting Himself in the midst of heathendom, and extorting submission
by mighty portents from heathen potentates. In this the Book offers
a general analogy to the section of the history of the Israelites in
Egypt narrated in Exod. i. 12. The culmination of recognition as to
the power of God is seen in the decree of Darius (vi. 26, 27), as
compared with that of Nebuchadrezzar in iv. 33. According to this
view, the meaning and essence of each separate chapter are given
in its closing section, and there is artistic advance to the great
climax, marked alike by the resemblances of these four paragraphs
(ii. 47, iii. 28, 29, iv. 37, vi. 26, 27), and by their differences.
To this main purpose all the other elements of these splendid
pictures--the faithfulness of Hebrew worshippers, the abasement
of blaspheming despots, the mission of Israel to the nations--are
subordinated. The chief aim is to set forth the helpless humiliation
of all false gods before the might of the God of Israel. It might be
expressed in the words, "Of a truth, Lord, the kings of Assyria have
laid waste all the nations, and cast their gods into the fire; for
they were no gods, but the work of men's hands, wood and stone."
A closer glance at these chapters will show some grounds for these
conclusions.
Thus, in the second chapter, the magicians and sorcerers repudiate
all possibility of revealing the king's dream and its interpretation,
because they are but men, and the gods have not their dwelling with
mortal flesh (ii. 11); but Daniel can tell the dream because he
stands near to his God, who, though He is in heaven, yet is All-wise,
and revealeth secrets.
In the third chapter the destruction of the strongest soldiers of
Nebuchadrezzar by fire, and the absolute deliverance of the three
Jews whom they have flung into the furnace, convince Nebuchadrezzar
that no god can deliver as the Almighty does, and that therefore it
is blasphemy deserving of death to utter a word against Him.
In chap. iv. the supremacy of Daniel's wisdom as derived from God,
the fulfilment of the threatened judgment, and the deliverance of the
mighty King of Babylon from his degrading madness when he lifts up
his eyes to heaven, convince Nebuchadrezzar still more deeply that
God is not only a _Great_ God, but that no other being, man or god,
can even be compared to Him. He is the Only and the Eternal God, who
"_doeth according to His will in the army of heaven_," as well as
"among the inhabitants of the earth," and "none can stay His hand."
This is the highest point of conviction. Nebuchadrezzar confesses
that God is not only _Primus inter pares_, but the Irresistible
God, and his own God. And after this, in the fifth chapter, Daniel
can speak to Belshazzar of "the Lord of heaven" (v. 23); and as the
king's Creator; and of the nothingness of gods of silver, and gold,
and brass, and wood, and stone;--as though those truths had already
been decisively proved. And this belief finds open expression in the
decree of Darius (vi. 26, 27), which concludes the historic section.
It is another indication of this main purpose of these histories that
the plural form of the Name of God--_Elohîm_--does not once occur
in chaps. ii.-vi. It is used in i. 2, 9, 17; but not again till the
ninth chapter, where it occurs twelve times; once in the tenth (x.
12); and twice of God in the eleventh chapter (xi. 32, 37). In the
prophetic section (vii. 18, 22, 25, 27) we have "Most High" in the
plural (_'elionîn_);[139] but with reference only to the One God
(see vii. 25). But in all cases where the heathen are addressed this
plural becomes the singular (_ehlleh_, אֵלֶּה), as throughout the
first six chapters. This avoidance of so common a word as the plural
_Elohîm_ for God, because the plural form might conceivably have been
misunderstood by the heathen, shows the elaborate construction of the
Book.[140] God is called _Eloah_ Shamaîn, "God of heaven," in the
second and third chapters; but in later chapters we have the common
post-exilic phrase in the plural.[141]
In the fourth and fifth chapters we have God's Holiness first brought
before us, chiefly on its avenging side; and it is not till we have
witnessed the proof of His Unity, Wisdom, Omnipotence, and Justice,
which it is the mission of Israel to make manifest among the heathen,
that all is summed up in the edict of Darius to all people, nations,
and languages.
The omission of any express recognition of God's tender compassion
is due to the structure of these chapters; for it would hardly be
possible for heathen potentates to recognise that attribute in the
immediate presence of His judgments. It is somewhat remarkable that
the name "Jehovah" is avoided.[142] As the Jews purposely pronounced
it with wrong vowels, and the LXX. render it by κύριος, the Samaritan
by שימה, and the Rabbis by "the Name," so we find in the Book of
Daniel a similar avoidance of the awful Tetragrammaton.
FOOTNOTES:
[139] Literally, as in margin, "_most high things_" or "_places_."
[140] In iv. 5, 6; and _elohîn_ means "gods" in the mouth of a
heathen ("spirit of the holy gods").
[141] _Elohîn_ occurs repeatedly in chap. ix., and in x. 12, xi. 32, 37.
[142] It only occurs in Dan. ix.
CHAPTER V
_THE THEOLOGY OF THE BOOK OF DANIEL_
As regards the religious views of the Book of Daniel some of them at
any rate are in full accordance with the belief in the late origin of
the Book to which we are led by so many indications.[143]
I. Thus in Dan. xii. 2 (for we may here so far anticipate the
examination of the second section of the Book) we meet, for the first
time in Scripture, with a distinct recognition of the resurrection
of the individual dead.[144] This, as all know, is a doctrine of
which we only find the faintest indication in the earlier books of
the Canon. Although the doctrine is still but dimly formulated, it is
clearer in this respect than Isa. xxv. 8, xxvi. 19.
II. Still more remarkable is the special prominence of angels. It is
not God who goes forth to war (Judg. v. 13, 23), or takes personal
part in the deliverance or punishment of nations (Isa. v. 26, vii.
18). Throned in isolated and unapproachable transcendence, He uses
the agency of intermediate beings (Dan. iv. 14).[145]
In full accordance with late developments of Jewish opinion angels
are mentioned by special names, and appear as Princes and Protectors
of special lands.[146] In no other book in the Old Testament have
we any names given to angels, or any distinction between their
dignities, or any trace of their being in mutual rivalry as Princes
or Patrons of different nationalities. These remarkable features of
angelology only occur in the later epoch, and in the apocalyptic
literature to which this Book belongs. Thus they are found in the
LXX. translations of Deut. xxxii. 8 and Isa. xxx. 4, and in such
post-Maccabean books as those of Enoch and Esdras.[147]
III. Again, we have the fixed custom of three daily formal prayers,
uttered towards the Kibleh of Jerusalem. This may, possibly, have
begun during the Exile. It became a normal rule for later ages.[148]
The Book, however, like that of Jonah, is, as a whole, remarkably
free from any extravagant estimate of Levitical minutiæ.
IV. Once more, for the first time in Jewish story, we find extreme
importance attached to the Levitical distinction of clean and unclean
meats, which also comes into prominence in the age of the Maccabees,
as it afterwards constituted a most prominent element in the ideal
of Talmudic religionism.[149] Daniel and the Three Children are
vegetarians, like the Pharisees after the destruction of the Second
Temple, mentioned in _Baba Bathra_, f. 60, 2.
V. We have already noticed the avoidance of the sacred name "Jehovah"
even in passages addressed to Jews (Dan. ii. 18), though we find
"Jehovah" in 2 Chron. xxxvi. 7. Jehovah only occurs in reference to
Jer. xxv. 8-11, and in the prayer of the ninth chapter, where we also
find _Adonai_ and _Elohîm_.
Periphrases for God, like "the Ancient of Days," become normal in
Talmudic literature.
VI. Again, the doctrine of the Messiah, like these other doctrines,
is, as Professor Driver says, "taught with greater distinctness and in
a more developed form than elsewhere in the Old Testament, and with
features approximating to, though not identical with, those met with
in the earlier parts of the Book of Enoch (B.C. 100). In one or two
instances these developments may have been partially moulded by foreign
influences.[150] They undoubtedly mark a later phase of revelation
than that which is set before us in other books of the Old Testament.
And the conclusion indicated by these _special_ features in the Book
is confirmed by the _general_ atmosphere which we breathe throughout
it. The atmosphere and tone are not those of any other writings
belonging to the Jews of the Exile; it is rather that of the Maccabean
_Chasidîm_." How far the Messianic _Bar Enosh_ (vii. 13) is meant to be
_a person_ will be considered in the comment on that passage.
We shall see in later pages that the supreme value and importance
of the Book of Daniel, rightly understood, consists in this--that
"it is the first attempt at a Philosophy, or rather at a Theology of
History."[151] Its main object was to teach the crushed and afflicted
to place unshaken confidence in God.
