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1. The contents of the Book of Daniel. In the first verse we have Nebuchadnezzar, the young conqueror, receiving the submission of the city of Jerusalem and of its king Jehoiakim. Among the hostages of noble and royal blood which he takes to be sent to Babylon, there are a number of youths. From these he wishes to select certain to be educated so as to be fit attendants on his court. These are committed to the care of Ashpenaz, or, to give him the name he has in the Septuagint Version, Abiesdri. These youths are divided off into messes of four. In one of these there is a youth that draws the tender love of this chief of the eunuchs. It is the youth who gives his name to the book. Soon Ashpenaz has to observe this youth and his three companions for another reason. They have scruples, and will not eat of the meat from the king's table. He does not consent to the request of this youth, favourite though he is with him. He fears lest they appear inferior to their companions when they are brought before the king; so he will not grant their request, but shuts his eyes when the steward under him, after an experiment of ten days' duration, permits these youths to live on pulse. The result fully justifies the experiment. When they are presented before the king, they distance all competitors. Such is the prologue of the story of Daniel
The rest of the book is divided into two nearly equal sections. First, incidents detached from each other, but arranged in a chronological succession: this ends with the sixth chapter. Next visions: this section, beginning with the seventh chapter, continues to the end of the book, and is also arranged chronologically.
The section of incidents. The first of these relates to Daniel's telling the king his dream and its interpretation, when all other members of the sacred college had failed to do so. It is not absolutely certain, by the language used, whether the king had forgotten the dream or simply was obstinately determined to put the claims of the Babylonian soothsayers to the test. It is not impossible that this was the occasion when the four friends were brought before the king, narrated already compendiously in the preceding chapter. The second year of the reign of Nebuchadnezzar — the date of this incident — coinciding, according to Babylonian reckoning, to some extent, with the third year after his accession, and therefore coinciding with the end of the third year of the training of those youths. The result of this manifestation of power by Daniel, and ascribed by him to the God whom he worships, is that Nebuchadnezzar ordains that the God of Daniel be henceforth reckoned among the great gods, especially on account of his wisdom as Revealer of secrets.
The next incident, that related in the third chapter, refers only to Daniel's three friends, not to Daniel himself. The three friends who bad, at Daniel's request, been promoted to places of trust in the province of Babylon, refuse to bow down in worship to the golden image which Nebuchadnezzar the king had set up. In consequence of this act of insubordination and constructive treason — for so it seems to the Babylonian monarch — they are cast into a furnace of fire. God, whom they serve, for whose honour they have braved the wrath of the king, sends his angel and delivers them from the fiery furnace, and that angel, to the amazement of the king, is seen walking in the furnace with the three Hebrews. The king affirms his former decree with greater emphasis in regard to the God of Israel. His claims to be regarded as one of the great gods, — a god of gods — rests not only on his wisdom, but also on his power. As it is recognized that a God so great to deliver would be also great to destroy, to prevent his vengeance being poured forth on Babylon, the severest punishment is to be inflicted on any one who says anything derogatory of the God of the Hebrews.
While the former incident is dated by the Septuagint in the eighteenth year of the reign of Nebuchadnezzar — the year, according to the reckoning of Babylon, when he took Jerusalem — the incident of the fourth chapter must be placed much later in his reign. The Septuagint dates this incident the same year. Ewald would place it ten years later; probably the real date is the thirty-eighth year. The king, great and prosperous, has another dream. According to the Septuagint, he at once summons Daniel, and tells him the vision he has seen. Seeing what is revealed by the vision, and having a love for the splendid tyrant, Daniel is overwhelmed with sorrow. At last, adjured by the king he foretells his madness. A year elapses, the vision is so fulfilled. For seven months he is a maniac, and one of his own household acts as king. The king at length is restored to his senses, and decrees yet further honours to the God of heaven, without, however, declaring that the gods of Babylon were no gods — that is to say, without at all becoming a monotheist.
The next incident occurs during the time that Belshazzar, the son of Nabunahid is fulfilling the duties of the throne, while his father is living in enforced retirement in Tema. The young viceroy makes a feast at the consecration of his palace — so the Septuagint informs us — to inspirit his lords — the rabbuti, with whom, the annals of Nabunahid inform us, he always was during the illness of his father. He orders the vessels of the temple of Jehovah to be brought forth, along with trophies from the temples of other gods. It was a proof of the superiority of the gods of Babylon over all other deities, that these trophies had been brought from the very temples of these gods. It was thus a challenge to Jehovah. Over against the golden candlestick from Jerusalem, which by the royal orders was on the table, appeared on the fresh plaster a fiery inscription. No one could read it, notwithstanding that the greatest rewards were offered. At last, on the advice of the queen-mother, Daniel, who had retired from the court, probably on the murder of Evil-Merodach, is brought and reads the message of doom. The young viceroy hates not a jot of his promise. Daniel is made third in the kingdom. The Massoretic text has, "That night was Belshazzar King of the Chaldeans slain" — a most improbable statement, and one that is not found in the Septuagint.