FOOTNOTES:
[143] The description of God as "the Ancient of Days" with garments
white as snow, and of His throne of flames on burning wheels, is
found again in the Book of Enoch, written about B.C. 141 (Enoch xiv.).
[144] See Dan. xii. 2. Comp. Jos., _B. J._, II. viii. 14; Enoch xxii.
13, lx. 1-5, etc.
[145] Comp. Smend, _Alttest. Relig. Gesch._, p. 530. For references
to angels in Old Testament see Job i. 6, xxxviii. 7; Jer. xxiii. 18;
Psalm lxxxix. 7; Josh. v. 13-15; Zech. i. 12, iii. 1. See further
Behrmann, _Dan._, p. xxiii.
[146] Dan. iv. 14, ix. 21, x. 13, 20.
[147] See Enoch lxxi. 17, lxviii. 10, and the six archangels Uriel,
Raphael, Reguel, Michael, Saragael, and Gabriel in Enoch xx.-xxxvi.
See _Rosh Hashanah_, f. 56, 1; _Bereshîth Rabba_, c. 48; Hamburger,
i. 305-312.
[148] _Berachôth_, f. 31; Dan. vi. 11. Comp. Psalm lv. 18; 1 Kings
viii. 38-48.
[149] 1 Macc. i. 62; Dan. i. 8; 2 Macc. v. 27, vi. 18-vii. 42.
[150] Introd., p. 477. Comp. 2 Esdras xiii. 41-45, and _passim_;
Enoch xl., xlv., xlvi., xlix., and _passim_; Hamburger,
_Real-Encycl._, ii. 267 ff. With "the time of the end" and the
numerical calculations comp. 2 Esdras vi. 6, 7.
[151] Roszmann, _Die Makkabäische Erhebung_, p. 45. See Wellhausen,
_Die Pharis. u. d. Sadd._, 77 ff.
CHAPTER VI
_PECULIARITIES OF THE APOCALYPTIC AND
PROPHETIC SECTION OF THE BOOK_
If we have found much to lead us to serious doubts as to the
authenticity and genuineness--_i.e._, as to the literal historicity
and the real author--of the Book of Daniel in its historic section,
we shall find still more in the prophetic section. If the phenomena
already passed in review are more than enough to indicate the
impossibility that the Book could have been written by the historic
Daniel, the phenomena now to be considered are such as have sufficed
to convince the immense majority of learned critics that, in its
present form, the Book did not appear before the days of Antiochus
Epiphanes.[152] The probable date is B.C. 164. As in the Book of Enoch
xc. 15, 16, it contains history written under the form of prophecy.
Leaving minuter examination to later chapters of commentary, we will
now take a brief survey of this unique apocalypse.
I. As regards the style and method the only distant approach to it
in the rest of the Old Testament is in a few visions of Ezekiel
and Zechariah, which differ greatly from the clear, and so to
speak classic, style of the older prophets. But in Daniel we
find visions far more enigmatical, and far less full of passion
and poetry. Indeed, as regards style and intellectual force, the
splendid historic scenes of chaps. i.-vi. far surpass the visions
of vii.-xii., some of which have been described as "composite
logographs," in which the ideas are forcibly juxtaposed without care
for any coherence in the symbols--as, for instance, when _a horn_
speaks and has eyes.[153]
Chap. vii. contains a vision of four different wild beasts rising
from the sea: a lion, with eagle-wings, which afterwards becomes
semi-human; a bear, leaning on one side, and having three ribs in its
mouth; a four-winged, four-headed panther; and a still more terrible
creature, with iron teeth, brazen claws, and ten horns, among which
rises a little horn, which destroyed three of the others--it has
man's eyes and a mouth speaking proud things.
There follows an epiphany of the Ancient of Days, who destroys the
little horn, but prolongs for a time the existence of the other wild
beasts. Then comes One in human semblance, who is brought before the
Ancient of Days, and is clothed by Him with universal and eternal power.
We shall see reasons for the view that the four beasts--in
accordance with the interpretation of the vision given to Daniel
himself--represent the Babylonian, the Median, the Persian, and
the Greek empires, issuing in the separate kingdoms of Alexander's
successors; and that the little horn is Antiochus Epiphanes, whose
overthrow is to be followed immediately by the Messianic Kingdom.[154]
The vision of the eighth chapter mainly pursues the history of
the fourth of these kingdoms. Daniel sees a ram standing eastward
of the river-basin of the Ulai, having two horns, of which one is
higher than the other. It butts westward, northward, and southward,
and seemed irresistible, until a he-goat from the West, with one
horn between its eyes, confronted it, and stamped it to pieces.
After this its one horn broke into four towards the four winds of
heaven, and one of them shot forth a puny horn, which grew great
towards the South and East, and acted tyrannously against the Holy
People, and spoke blasphemously against God. Daniel hears the holy
ones declaring that its powers shall only last two thousand three
hundred evening-mornings. An angel bids Gabriel to explain the vision
to Daniel; and Gabriel tells the seer that the ram represents the
Medo-Persian and the he-goat the Greek Kingdom. Its great horn is
Alexander; the four horns are the kingdoms of his successors, the
Diadochi; the little horn is a king bold of vision and versed in
enigmas, whom all agree to be Antiochus Epiphanes.
In the ninth chapter we are told that Daniel has been meditating on the
prophecy of Jeremiah that Jerusalem should be rebuilt after seventy
years, and as the seventy years seem to be drawing to a close he
humbles himself with prayer and fasting. But Gabriel comes flying to
him at the time of the evening sacrifice, and explains to him that
the seventy years is to mean seventy _weeks_ of years--_i.e._, four
hundred and ninety years, divided into three periods of 7 + 62 + 1. At
the end of seven (_i.e._, forty-nine) years an anointed prince will
order the restoration of Jerusalem. The city will continue, though
in humiliation, for sixty-two (_i.e._, four hundred and thirty-four)
years, when "an anointed" will be cut off, and a prince will destroy
it. During half a week (_i.e._, for three and a half years) he will
cause the sacrifice and oblation to cease; and he will make a covenant
with many for one week, at the end of which he will be cut off.
Here, again, we shall have reason to see that the whole prophecy
culminates in, and is mainly concerned with, Antiochus Epiphanes.
In fact, it furnishes us with a sketch of his fortunes, which, in
connexion with the eleventh chapter, tells us more about him than we
learn from any extant history.
In the tenth chapter Daniel, after a fast of twenty-one days, sees a
vision of Gabriel, who explains to him why his coming has been delayed,
soothes his fears, touches his lips, and prepares him for the vision
of chapter eleven. That chapter is mainly occupied with a singularly
minute and circumstantial history of the murders, intrigues, wars, and
intermarriages of the Lagidæ and Seleucidæ. So detailed is it that in
some cases the history has to be reconstructed out of it. This sketch
is followed by the doings and final overthrow of Antiochus Epiphanes.
The twelfth chapter is the picture of a resurrection, and of words of
consolation and exhortation addressed to Daniel.
Such in briefest outline are the contents of these chapters, and
their peculiarities are very marked. Until the reader has studied the
more detailed explanation of the chapters separately, and especially
of the eleventh, he will be unable to estimate the enormous force of
the arguments adduced to prove the impossibility of such "prophecies"
having emanated from Babylon and Susa about B.C. 536. Long before the
astonishing enlargement of our critical knowledge which has been the
work of the last generation--nearly fifty years ago--the mere perusal
of the Book as it stands produced on the manly and honest judgment
of Dr. Arnold a strong impression of uncertainty. He said that the
latter chapters of Daniel would, if genuine, be a clear exception to
the canons of interpretation which he laid down in his _Sermons on
Prophecy_, since "there can be no reasonable spiritual meaning made
out of the kings of the North and South." "But," he adds, "I have
long thought that the greater part of the Book of Daniel is most
certainly a very late work of the time of the Maccabees; and the
pretended prophecies about the kings of Grecia and Persia, and of the
North and South, are mere history, like the poetical prophecies in
Virgil and elsewhere. In fact, you can trace distinctly the date when
it was written, because the events up to that date are given with
historical minuteness, totally unlike the character of real prophecy;
and beyond that date all is imaginary."[155]
The Book is the earliest specimen of its kind known to us. It
inaugurated a new and important branch of Jewish literature, which
influenced many subsequent writers. An apocalypse, so far as its
literary form is concerned, "claims throughout to be a supernatural
revelation given to mankind by the mouth of those men in whose names
the various writings appear." An apocalypse--such, for instance, as
the Books of Enoch, the Assumption of Moses, Baruch, 1, 2 Esdras,
and the Sibylline Oracles--is characterised by its enigmatic form,
which shrouds its meaning in parables and symbols. It indicates
persons without naming them, and shadows forth historic events under
animal forms, or as operations of Nature. Even the explanations which
follow, as in this Book, are still mysterious and indirect.