The next incident occurs after the fall of the Babylonian power. Gobryas (Darius) is the governor of Babylon under Cyrus. Daniel occupies a prominent place in the court of the new viceroy. Possibly induced by fear of the riots liable to ensue when so many shrines are dismantled in order to scud the idols of the cities plundered by the Babylonian monarch back to their original seats, Darius issues a decree that all religious worship is to cease for a month, on pain of being thrown to the lions. Daniel disregards this sentence, and is accordingly thrown to the lions, despite the governor's efforts. Daniel is delivered from the lions by his God, in whom he trusted. Gobryas then issues a decree, reaffirming the decrees of Nebuchadnezzar, but not establishing the sole worship of Jehovah.
Such are the contents of the first section of the Book of Daniel. These incidents clearly exhibit the supremacy of the God of Israel over the gods of Babylon — a supremacy which the overthrow of the Jewish kingdom and the destruction of Jehovah's temple might have seemed to have rendered not even doubtful. The monarchs of Assyria and Babylon were highly religious in their way, and regarded themselves as the instruments of their own gods; all their victories were victories of the gods they worshipped, and manifestations el their power. Hence the special point of these works of wonder narrated in the Book of Daniel.
The second section consists of visions revealed to Daniel. These, like the incidents of the first section, are arranged chronologically. To a certain extent the contents of the vision of Nebuchadnezzar in the second chapter might be regarded as belonging to this section, and has to be considered along with it.
The first vision is dated as given in the first year of Belshazzar. Daniel in vision sees the four winds of heaven striving for the mastery on the surface of the great sea, the Mediterranean; and four beasts, great and mystical, arose out of the sea. The first was a winged lion, whose wings were plucked, and a man's heart was given him. The second was a huge bear, that gnawed three ribs in its teeth. The third, a leopard having four wings. The fourth was a beast great and terrible, that had no likeness among the beasts of the earth. It had great iron teeth, and brake in pieces and stamped the residue with its feet. It had ten horns at first, but an eleventh horn sprang up in the midst of the ten, and dispossessed three of these. Then the Ancient of Days sat for judgment, and one like a son of man appeared, and a new Divine kingdom was established. Not only is the vision narrated, but the interpretation is given also.
The next vision is dated the third year of the reign of Belshazzar. Daniel is in fact or in vision in Susa, the capital of Cyrus, whose conquests were perhaps not yet causing anxiety in Babylon. He sees a ram having two horns, standing before the gate of the city, and pushing in all directions, and prevailing over all the beasts that were round about it. From the region of the sunset came against it a goat, having one noticeable horn. It seemed to skim along the ground rather than to tread upon it. Before the onslaught of the goat the ram is powerless. After a little, Daniel sees the single horn in the forehead of the he-goat broken, and in its place four horns spring up. From the side of one of these four horns sprouts out a little horn, which mounts up to the stars of heaven. This vision is interpreted of the fall of the empire of Persia before the Greek power which Cyrus may even then have been coming in contact with in his struggle with Croesus.
In the ninth chapter Daniel has been fasting and praying, as the seventieth year since he was carried away a hostage had come, and yet Israel was not saved. In answer to his prayer, Gabriel comes to him, and reveals to him the future of his people. Jeremiah had spoken of seventy years, but he is shown that seventy weeks of years are determined upon his people. A history of mingled disaster and glory, sun and shadow, is shown, but clearly revealed is the anointed Prince who is yet to be cut off. Strangely, the end of this vision of comfort is desolation.
The last three chapters contain the account mainly of one vision; but it appears to us that it has so suffered, alike from excisions and from interpolations, that the real vision is hardly to be recognized. In the tenth chapter we are told of the coming of Gabriel again to Daniel, and the curtain is faintly lifted, that we may discern a conflict among the powers in heavenly places — the angels of the different nations. It is probable that the vision, in its original condition, had much more of this, but there has been interpolated by some later hand an account of the conflicts between Syria and Egypt. At the end of the eleventh chapter there is a passage which seems to be a version of the history of Antiochus, earlier and more succinct than that in the preceding verses. The last chapter concludes the vision, and, though not of the nature of an epilogue, yet forms a fitting close to the whole book. "Go thy way till the end: for thou shalt rest, and stand in thy lot at the end of the days."
2. The literary form of the Book of Daniel. The Book of Daniel represented a new departure in the sacred literature of the Hebrews. It is the earliest example, and the only one in the Old Testament canon, of apocalypse. It had a long line of imitators in the inter-Biblical period, and the series was continued, and in a manner terminated, in the Christian Apocalypse of St. John.
It is closely related at once to history and to prophecy. Apocalypse may be regarded as in a sense the philosophy of history. Students of Plato know that when a philosophic thought was shaping itself in the brain of the great sage, the first form the thought assumed was a myth. Apocalypse is the philosophy of history in the mythic stage. The history it takes to do with is not that of one nation — although one nation, the people of God, is central — but that of the whole world. It is no limited terminus ad quem to which its purpose tends, but to the end of all things. And this is regarded as an orderly termination to a succession of events fixed beforehand. But while it is philosophy, it is philosophy in picture — in symbols of the imagination, not in propositions of the understanding. The symbols used show it is Eastern philosophy that is adumbrated — a philosophy which drew its symbols flora the grotesque combinations, human and bestial, which so liberally adorned the wails of the Assyrian and Babylonian palaces.
Like prophecy, apocalypse had to do with the future. The notion at present predominant, that whatever the prophet did, he did not prophesy, is one that certain!y was not held among the Jews, among whom prophecy was an actually present phenomenon. Thus in Deuteronomy 18:22 it is made the evidence that "a prophet hath spoken presumptuously," and not "the thing which the Lord hath spoken," when "the thing follow not nor come to pass." The Deuteronomist evidently believed that the principal function of the prophet was to foretell, Micaiah the son of Imlah applied the same test to the words of Zedekiah the son of Chenaanah (2 Kings 22:28). When Hananiah broke the yoke on Jeremiah's shoulders, and prophesied the overthrow of Babylon, the falsity of his prophecy was shown by its non-fulfilment; and Jeremiah appeals to that test, "The prophet that prophesieth of peace, when the word of that prophet shall come to pass, then shall the prophet be known that the Lord hath truly sent him." Of course, modern critics think they know better, but as they have not had under their observation the phenomenon of prophecy, reticence would more become them. It is part of a tendency to get rid of the supernatural altogether. Some men, whose real soundness we should be the last to impugn, failing, as we think, to grasp its real import, have yielded to it, and we think are doing great damage. It is difficult to see how they can avoid accusing our Lord and his apostles of being impostors, since they ground the claims of Christ so largely on the evidence of prophecy. We do not mean that the supporters of these views intend to maintain any such position, but this is its logical content. Certainly there was a time when the prophet was supposed to have to do only with the future, when every moral exhortation, every denunciation of wrong, was supposed to have a Messianic reference. From this the present critical view may be regarded as to a certain extent the reaction. We must, however, beware lest the reaction be allowed to go too far.
Like prophecy, apocalypse, we have said, had to do with the future. Yet there were marked distinctions between prophecy and apocalypse. The attitudes el the prophet and the apocalyptist to the future were different. The prophet regarded the future, whether of weal or woe, as the consequence of the moral condition of the time when he spoke. Because men had worshipped idols and abandoned the service of Jehovah, because they had wronged and oppressed their poorer brethren, therefore were the judgments of the Lord ready to be poured out on the land. It was because they repented — if they did so — that these judgments were arrested, and blessing came from the presence of the Lord instead of curse. The apocalyptist regarded the future simply as future, as the result of the general purpose of God totally apart from the actions of men. Certainly there would be evil in the time to come, and evil would be punished; but the apocalyptist spoke no words of exhortation or warning. The eye of the apocalyptist is a colourless medium, in which that which was coming on the earth was seen with all clearness. The eye of the prophet was now dimmed with tears, and now glowing with the refracted colours of a bliss which he rejoiced in, even while he saw it only afar off.