II. In the next place an apocalypse is literary, not oral. Schürer, who
classes Daniel among the oldest and most original of _pseudepigraphic
prophecies_, etc., rightly says that "the old prophets in their
teachings and exhortations addressed themselves directly to the people
first and foremost through their oral utterances; and then, but only as
subordinate to these, by written discourses as well. But now, when men
felt themselves at any time compelled by their religious enthusiasm to
influence their contemporaries, instead of directly addressing them in
person like the prophets of old, they did so by a writing purporting
to be the work of some one or other of the great names of the past, in
the hope that in this way the effect would be all the surer and all the
more powerful."[156] The Daniel of this Book represents himself, not
as a prophet, but as a humble student of the prophets. He no longer
claims, as Isaiah did, to speak in the Name of God Himself with a "Thus
saith Jehovah."
III. Thirdly, it is impossible not to notice that Daniel differs
from all other prophecies by its all-but-total indifference to the
circumstances and surroundings in the midst of which the prediction
is supposed to have originated. The Daniel of Babylon and Susa is
represented as the writer; yet his whole interest is concentrated,
not in the events which immediately interest the Jews of Babylon in
the days of Cyrus, or of Jerusalem under Zerubbabel, but deals with
a number of predictions which revolve almost exclusively about the
reign of a very inferior king four centuries afterwards. And with
this king the predictions abruptly stop short, and are followed by
the very general promise of an immediate Messianic age.
We may notice further the constant use of round and cyclic numbers,
such as three and its compounds (i. 5, iii. 1, vi. 7, 10, vii. 5,
8); four (ii., vii. 6, and viii. 8, xi. 12); seven and its compounds
(iii. 19, iv. 16, 23, ix. 24, etc.). The apocalyptic symbols of
Bears, Lions, Eagles, Horns, Wings, etc., abound in the contemporary
and later Books of Enoch, Baruch, 4 Esdras, the Assumption of Moses,
and the Sibyllines, as well as in the early Christian apocalypses,
like that of Peter. The authors of the Sibyllines (B.C. 140) were
acquainted with Daniel; the Book of Enoch breathes exactly the same
spirit with this Book, in the transcendentalism which avoids the name
Jehovah (vii. 13; Enoch xlvi. 1, xlvii. 3), in the number of angels
(vii. 10; Enoch xl. 1, lx. 2), their names, the title of "watchers"
given to them, and their guardianship of men (Enoch xx. 5). The
Judgment and the Books (vii. 9, 10, xii. 1) occur again in Enoch
xlvii. 3, lxxxi. 1, as in the Book of Jubilees, and the Testament of
the Twelve Patriarchs.[157]
FOOTNOTES:
[152] Among these critics are Delitzsch, Riehm, Ewald, Bunsen,
Hilgenfeld, Cornill, Lücke, Strack, Schürer, Kuenen, Meinhold,
Orelli, Joël, Reuss, König, Kamphausen, Cheyne, Driver, Briggs,
Bevan, Behrmann, etc.
[153] Renan, _History of Israel_, iv. 354. He adds, "L'essence du
genre c'est le pseudonyme, ou si l'on veut l'apocryphisme" (p. 356).
[154] Lagarde, _Gott. Gel. Anzieg._, 1891, pp. 497-520, stands
almost, if not quite, alone in arguing that Dan. vii. was not written
till A.D. 69, and that the "little horn" is meant for Vespasian. The
relation of the fourth empire of Dan. vii. to the iron part of the
image in Dan. ii. refutes this view: both can only refer to the Greek
Empire. Josephus (_Antt._, X. xi. 7) does not refer to Dan. vii.;
but neither does he to ix.-xii., for reasons already mentioned. See
Cornill, _Einleit._, p. 262.
[155] Stanley, _Life of Arnold_, p. 505.
[156] Schürer, _Hist. of the Jew. People_, iii. 24 (E. Tr.).
[157] On the close resemblance between Daniel and other apocryphal
books see Behrmann, _Dan._, pp. 37-39; Dillmann, _Das Buch
Henoch_. For its relation to the Book of Baruch see Schrader,
_Keilinschriften_, 435 f. Philo does not allude to Daniel.
CHAPTER VII
_INTERNAL EVIDENCE_
I. Other prophets start from the ground of the _present_, and to
exigencies of the present their prophecies were primarily directed.
It is true that their lofty moral teaching, their rapt poetry, their
impassioned feeling, had its inestimable value for all ages. But
these elements scarcely exist in the Book of Daniel. Almost the whole
of its prophecies bear on one short particular period _nearly four
hundred years after_ the supposed epoch of their delivery. What,
then, is the phenomenon they present? Whereas other prophets, by
studying the problems of the present in the light flung upon them
by the past, are enabled, by combining the present with the past,
to gain, with the aid of God's Holy Spirit, a vivid glimpse of the
immediate future, for the instruction of the living generation, the
reputed author of Daniel passes over the _immediate_ future with a
few words, and spends the main part of his revelations on a triad of
years separated by centuries from contemporary history. Occupied as
this description is with the wars and negotiations of empires which
were yet unborn, it can have had little practical significance for
Daniel's fellow-exiles. Nor could these "predictions" have been to
prove the possibility of supernatural foreknowledge,[158] since,
even after their supposed fulfilment, the interpretation of them is
open to the greatest difficulties and the gravest doubts. If to a
Babylonian exile was vouchsafed a gift of prevision so minute and so
marvellous as enabled him to describe the intermarriages of Ptolemies
and Seleucidæ four centuries later, surely the gift must have been
granted for some decisive end. But these predictions are precisely
the ones which seem to have the smallest significance. We must say,
with Semler, that no such benefit seems likely to result from this
predetermination of comparatively unimportant minutiæ as God must
surely intend when He makes use of means of a very extraordinary
character. It might perhaps be said that the Book was written,
four hundred years before the crisis occurred, to console the Jews
under their brief period of persecution by the Seleucidæ. It would
be indeed extraordinary that so curious, distant, and roundabout
a method should have been adopted for an end which, in accordance
with the entire economy of God's dealings with men in revelation,
could have been so much more easily and so much more effectually
accomplished in simpler ways. Further, unless we accept an isolated
allusion to Daniel in the imaginary speech of the dying Mattathias,
there is no trace whatever that the Book had the smallest influence
in inspiring the Jews in that terrible epoch. And the reference of
Mattathias, if it was ever made at all, may be to old tradition, and
does not allude to the prophecies about Antiochus and his fate.
But, as Hengstenberg, the chief supporter of the authenticity of the
Book of Daniel, well observes,[159] "Prophecy can never entirely
separate itself from the ground of the present, _to influence which
is always its more immediate object_, and to which therefore it must
constantly construct a bridge.[160] On this also rests all certainty of
exposition as to the future. _And that the means should be provided for
such a certainty_ is a necessary consequence of the Divine nature of
prophecy. A truly Divine prophecy cannot possibly swim in the air; nor
can the Church be left to mere guesses in the exposition of Scripture
which has been given to her as a light amid the darkness."
II. And as it does not start from the ground of the present, so too
the Book of Daniel reverses the method of prophecy with reference to
the future.
For the genuine predictions of Scripture _advance_ by slow and gradual
degrees from the uncertain and the general to the definite and the
special. Prophecy marches with history, and takes a step forward at
each new period.[161] So far as we know there is not a single instance
in which any prophet alludes to, much less dwells upon, any kingdom
which had not then risen above the political horizon.[162]
In Daniel the case is reversed: the only kingdom which was looming
into sight is dismissed with a few words, and the kingdom most dwelt
upon is the most distant and quite the most insignificant of all, of
the very existence of which neither Daniel nor his contemporaries had
even remotely heard.[163]
III. Then again, although the prophets, with their divinely
illuminated souls, reached far beyond intellectual sagacity and
political foresight, yet their hints about the future never distantly
approach to detailed history like that of Daniel. They do indeed so
far lift the veil of the Unseen as to shadow forth the outline of the
near future, but they do this only on general terms and on general
principles.[164] Their object, as I have repeatedly observed, was
mainly moral, and it was also confessedly conditional, even when no
hint is given of the implied condition.[165] Nothing is more certain
than the wisdom and beneficence of that Divine provision which has
hidden the future from men's eyes, and even taught us to regard all
prying into its minute events as vulgar and sinful.[166] Stargazing
and monthly prognostication were rather the characteristics of false
religion and unhallowed divinations than of faithful and holy souls.
Nitzsch[167] most justly lays it down as an essential condition of
prophecy that it _should not disturb man's relation to history_.
Anything like detailed description of the future would intolerably
perplex and confuse our sense of human free-will. It would drive us to
the inevitable conclusion that men are but puppets moved irresponsibly
by the hand of inevitable fate. Not one such prophecy, unless this be
one, occurs anywhere in the Bible. We do not think that (apart from
Messianic prophecies) a single instance can be given in which any
prophet distinctly and minutely predicts a future series of events of
which the fulfilment was not _near_ at hand. In the few cases when
some event, already imminent, is predicted apparently with some detail,
it is not certain whether some touches--names, for instance--may not
have been added by editors living subsequently to the occurrence of
the event.[168] That there has been at all times a gift of prescience,
whereby the Spirit of God, "entering into holy souls, has made them
sons of God and prophets," is indisputable. It is in virtue of this
high foreknowledge[169] that the voice of the Hebrew Sibyl has
"Rolled sounding onwards through a thousand years
Her deep prophetic bodiments."
Even Demosthenes, by virtue of a statesman's thoughtful experience, can
describe it as his office and duty "to see events in their beginnings,
to discern their purport and tendencies from the first, and to forewarn
his countrymen accordingly." Yet the power of Demosthenes was as
nothing compared with that of an Isaiah or a Nahum; and we may safely
say that the writings alike of the Greek orator and the Hebrew prophets
would have been comparatively valueless had they merely contained
anticipations of future history, instead of dealing with truths whose
value is equal for all ages--truths and principles which give clearness
to the past, security to the present, and guidance to the future. Had
it been the function of prophecy to remove the veil of obscurity which
God in His wisdom has hung over the destinies of men and kingdoms, it
would never have attained, as it has done, to the love and reverence of
mankind.
IV. Another unique and abnormal feature is found in the close and
accurate _chronological calculations_ in which the Book of Daniel
abounds. We shall see later on that the dates of the Maccabean
reconsecration of the Temple and the ruin of Antiochus Epiphanes are
indicated _almost to the day_. The numbers of prophecy are in all
other cases symbolical and general. They are intentional compounds
of seven--the sum of three and four, which are the numbers that
mystically shadow forth God and the world--a number which even
Cicero calls "_rerum omnium fere modus_"; and of ten, the number
of the world.[170] If we except the prophecy of the seventy years'
captivity--which was a round number, and is in no respect parallel
to the periods of Daniel--there is no other instance in the Bible of
a _chronological_ prophecy. We say no other instance, because one of
the commentators who, in writing upon Daniel, objects to the remark
of Nitzsch that the numbers of prophecy are mystical, yet observes
on the one thousand two hundred and sixty days of Rev. xii. that
the number one thousand two hundred and sixty, or three and a half
years, "has _no_ historical signification whatever, and is only to be
viewed in its relation to the number seven--viz., as symbolising the
apparent victory of the world over the Church."[171]
V. Alike, then, in style, in matter, and in what has been called by
V. Orelli its "exoteric" manner,--alike in its definiteness and its
indefiniteness--in the point from which it starts and the period at
which it terminates--in its minute details and its chronological
indications--in the absence of the moral and the impassioned
element, and in the sense of fatalism which it must have introduced
into history had it been a genuine prophecy,--the Book of Daniel
differs from all the other books which compose that prophetic canon.
From that canon it was rightly and deliberately excluded by the Jews.
Its worth and dignity can only be rationally vindicated or rightly
understood by supposing it to have been the work of an unknown
moralist and patriot of the Maccabean age.
And if anything further were wanting to complete the cogency of the
internal evidence which forces this conclusion upon us, it is amply
found in a study of those books, confessedly apocryphal, which,
although far inferior to the Book before us, are yet of value, and
which we believe to have emanated from the same era.
They resemble this Book in their language, both Hebrew and Aramaic,
as well as in certain recurring expressions and forms to be found
in the Books of Maccabees and the Second Book of Esdras;--in their
style--rhetorical rather than poetical, stately rather than ecstatic,
diffuse rather than pointed, and wholly inferior to the prophets
in depth and power;--in the use of an apocalyptic method, and the
strange combination of dreams and symbols;--in the insertion, by way
of embellishment, of speeches and formal documents which can at the
best be only semi-historical;--finally, in the whole tone of thought,
especially in the quite peculiar doctrine of archangels, of angels
guarding kingdoms, and of opposing evil spirits. In short, the Book
of Daniel may be illustrated by the Apocryphal books in every single
particular. In the adoption of an illustrious name--which is the most
marked characteristic of this period--it resembles the _additions_
to the Book of Daniel, the Books of Esdras, the Letters of Baruch
and Jeremiah, and the Wisdom of Solomon. In the imaginary and
quasi-legendary treatment of history it finds a parallel in Wisdom
xvi.-xix., and parts of the Second Book of Maccabees and the Second
Book of Esdras. As an allusive narrative bearing on contemporaneous
events under the guise of describing the past, it is closely parallel
to the Book of Judith,[172] while the character of Daniel bears the
same relation to that of Joseph, as the representation of Judith
does to that of Jael. As an ethical development of a few scattered
historical data, tending to the marvellous and supernatural, but
rising to the dignity of a very noble and important religious
fiction, it is analogous, though incomparably superior, to Bel and
the Dragon, and to the stories of Tobit and Susanna.[173]
The conclusion is obvious; and it is equally obvious that, when we
suppose the name of Daniel to have been assumed, and the assumption
to have been supported by an antique colouring, we do not for a
moment charge the unknown author--who may very well have been Onias
IV.--with any dishonesty. Indeed, it appears to us that there are
many traces in the Book--φωνᾶντα συνετοῖσιν--which exonerate the
writer from any suspicion of _intentional_ deception. They may have
been meant to remove any tendency to error in understanding the
artistic guise which was adopted for the better and more forcible
inculcation of the lessons to be conveyed. That the stories of Daniel
offered peculiar opportunities for this treatment is shown by the
apocryphal additions to the Book; and that the practice was well
understood even before the closing of the Canon is sufficiently
shown by the Book of Ecclesiastes. The writer of that strange
and fascinating book, with its alternating moods of cynicism and
resignation, merely adopted the name of Solomon, and adopted it
with no dishonourable purpose; for he could not have dreamed that
utterances which in page after page betray to criticism their late
origin would really be identified with the words of the son of
David a thousand years before Christ. This may now be regarded as
an indisputable, and is indeed a no longer disputed, result of all
literary and philological inquiry.
It is to Porphyry, a Neoplatonist of the third century (born at Tyre,
A.D. 233; died in Rome, A.D. 303), that we owe our ability to write a
continuous historical commentary on the symbols of Daniel. That writer
devoted the twelfth book of his Λόγοι κατὰ Χριστιανῶν to a proof that
Daniel was not written till _after_ the epoch which it so minutely
described.[174] In order to do this he collected with great learning
and industry a history of the obscure Antiochian epoch from authors
most of whom have perished. Of these authors Jerome--the most valuable
part of whose commentary is derived from Porphyry--gives a formidable
list, mentioning among others Callinicus, Diodorus, Polybius,
Posidonius, Claudius, Theo, and Andronicus. It is a strange fact that
the exposition of a canonical book should have been mainly rendered
possible by an avowed opponent of Christianity. It was the object of
Porphyry to prove that the apocalyptic portion of the Book was not a
prophecy at all.[175] It used to be a constant taunt against those who
adopt his critical conclusions that their weapons are borrowed from
the armoury of an infidel. The objection hardly seems worth answering.
"_Fas est et ab hoste doceri._" If the enemies of our religion have
sometimes helped us the better to understand our sacred books, or to
judge more correctly respecting them, we should be grateful that their
assaults have been overruled to our instruction. The reproach is wholly
beside the question. We may apply to it the manly words of Grotius:
"_Neque me pudeat consentire Porphyrio, quando is in veram sententiam
incidit._" Moreover, St. Jerome himself could not have written his
commentary, as he himself admits, without availing himself of the aid
of the erudition of the heathen philosopher, whom no less a person than
St. Augustine called "_doctissimus philosophorum_," though unhappily he
was "_acerrimus christianorum inimicus_."
FOOTNOTES:
[158] Any apparently requisite modification of these words will be
considered hereafter.
[159] _On Revelations_, vol. i., p. 408 (E. Tr.).