Closely connected with this is the fact that the prophet's message was largely lyric, while that of the apocalyptist was delivered in prose. In the case alike of the prophet and apocalyptist, vision was the means used to convey to him the truth to be declared. The prophet, however, never describes the vision he sees in distinct words; he gives a lyric accompaniment to it, and from this the reader may gather what the prophet sees. On the other hand, the apocalyptist is unmoved by what he sees. Certain of the prophets that were Daniel's contemporaries, as Ezekiel, are largely impregnated with the apocalyptic manner. Along with the description of what they saw, it is to be noted that apocalyptists made a much larger use of symbol than did the prophets. The symbols of the apocalyptist are largely logical symbols built up by fancy rather than by that poetic imagination which takes what nature gives, and fills it full with a Divine meaning. Prophecy was, as might naturally be expected from what we have just said, individual, personal; it is the people, not the abstract power, it regards. It is the monarch as an individual that is brought before us, not merely as the accidental representative of a certain phase of the Divine government by world-powers.
Akin with this is the enlarged and more defined angelology of the apocalyptists. The Eastern mind is not abstract, and the only way in which such an abstraction as a power, a state, an empire, can be grasped in its continuity, was, by seeing behind the state with its armies, as seen on earth, an angelic ruler. We in these later days have no difficulty in thinking of a nation as an abstraction, and speaking of the spirit of the nation; but we cannot realize the angel of a nation. It may be that the Oriental was wiser than we. Certainly the functions Scripture assigns to angels are much more numerous and important than those popular theology ascribes to them. The Book of Daniel thus is an apocalypse.
There was certainly a reason for this form of sacred literature making its appearance at the time of Daniel, and not earlier. So long as Judah was an independent country, its interests were limited to a great extent by the contiguous principalities that, small like itself, had but small effect on the great world. By the capture of Jerusalem by the Babylonian world-power, and the deportation of so large a portion of the inhabitants, Judah was brought within the sweep of the great tide of history. Their view of events was extended to a vast degree, both as to time and space. They were thus enabled to grasp the world and its history as a whole in a very different way from what they could do while their thoughts were bounded by the Euphrates and the Nile. Inspiration does not supersede the effects of circumstances and education, but, assuming them, uses the person as he has become in consequence of them. Hence the prophet of a nation small geographically, even though inspired by the Divine Spirit, would have a limited outlook, and his prophecies, though referring to a remote future, would have the terms of their statements conditioned by the education and circumstances of him to whom they had been revealed. It was different when the Jews were removed to Babylon. The Persian Gulf, into which the Euphrates and Tigris poured their waters, opened into the Indian Ocean. Not only was Egypt subject to Nebuchadnezzar, but he had in his army Greeks from beyond the great sea. To the Jewish captives in Babylon the world became vaster, and prophecy now had a broader outlook; it became by this less impassioned — it became apocalypse. The very strange composite figures which adorned the walls of the temples and palaces of Babylon would help the imagination of the seer to symbols sufficiently comprehensive to convey the message entrusted to him for his hearers.
After the Jews had been restored to their own land, they were less likely to have devised any mode of composition so new and strange as apocalypse. The nation became more provincial than ever. The Persian rule does not seem to have been conducive to literary effort. The Jews inhabited a province in a great empire, ruled over by an alien race, their interests narrowed down to their flocks and herds, their vineyards and oliveyards. The events of their history were not the crash of empires and the fall of monarchs, but the invasion of locusts, the devastation of tempests, the exactions of tyrannical governors, and the incursions of predatory Arabs. Once devised, they might continue to produce apocalypse, but they could not have invented in these circumstances such a mode of composition. The character of apocalypse, as a mode of writing, suits the date assigned to it by tradition.
When the species of prophetic composition to which Daniel belongs is determined, the further question of its unity emerges. Are we to regard it as one book, composed as such by its author; or is it a number of separate parts united by an editor?