[160] "Dient bei ihnen die Zukunft der Gegenwart, und ist selbst
fortgesetzte _Gegenwart_" (Behrmann, _Dan._, p. xi).
[161] See M. de Pressensé, _Hist. des Trois Prem. Siècles_, p. 283.
[162] See some admirable remarks on this subject in Ewald, _Die
Proph. d. Alt. Bund._, i. 23, 24; Winer, _Realwörterb._, _s.v._
"Propheten" Stähelin, _Einleit._, § 197.
[163] Comp. Enoch i. 2.
[164] Ewald, _Die Proph._, i. 27; Michel Nicolas, _Études sur la
Bible_, pp. 336 ff.
[165] Comp. Mic. iii. 12; Jer. xxvi. 1-19; Ezek. i. 21. Comp. xxix.
18, 19.
[166] Deut. xviii. 10.
[167] _System der christlichen Lehre_, p. 66.
[168] _E.g._, in the case of Josiah (1 Kings xiii. 2).
[169] _De Coronâ_, 73: ἰδεῖν τὰ πράγματα ἀρχόμενα καὶ προαισθέσθαι
καὶ προειπεῖν τοῖς ἄλλοις.
[170] The symbolism of numbers is carefully and learnedly worked out
in Bähr's _Symbolik_: cf. Auberlen, p. 133. The _several_ fulfilments
of the prophesied seventy years' captivity illustrate this.
[171] Hengstenberg, _On Revelations_, p. 609.
[172] All these particulars may be found, without any allusion to the
Book of Daniel, in the admirable article on the Apocrypha by Dean
Plumptre in Dr. Smith's _Dict. of the Bible_.
[173] Ewald, _Gesch. Isr._, iv. 541.
[174] "Et non tam Danielem _ventura dixisse_ quam illum _narrasse
præterita_" (Jer.).
[175] "Ad intelligendas autem extremas Danielis partes multiplex
Græcorum historia necessaria est" (Jer., _Proæm. Explan. in Dan.
Proph. ad f._). Among these Greek historians he mentions _eight_ whom
Porphyry had consulted, and adds, "Et si quando cogimur litterarum
sæcularium recordari ... non nostræ est voluntatis, sed ut dicam,
_gravissimæ necessitatis_." We know Porphyry's arguments mainly
through the commentary of Jerome, who, indeed, derived from Porphyry
the historic data without which the eleventh chapter, among others,
would have been wholly unintelligible.
CHAPTER VIII
_EVIDENCE IN FAVOUR OF THE GENUINENESS
UNCERTAIN AND INADEQUATE_
We have seen that there are many circumstances which force upon us
the gravest doubts as to the authenticity of the Book of Daniel. We
now proceed to examine the evidence urged in its favour, and deemed
adequate to refute the conclusion that in its present form it did not
see the light before the time of Antiochus IV.
Taking Hengstenberg as the most learned reasoner in favour of the
genuineness of Daniel, we will pass in review all the positive
arguments which he has adduced.[176] They occupy no less than one
hundred and ten pages (pp. 182-291) of the English translation of his
work on the genuineness of Daniel. Most of them are tortuous specimens
of special pleading inadequate in themselves, or refuted by increased
knowledge derived from the monuments and from further inquiry. To these
arguments neither Dr. Pusey nor any subsequent writer has made any
material addition. Some of them have been already answered, and many of
them are so unsatisfactory that they may be dismissed at once.
I. Such, for instance, are _the testimony of the author himself_. In
one of those slovenly treatises which only serve to throw dust in the
eyes of the ignorant we find it stated that, "although the name of
Daniel is not prefixed to his Book, the passages in which he speaks in
the first person _sufficiently prove_ that he was the author"! Such
assertions deserve no answer. If the mere assumption of a name be a
_sufficient proof_ of the authorship of a book, we are rich indeed in
Jewish authors--and, not to speak of others, our list includes works by
Adam, Enoch, Eldad, Medad, and Elijah. "Pseudonymity," says Behrmann,
"was a very common characteristic of the literature of that day, and
the conception of literary property was alien to that epoch, and
especially to the circle of writings of this class."
II. The character of the language, as we have seen already, proves
nothing. Hebrew and Aramaic long continued in common use side by side
at least among the learned,[177] and the divergence of the Aramaic
in Daniel from that of the Targums leads to no definite result,
considering the late and uncertain age of those writings.
III. How any argument can be founded on the exact knowledge of
history displayed by local colouring we cannot understand. Were
the knowledge displayed ever so exact it would only prove that the
author was a learned man, which is obvious already. But so far from
any remarkable accuracy being shown by the author, it is, on the
contrary, all but impossible to reconcile many of his statements
with acknowledged facts. The elaborate and tortuous explanations,
the frequent "subauditur," the numerous assumptions required to
force the text into accordance with the certain historic data of the
Babylonian and Persian empires, tell far more against the Book than
for it. The methods of accounting for these inaccuracies are mostly
self-confuting, for they leave the subject in hopeless confusion, and
each orthodox commentator shows how untenable are the views of others.
IV. Passing over other arguments of Keil, Hengstenberg, etc., which
have been either refuted already, or which are too weak to deserve
repetition, we proceed to examine one or two of a more serious
character. Great stress, for instance, is laid on the reception of the
Book into the Canon. We acknowledge the canonicity of the Book, its
high value when rightly apprehended, and its rightful acceptance as a
sacred book; but this in nowise proves its authenticity. The history
of the Old Testament Canon is involved in the deepest obscurity. The
belief that it was finally completed by Ezra and the Great Synagogue
rests on no foundation; indeed, it is irreconcilable with later
historic notices and other facts connected with the Books of Ezra,
Nehemiah, Esther, and the two Books of Chronicles. The Christian
Fathers in this, as in some other cases, implicitly believed what came
to them from the most questionable sources, and was mixed up with mere
Jewish fables. One of the oldest Talmudic books, the _Pirke Aboth_, is
entirely silent on the collection of the Old Testament, though in a
vague way it connects the Great Synagogue with the preservation of the
Law. The earliest mention of the legend about Ezra is in the Second
Book of Esdras (xiv. 29-48). This book does not possess the slightest
claim to authority, as it was not completed till a century after the
Christian era; and it mingles up with this very narrative a number
of particulars thoroughly fabulous and characteristic of a period
when the Jewish writers were always ready to subordinate history to
imaginative fables. The account of the magic cup, the forty days and
forty nights' dictation, the ninety books of which seventy were secret
and intended only for the learned, form part of the very passage from
which we are asked to believe that Ezra established our existing Canon,
though the genuine Book of Ezra is wholly silent about his having
performed any such inestimable service. It adds nothing to the credit
of this fable that it is echoed by Irenæus, Clemens Alexandrinus, and
Tertullian.[178] Nor are there any external considerations which render
it probable. The Talmudic tradition in the _Baba Bathra_,[179] which
says (among other remarks in a passage of which "the notorious errors
prove the unreliability of its testimony") that the men of the Great
Synagogue _wrote_ the Books of Ezekiel, the Twelve Minor Prophets,
_Daniel_, and Ezra.[180] It is evident that, so far as this evidence
is worth anything, it rather goes _against_ the authenticity of Daniel
than for it. The _Pirke Aboth_ makes Simon the Just (about B.C. 290)
a member of this Great Synagogue, of which the very existence is
dubious.[181]
Again, the author of the forged letter at the beginning of the Second
Book of Maccabees--"the work" says Hengstenberg, "of an arrant
impostor"[182]--attributes the collection of certain books first to
Nehemiah, and then, when they had been lost, to Judas Maccabæus (2
Macc. ii. 13, 14). The canonicity of the Old Testament books does not
rest on such evidence as this,[183] and it is hardly worth while to
pursue it further. That the Book of Daniel was regarded as authentic
by Josephus is clear; but this by no means decides its date or
authorship. It is one of the very few books of which Philo makes no
mention whatever.
V. Nor can the supposed traces of the early existence of the Book be
considered adequate to prove its genuineness. With the most important
of these, the story of Josephus (_Antt._, XI. viii. 5) that the high
priest Jaddua showed to Alexander the Great the prophecies of Daniel
respecting himself, we shall deal later. The alleged traces of the Book
in Ecclesiasticus are very uncertain, or rather wholly questionable;
and the allusion to Daniel in 1 Macc. ii. 60 decides nothing, because
there is nothing to prove that the speech of the dying Mattathias is
authentic, and because we know nothing certain as to the date of the
Greek translator of that book or of the Book of Daniel. The absence of
all allusion to the _prophecies_ of Daniel is, on the other hand, a
far more cogent point against the authenticity. Whatever be the date
of the Books of Maccabees, it is inconceivable that they should offer
no vestige of proof that Judas and his brothers received any hope or
comfort from such explicit predictions as Dan. xi., had the Book been
in the hands of those pious and noble chiefs.
The First Book of Maccabees cannot be certainly dated more than
a century before Christ, nor have we reason to believe that the
Septuagint version of the Book is much older.[184]
VI. The badness of the Alexandrian version, and the apocryphal
additions to it, seem to be rather an argument for the late age and
less established authority of the Book than for its genuineness.[185]
Nor can we attach much weight to the assertion (though it is endorsed
by the high authority of Bishop Westcott) that "it is far more
difficult to explain its composition in the Maccabean period than to
meet the peculiarities which it exhibits with the exigencies of the
Return." So far is this from being the case that, as we have seen
already, it resembles in almost every particular the acknowledged
productions of the age in which we believe it to have been written.
Many of the statements made on this subject by those who defend the
authenticity cannot be maintained. Thus Hengstenberg[186] remarks that
(1) "at this time the Messianic hopes are dead," and (2) "that no great
literary work appeared between the Restoration from the Captivity and
the time of Christ." Now the facts are _precisely the reverse in each
instance_. For (i) the little book called the Psalms of Solomon,[187]
which belongs to this period, contains _the strongest and clearest
Messianic hopes_, and the Book of Enoch most closely resembles Daniel
in its Messianic predictions. Thus it speaks of the pre-existence of
the Messiah (xlviii. 6, lxii. 7), of His sitting on a throne of glory
(lv. 4, lxi. 8), and receiving the power of rule.
(ii) Still less can we attach any force to Hengstenberg's argument
that, in the Maccabean age, the gift of prophecy was believed to
have departed for ever. Indeed, that is an argument in favour of the
pseudonymity of the Book. For in the age at which--for purposes of
literary form--it is represented as having appeared the spirit of
prophecy was far from being dead. Ezekiel was still living, or had
died but recently. Zechariah, Haggai, and long afterwards Malachi,
were still to continue the succession of the mighty prophets of their
race. Now, if prediction be an element in the prophet's work, no
prophet, nor all the prophets together, ever distantly approached
any such power of minutely foretelling the events of a distant
future--even the half-meaningless and all-but-trivial events of four
centuries later, in kingdoms which had not yet thrown their distant
shadows on the horizon--as that which Daniel must have possessed, if
he were indeed the author of this Book.[188] Yet, as we have seen, he
never thinks of claiming the functions of the prophets, or speaking
in the prophet's commanding voice, as the foreteller of the message
of God. On the contrary, he adopts the comparatively feebler and more
entangled methods of the literary composers in an age when men saw
not their tokens and there was no prophet more.[189]
We must postpone a closer examination of the questions as to the
"four kingdoms" intended by the writer, and of his curious and
enigmatic chronological calculations; but we must reject at once the
monstrous assertion--excusable in the days of Sir Isaac Newton, but
which has now become unwise and even portentous--that "to reject
Daniel's prophecies would be to undermine the Christian religion,
_which is all but founded on his prophecies respecting Christ_"!
Happily the Christian religion is not built on such foundations of
sand. Had it been so, it would long since have been swept away by
the beating rain and the rushing floods. Here, again, the arguments
urged by those who believe in the authenticity of Daniel recoil with
tenfold force upon themselves. Sir Isaac Newton's observations on the
prophecies of Daniel only show how little transcendent genius in one
domain of inquiry can save a great thinker from absolute mistakes in
another. In writing upon prophecy the great astronomer was writing
on the assumption of baseless premisses which he had drawn from
stereotyped tradition; and he was also writing at an epoch when the
elements for the final solution of the problem had not as yet been
discovered or elaborated. It is as certain that, had he been living
now, he would have accepted the conclusion of all the ablest and
most candid inquirers, as it is certain that Bacon, had he now been
living, would have accepted the Copernican theory. It is _absurdly_
false to say that "the Christian religion is all but founded on
Daniel's prophecies respecting Christ." If it were not absurdly
false, we might well ask, How it came that neither Christ nor His
Apostles ever once alluded to the existence of any such argument, or
ever pointed to the Book of Daniel and the prophecy of the seventy
weeks as containing the least germ of evidence in favour of Christ's
mission or the Gospel teaching? No such argument is remotely alluded
to till long afterwards by some of the Fathers.
But so far from finding any _agreement_ in the opinions of the
Christian Fathers and commentators on a subject which, in Newton's
view, was so momentous, we only find ourselves weltering in a chaos of
uncertainties and contradictions. Thus Eusebius records the attempt of
some early Christian commentators to treat the _last_ of the seventy
weeks as representing, not, like all the rest, seven years, but seventy
years, in order to bring down the prophecy to the days of Trajan!
Neither Jewish nor Christian exegetes have ever been able to come to
the least agreement between themselves or with one another as to the
beginning or end--the _terminus a quo_ or the _terminus ad quem_--with
reference to which the seventy weeks are to be reckoned. The Christians
naturally made great efforts to make the seventy weeks end with the
Crucifixion. But Julius Africanus[190] († A.D. 232), beginning with
the twentieth year of Artaxerxes (Neh. ii. 1-9, B.C. 444), gets only
four hundred and seventy-five to the Crucifixion, and to escape the
difficulty makes the years _lunar_ years.[191]
Hippolytus[192] separates the last week from all the rest, and
relegates it to the days of Antichrist and the end of the world.
Eusebius himself refers "the anointed one" to the line of Jewish
high priests, separates the last week from the others, ends it with
the fourth year after the Crucifixion, and refers the ceasing of
the sacrifice (Deut. ix. 27) to the rejection of Jewish sacrifices
by God after the death of Christ. Apollinaris makes the seventy
weeks begin with the birth of Christ, and argues that Elijah and
Antichrist were to appear A.D. 490! None of these views found
general acceptance.[193] Not one of them was sanctioned by Church
authority. Every one, as Jerome says, argued in this direction or
that _pro captu ingenii sui_. The climax of arbitrariness is reached
by Keil--the last prominent defender of the so-called "orthodoxy" of
criticism--when he makes the weeks not such commonplace things as
"earthly chronological weeks," but Divine, symbolic, and therefore
unknown and unascertainable periods. And are we to be told that it
is on such fantastic, self-contradictory, and mutually refuting
calculations that "the Christian religion is all but founded"? Thank
God, the assertion is entirely wild.
FOOTNOTES:
[176] Hävernick is another able and sincere supporter; but Droysen
truly says (_Gesch. d. Hellenismus_, ii. 211), "Die Hävernickschen
Auffassung kann kein vernunftiger Mensch bestimmen."
[177] See Grimm, _Comment., zum I. Buch der Makk., Einleit._,
xvii.; Mövers in _Bonner Zeitschr._, Heft 13, pp. 31 ff.; Stähelin,
_Einleit._, p. 356.
[178] Iren., _Adv. Hæres._, iv. 25; Clem., _Strom._ i. 21, § 146;
Tert., _De Cult. Fæm._, i. 3; Jerome, _Adv. Helv._, 7; Ps. August.,
_De Mirab._, ii. 32, etc.
[179] _Baba Bathra_, f. 13_b_, 14_b_.
[180] See Oehler, _s.v._ "Kanon" (Herzog, _Encycl._).
[181] Rau, _De Synag. Magna._, ii. 66.
[182] _On Daniel_, p. 195.
[183] "Even after the Captivity," says Bishop Westcott, "the history of
the Canon, like all Jewish history up to the date of the Maccabees, is
wrapped in great obscurity. Faint traditions alone remain to interpret
results which are found realised when the darkness is first cleared
away" (_s.v._ "Canon," Smith's _Dict. of Bible_).
[184] See König, _Einleit._, § 80, 2.
[185] "In propheta Daniele Septuaginta interpretes multum ab Hebraica
veritate discordant" (Jerome, _ed._ Vallarsi, v. 646). In the LXX. are
first found the three apocryphal additions. For this reason the version
of Theodotion was substituted for the LXX., which latter was only
rediscovered in 1772 in a manuscript in the library of Cardinal Chigi.
[186] _On the Authenticity of Daniel_, pp. 159, 290 (E. Tr.).
[187] Psalms of Sol. xvii. 36, xviii. 8, etc. See Fabric., _Cod.
Pseudep._, i. 917-972; Ewald, _Gesch. d. Volkes Isr._, iv. 244.