While the fact that it has formed from an early date one book, and from the fact that the same leading character appears in each successive part of it, the reader assumes at first, without doubt, that Daniel is one book. Yet the question may be put — Is its unity so beyond doubt? To any one who begins reading the Book of Daniel in the original, the fact is soon patent that the reader has to do with two languages. The fourth verse of the second chapter introduces the reader to Aramaic — a language that differs as much from Hebrew as Italian does from French. Further reading reveals the additional fact that the use of Aramaic ceases without warning at the end of the seventh chapter. When, into a book written mainly in one tongue, a large section in another tongue is intruded, the reason frequently is obvious; as in the case where in histories the original documents on which the narrative is founded are quoted; or semi-concealment may be intended, as in the case of the Latin section in Darwin's 'The Doctrine of Selection in Relation to Sex;' or the interlocutors introduced in a drama speak their own tongue, as in Shakespeare's 'Henry V.' For none of these reasons, nor for any reason obvious on the surface, are these two languages used here. The further consideration of the two languages in which Daniel is written we must reserve, but the fact that there are two distinct portions, marked off from each other by difference in language, renders unwise any dogmatic assertion that the unity is certain. But, further, there are other tokens of want of unity. As already observed, after the prologue, the Book of Daniel divides itself into two nearly equal portions, the first containing incidents, the second visions, each arranged in a chronological series. Did this division coincide with the linguistic division, a plea might be made for asserting that there were two distinct works, each, however, a whole in itself. But the fact that the divisions do not coincide disposes of this, even if the independence of the relation in which each part — incident or vision — stands to the rest, did not. The natural explanation of the above phenomena would seem to be that our Book of Daniel originally floated about in separate little tractates, some relating incidents, others visions; some in Aramaic, some in Hebrew; and that in a somewhat later age an editor collected them together and added a prologue. Confirmatory of this are the phenomena presented by the Septuagint translation. In some of the sections the Septuagint Version seems more concise than the Massoretic text, while in regard to other sections there have been interpolations, expansions, and paraphrase. Meinhold thinks that there are indications of difference in the Aramaic. It seems, then, exceedingly unwise to maintain the necessary unity of Daniel, and still more so to build any farther argument on this. Again, there is the possibility of interpolation — a thing to which apocalyptic books were specially liable, and from which Daniel also suffered. What it certainly suffered in the days of the later Seleucids it may have suffered earlier. For ourselves we admit the strongest suspicion as to the genuineness of the eleventh chapter. This possibility is an additional reason for caution.
The unity of Daniel is argued from its alleged unity of purpose. It is not a disproof of a unity of purpose to show, as we have done, that it has been compiled from several distinct documents. An editor may collect several separate tracts all bearing on one subject and exhibiting it in different lights. Separate tractates would not, however, be the natural mode in which one would compose a work of imagination. We do not recall any case where two series of disconnected fragments were composed by a writer of a work of imagination, mechanically stuck together without any link of connection, and whose issue as one book became a powerful literary factor in the development of a people. One would have difficulty in deciding which would be the more unlikely — the mode of composition or the result.
It has, however, been maintained, and is persistently maintained still, that the purpose of this book is to sustain the spirits of the Jews under the persecution they endured under Antiochus. That view, taken alone, may quite well be held by the most orthodox of traditionalists, but along with this it is maintained that it was written in the very storm and stress of this persecution, and hence was an historical novel. Almost necessarily connected with this is the assertion that Nebuchadnezzar stands for Antiochus. It is somewhat awkward that this assertion has to be supplemented by the further statement that Belshazzar and Darius also represent Antiochus. No reason has been assigned why the novelist, anxious that his readers should recognize the portrait, should make their task thus more difficult by perpetually changing the name of the puppet whose raison detre was to be the portrait of Antiochus.
If, however, we do not press this, but look rather at Nebuchadnezzar as represented to us in the Book of Daniel, are the deeds and character ascribed to him like the deeds of which Epiphanes was guilty, or the character we know he possessed? We must answer this in the negative. We shall take the incidents seriatim, for it is in the series of incidents that this portraiture is alleged to be presented to us. Nebuchadnezzar takes hostages from Jerusalem along with part of the treasures of the temple. We learn nothing of Antiochus taking hostages to bring them up in his court. That fact is the central portion of Nebuchadnezzar's share in the incident recorded in the first chapter; the removal of the treasures from the temples of captured cities was as little peculiar to Nebuchadnezzar as to Antiochus. A point of contrast, indeed, may be noted. Antiochus did not leave any portion of the treasures behind him when he robbed temples, and Nebuchadnezzar, in the first instance in regard to Jerusalem, did, The dream of the second chapter has no parallel event in the history of Antiochus. Certainly Antiochus erected idols as Nebuchadnezzar is related in Daniel 3. to have done, but