[188] Even Auberlen says (_Dan._, p. 3, E. Tr.), "If prophecy is
anywhere a history of the future, it is here."
[189] See Vitringa, _De defectu Prophetiæ post Malachiæ tempora Obss.
Sacr._, ii. 336.
[190] _Demonstr. Evang._, viii.
[191] Of the Jews, the LXX. translators seem to make the seventy
weeks end with Antiochus Epiphanes; but in Jerome's day they made
the first year of "Darius the Mede" the _terminus a quo_, and
brought down the _terminus ad quem_ to Hadrian's destruction of the
Temple. Saadia the Gaon and Rashi reckon the seventy weeks from
Nebuchadrezzar to Titus, and make Cyrus the anointed one of ix. 25.
Abn Ezra, on the other hand, takes Nehemiah for "the anointed one."
What can be based on such varying and undemonstrable guesses? See
Behrmann, _Dan._, p. xliii.
[192] Hippolytus, _Fragm. in Dan._ (Migne, _Patr. Græc._, x.).
[193] See Bevan, pp. 141-145.
CHAPTER IX
_EXTERNAL EVIDENCE AND RECEPTION INTO
THE CANON_
The reception of the Book of Daniel anywhere into the Canon might be
regarded as an argument in favour of its authenticity, if the case
of the Books of Jonah and Ecclesiastes did not sufficiently prove
that canonicity, while it does constitute a proof of the value and
sacred significance of a book, has no weight as to its traditional
authorship. But in point of fact the position assigned by the Jews to
the Book of Daniel--not among the Prophets, where, had the Book been
genuine, it would have had a supreme right to stand, but only with
the Book of Esther, among the latest of the Hagiographa[194]--is a
strong argument for its late date. The division of the Old Testament
into Law, Prophets, and Hagiographa first occurs in the Prologue to
Ecclesiasticus (about B.C. 131)--"the Law, the Prophecies, and the
rest of the books."[195] In spite of its peculiarities, its prophetic
claims among those who accepted it as genuine were so strong that the
LXX. and the later translations unhesitatingly reckon the author among
the four greater prophets. If the Daniel of the Captivity had written
this Book, he would have had a far greater claim to this position among
the prophets than Haggai, Malachi, or the later Zechariah. Yet the Jews
deliberately placed the Book among the _Kethubîm_, to the writers of
which they indeed ascribe the Holy Spirit (_Ruach Hakkodesh_), but whom
they did not credit with the higher degree of prophetic inspiration.
Josephus expresses the Jewish conviction that, since the days of
Artaxerxes onwards, the writings which had appeared had not been deemed
worthy of the same reverence as those which had preceded them, because
there had occurred no unquestionable succession of prophets.[196] The
Jews who thus decided the true nature of the Book of Daniel must surely
have been guided by strong traditional, critical, historical, or other
grounds for denying (as they did) to the author the gift of prophecy.
Theodoret denounces this as "shameless impudence" ἀναισχυντίαν on their
part;[197] but may it not rather have been fuller knowledge or simple
honesty? At any rate, on any other grounds it would have been strange
indeed of the Talmudists to decide that the most minutely predictive
of the prophets--if indeed this _were_ a prophecy--wrote _without_ the
gift of prophecy.[198] It can only have been the late and suspected
appearance of the Book, and its marked phenomena, which led to its
relegation to the lowest place in the Jewish Canon. Already in 1
Macc. iv. 46 we find that the stones of the demolished pagan altar are
kept "until there should arise a prophet to show what should be done
with them"; and in 1 Macc. xiv. 41 we again meet the phrase "until
there should arise a faithful prophet." Before this epoch there is no
trace of the existence of the Book of Daniel, and not only so, but the
prophecies of the post-exilic prophets as to the future contemplate a
wholly different horizon and a wholly different order of events. Had
Daniel existed before the Maccabean epoch, it is impossible that the
rank of the Book should have been deliberately ignored. The Jewish
Rabbis of the age in which it appeared saw, quite correctly, that it
had points of affinity with other pseudepigraphic apocalypses which
arose in the same epoch. The Hebrew scholar Dr. Joel has pointed out
how, amid its immeasurable superiority to such a poem as the enigmatic
Cassandra of the Alexandrian poet Lycophron,[199] it resembles that
book in its _indirectness_ of nomenclature. Lycophron is one of the
pleiad of poets in the days of Ptolemy Philadelphus; but his writings,
like the Book before us, have probably received interpolations from
later hands. He never calls a god or a hero by his name, but always
describes him by a periphrasis, just as here we have "the King of the
North" and "the King of the South," though the name "Egypt" slips in
(Dan. xi. 8). Thus Hercules is "a three-nights' lion" (τριέσπερος
λέων), and Alexander the Great is "a wolf." A son is always "an
offshoot" (φίτυμα), or is designated by some other metaphor. When
Lycophron wants to allude to Rome, the Greek Ῥωμή is used in its sense
of "strength." The name Ptolemaios becomes by anagram ἀπὸ μέλιτος,
"from honey"; and the name Arsinoë becomes ἴον Ἥρας, "the violet of
Hera." We may find some resemblances to these procedures when we are
considering the eleventh chapter of Daniel.
It is a serious abuse of argument to pretend, as is done by
Hengstenberg, by Dr. Pusey, and by many of their feebler followers,
that "there are few books whose Divine authority is so fully
established by the testimony of the New Testament, and in particular
by our Lord Himself, as the Book of Daniel."[200] It is to the
last degree dangerous, irreverent, and unwise to stake the Divine
authority of our Lord on the maintenance of those ecclesiastical
traditions of which so many have been scattered to the winds for
ever. Our Lord, on one occasion, in the discourse on the Mount
of Olives, warned His disciples that, "when they should see the
abomination of desolation, spoken of by Daniel the prophet, standing
in the holy place, they should flee from Jerusalem into the mountain
district."[201] There is nothing to prove that He Himself uttered
either the words "_let him that readeth understand_," or even
"_spoken of by Daniel the prophet_." Both of those may belong to
the explanatory narrative of the Evangelist, and the latter does
not occur in St. Mark. Further, in St. Luke (xxi. 20) there is _no_
specific allusion to Daniel at all; but instead of it we find,
"When ye see Jerusalem being encircled by armies, then know that
its desolation is near." We cannot be certain that the specific
reference to Daniel may not be due to the Evangelist. But without
so much as raising these questions, it is fully admitted that,
whether exactly in its present form or not, the Book of Daniel formed
part of the Canon in the days of Christ. If He directly refers to
it as a book known to His hearers, His reference lies as wholly
outside all questions of genuineness and authenticity as does St.
Jude's quotation from the Book of Enoch, or St. Paul's (possible)
allusions to the Assumption of Elijah,[202] or Christ's own passing
reference to the Book of Jonah. Those who attempt to drag in these
allusions as decisive critical dicta transfer them to a sphere wholly
different from that of the moral application for which they were
intended. They not only open vast and indistinct questions as to the
self-imposed limitations of our Lord's human knowledge as part of His
own voluntary "emptying Himself of His glory," but they also do a
deadly disservice to the most essential cause of Christianity.[203]
The only thing which is acceptable to the God of truth is truth; and
since He has given us our reason and our conscience as lights which
light every man who is born into the world, we must walk by these
lights in all questions which belong to these domains. History,
literature and criticism, and the interpretation of human language
do belong to the domain of pure reason; and we must not be bribed
by the misapplication of hypothetical exegesis to give them up for
the support of traditional views which advancing knowledge no longer
suffers us to maintain. It may be true or not that our Lord adopted
the title "Son of Man" (_Bar Enosh_) from the Book of Daniel;
but even if He did, which is at least disputable, that would only
show, what we all already admit, that in His time the Book was an
acknowledged part of the Canon. On the other hand, if our Lord and
His Apostles regarded the Book of Daniel as containing the most
explicit prophecies of Himself and of His kingdom, why did they never
appeal or even allude to it to prove that He was the promised Messiah?
Again, Hengstenberg and his school try to prove that the Book of
Daniel existed before the Maccabean age, because Josephus says that
the high priest Jaddua showed to Alexander the Great, in the year
B.C. 332, the prophecy of himself as the Grecian he-goat in the Book
of Daniel; and that the leniency which Alexander showed towards the
Jews was due to the favourable impression thus produced.[204]
The story, which is a beautiful and an interesting one, runs as
follows:--
On his way from Tyre, after capturing Gaza, Alexander decided to
advance to Jerusalem. The news threw Jaddua the high priest into an
agony of alarm. He feared that the king was displeased with the Jews,
and would inflict severe vengeance upon them. He ordered a general
supplication with sacrifices, and was encouraged by God in a dream to
decorate the city, throw open the gates, and go forth in procession
at the head of priests and people to meet the dreaded conqueror. The
procession, so unlike that of any other nation, went forth as soon as
they heard that Alexander was approaching the city. They met the king
on the summit of Scopas, the watch-tower--the height of Mizpah, from
which the first glimpse of the city is obtained. It is the famous
Blanca Guarda of the Crusaders, on the summit of which Richard I.
turned away, and did not deem himself worthy to glance at the city
which he was too weak to rescue from the infidel. The Phœnicians and
Chaldeans in Alexander's army promised themselves that they would
now be permitted to plunder the city and torment the high priest
to death. But it happened far otherwise. For when the king saw the
white-robed procession approaching, headed by Jaddua in his purple
and golden array, and wearing on his head the golden _petalon_, with
its inscription "Holiness to Jehovah," he advanced, saluted the
priest, and adored the Divine Name. The Jews encircled and saluted
him with unanimous greeting, while the King of Syria and his other
followers fancied that he must be distraught. "How is it," asked
Parmenio, "that you, whom all others adore, yourself adore the Jewish
high priest?" "I did not adore the high priest," said Alexander, "but
God, by whose priesthood He has been honoured. When I was at Dium in
Macedonia, meditating on the conquest of Asia, I saw this very man in
this same apparel, who invited me to march boldly and without delay,
and that he would conduct me to the conquest of the Persians." Then
he took Jaddua by the hand, and in the midst of the rejoicing priests
entered Jerusalem, where he sacrificed to God.[205] Jaddua showed him
the prediction about himself in the Book of Daniel, and in extreme
satisfaction he granted to the Jews, at the high priest's request,
all the petitions which they desired of him.
But this story, so grateful to Jewish vanity, is a transparent fiction.
It does not find the least support from any other historic source,
and is evidently one of the Jewish _Haggadoth_ in which the intense
national self-exaltation of that strange nation delighted to depict
the homage which they, and their national religion, extorted from the
supernaturally caused dread of the greatest heathen potentates. In this
respect it resembles the earlier chapters of the Book of Daniel itself,
and the numberless stories of the haughty superiority of great Rabbis
to kings and emperors in which the Talmud delights. Roman Catholic
historians, like Jahn and Hess, and older writers, like Prideaux,[206]
accept the story, even when they reject the fable about Sanballat
and the Temple on Gerizim which follows it. Stress is naturally laid
upon it by apologists like Hengstenberg; but an historian like Grote
does not vouchsafe to notice it by a single word, and most modern
writers reject it. The Bishop of Bath and Wells thinks that these
stories are "probably derived from some apocryphal book of Alexandrian
growth, in which chronology and history gave way to romance and Jewish
vanity."[207] All the historians except Josephus say that Alexander
went straight from Gaza to Egypt, and make no mention of Jerusalem or
Samaria; and Alexander was by no means "adored" by all men at that
period of his career, for he never received προσκύνησις till after his
conquest of Persia. Nor can we account for the presence of "Chaldeans"
in his army at this time, for Chaldea was then under the rule of
Babylon. Besides which, Daniel was expressly bidden, as Bleek observes,
to "seal up his prophecy till the time of the end"; and the "time of
the end" was certainly not the era of Alexander,--not to mention the
circumstance that Alexander, if the prophecies were pointed out to
him at all, would hardly have been content with the single verse or
two about himself, and would have been anything but gratified by what
immediately follows.[208]
I pass over as meaningless Hengstenberg's arguments in favour of the
genuineness of the Book from the predominance of symbolism; from the
moderation of tone towards Nebuchadrezzar; from the political gifts
shown by the writer; and from his prediction that the Messianic Kingdom
would at once appear after the death of Antiochus Epiphanes! When
we are told that these circumstances "can only be explained on the
assumption of a Babylonian origin"; that "they are directly opposed
to the spirit of the Maccabean time"; that the artifice with which
the writing is pervaded, supposing it to be a pseudepigraphic book,
"far surpasses the powers of the most gifted poet"; and that "such a
distinct expectation of the near advent of the Messianic Kingdom is
utterly without analogy in the whole of prophetic literature,"--such
arguments can only be regarded as appeals to ignorance. They are
either assertions which float in the air, or are disproved at once
alike by the canonical prophets and by the apocryphal literature of
the Maccabean age. Symbolism is the distinguishing characteristic of
apocalypses, and is found in those of the late post-exilic period.
The views of the Jews about Nebuchadrezzar varied. Some writers were
partially favourable to him, others were severe upon him. It does not
in the least follow that a writer during the Antiochian persecution,
who freely adapted traditional or imaginative elements, should
necessarily represent the old potentates as irredeemably wicked, even
if he meant to satirise Epiphanes in the story of their extravagances.
It was necessary for his purpose to bring out the better features of
their characters, in order to show the conviction wrought in them by
Divine interpositions. The notion that the Book of Daniel could only
have been written by a statesman or a consummate politician is mere
fancy. And, lastly, in making the Messianic reign begin immediately at
the close of the Seleucid persecution, the writer both expresses his
own faith and hope, and follows the exact analogy of Isaiah and all the
other Messianic prophets.
But though it is common with the prophets to pass at once from the
warnings of destruction to the hopes of a Messianic Kingdom which is
to arise immediately beyond the horizon which limits their vision,
it is remarkable--and the consideration tells strongly against the
authenticity of Daniel--that not one of them had the least glimpse
of the four successive kingdoms or of the four hundred and ninety
years;--not even those prophets _who, if the Book of Daniel were
genuine, must have had it in their hands_. To imagine that Daniel
took means to have his Book left undiscovered for some four hundred
years, and then brought to light during the Maccabean struggle, is
a grotesque impossibility. If the Book existed, it must have been
known. Yet not only is there no real trace of its existence before
B.C. 167, but the post-exilic prophets pay no sort of regard to
its detailed predictions, and were evidently unaware that any such
predictions had ever been uttered. What room is there for Daniel's
four empires and four hundred and ninety years in such a prophecy
as Zech. ii. 6-13? The pseudepigraphic Daniel possibly took the
symbolism of four horns from Zech. i. 18, 19; but there is not
the slightest connexion between Zechariah's symbol and that of
the pseudo-Daniel. If the number four in Zechariah be not a mere
number of completeness with reference to the four quarters of the
world (comp. Zech. i. 18), the four horns symbolise either Assyria,
Babylonia, Egypt, and Persia, or more generally the nations which
had then scattered Israel (Zech. ii. 8, vi. 1-8; Ezek. xxxvii. 9);
so that the following promise does not even contemplate a victorious
succession of heathen powers. Again, what room is there for Daniel's
four successive pagan empires in any natural interpretation of
Haggai's "yet a little while and I will shake all nations" (Hag. ii.
7), and in the promise that this shaking shall take place in the
lifetime of Zerubbabel (Hag. ii. 20-23)? And can we suppose that
Malachi wrote that the messenger of the Lord should "suddenly" come
to His Temple with such prophecies as those of Daniel before him?[209]
But if it be thought extraordinary that a pseudepigraphic prophecy
should have been admitted into the Canon at all, even when placed low
among the _Kethubîm_, and if it be argued that the Jews would never
have conferred such an honour on such a composition, the answer is
that even when compared with such fine books as those of Wisdom and
Jesus the Son of Sirach, the Book has a right to such a place by its
intrinsic superiority. Taken as a whole it is far superior in moral
and spiritual instructiveness to any of the books of the Apocrypha.
It was profoundly adapted to meet the needs of the age in which it
originated. It was in its favour that it was written partly in Hebrew
as well as in Aramaic, and it came before the Jewish Church under the
sanction of a famous ancient name which was partly at least traditional
and historical. There is nothing astonishing in the fact that in an
age in which literature was rare and criticism unknown it soon came
to be accepted as genuine. Similar phenomena are quite common in
much later and more comparatively learned ages. One or two instances
will suffice. Few books have exercised a more powerful influence on
Christian literature than the spurious letters of Ignatius and the
pseudo-Clementines. They were accepted, and their genuineness was
defended for centuries; yet in these days no sane critic would imperil
his reputation by an attempt to defend their genuineness. The book
of the pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite was regarded as genuine and
authoritative down to the days of the Reformation, and the author
professes to have seen the supernatural darkness of the Crucifixion;
yet "Dionysius the Areopagite" did not write before A.D. 532! The power
of the Papal usurpation was mainly built on the Forged Decretals,
and for centuries no one ventured to question the gen
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