the peculiar heinousness of the action of Epiphanes was that he erected the statue in the courts of Jehovah's temple and over his altar. Nothing of the kind is ascribed to Nebuchadnezzar. The peculiarities again of the idol of Nebuchadnezzar — its height, its position, its gilding — the statue of Antiochus did not possess. There is nothing in the history of Antiochus like the fiery furnace: the only point of resemblance is that Antiochus and Nebuchadnezzar alike (as did all heathen monarchs) demanded all officials to worship their gods. Antiochus further wished to compel a nation to abandon its religion; Nebuchadnezzar never had any such mad project in his mind. If the incident in the third chapter of Daniel is intended to be a representation of the setting up of "the abomination which maketh desolate" in the temple, it can scarcely be called a successful effort. Neither the dreams of Daniel 4. nor the madness of Nebuchadnezzar are paralleled by anything which is recorded of Antiochus. We are told, indeed, that Antiochus was called Epimanes "the Mad," instead of Epiphanes "the Illustrious," and that the madness ascribed to Nebuchadnezzar referred to this. Had we any evidence that this title was given to Antiochus by the mob, say of Antioch, there might be a bare possibility that this nickname might have reached Palestine. But the only occasion on which it was given him was by Polybius the historian, and our evidence for this is a passage in Athenaeus, bk. 5., in which it is said, "Polybius, in the six and twentieth (book) of the histories, calls him (Antiochus) Epimanes, and not Epiphanes, on account of his deeds;" This is a totally different matter from his subjects giving him the title. The symptoms of the madness, such as it was, of Antiochus were totally different from those of that of Nebuchadnezzar. There is little resemblance between the mad pranks of a Marquis of Waterford and the antics of a lunatic that imagines himself a beast. Belshazzar's feast, we are told, was intended to be a picture of the orgies of Antiochus in the grove in Daphne. Opinions may differ as to the resemblance between the sign and the thing signified. Belshazzar invites a thousand of his lords into his palace. Antiochus entertained the whole populace in the grove at Daphne. Antiochus's festival lasted thirty days, that of Belshazzar only one night. The point of Belshazzar's feast that specially brought the wrath of God was that he used the sacred vessels for his banquet; there is no reference in history to any such action on the part of Antiochus. Excessive pomp, excessive debauchery, characterized the feast in Daphne, characteristics which are not represented as being markedly present in the fewest of Belshazzar. If reference should be made to the fact that wives and concubines were present, and that be regarded as a sign of debauchery, it must be remembered that these words are omitted from the Septuagint Version. There is nothing in the history of Antiochus that at all corresponds to the story of Darius and his decree and the condemnation of Daniel to the den of lions.
Not only are the events of the history in Daniel utterly unlike the events of the history of Antiochus, but the characters assigned to Nebuchadnezzar, Belshazzar, and Darius are utterly unlike what we know to have been the character of Antiochus. Nebuchadnezzar, as presented to us in the Book of Daniel, is a typical Eastern conqueror, vigorous, clear-sighted, but capricious, and subject to fits of ungovernable rage. At the same time, there is a deep religiousness of feeling, ready, when he is convinced that he has been wrong, to go to the utmost extreme of honor to the persons he has wronged. Take him all in all, he is a stately, awe-inspiring personage. The writer of the eleventh chapter declares Antiochus to be a vile person. Such a person as that could never have been declared to be, as Nebuchadnezzar, the head of gold. Even Belshazzar cannot deserve the title of a vile person; he has promised to highly honour the interpreter of the fiery inscription, and when the tenor of the inscription becomes far other than he would, he does not, as most despots would have done, vent his rage on the messenger of evil; no, he does not bate one jot of the glory and dignity he had promised. Still less could Darius deserve the title of a vile person. He certainly is represented as easily persuaded; but his eagerness to save Daniel, and his sorrow when all his efforts proved unavailing, show his character to be very different from that of Antiochus.
We may, however, estimate the character of Nebuchadnezzar by the effects that character is represented as having on Daniel, and comparing that with the effect on the Jews of the character of Antiochus. It is obvious that Danie1 had a high personal esteem for the splendid tyrant, destroyer though he had been of all the glories of Jerusalem. When Daniel is the messenger of evil tidings, when in the king's dream he sees his coming madness, "he was astonied one hour," and had to be reassured by the king before he could tell the dread interpretation. Then the words burst from him, "My lord, the dream be to them that hate thee, and the interpretation to thine enemies;" and is anxious that by repentance the king may attain a lengthening of his tranquillity. Can any one, reading the Books of the Maccabees, imagine a zealous Jew picturing his model saint maintaining an attitude like that toward Epiphanes? The very idea can only be due to a defective historic sense on the part of those who have devised this theory, and on the part of those who support it.
It is further said, in connection with this theory of the purpose of Daniel, that the character of Daniel is modelled on that of Joseph. Certainly there are not a few points of resemblance between the two careers. If Joseph goes down to Egypt a slave, Daniel goes to Babylon a hostage. If Joseph becomes governor of the land by interpreting the dream of Pharaoh, Daniel is admitted into the counsel of the King of Babylon by not only interpreting a dream which he had, but by telling him also the dream itself. Joseph is made the second person of the kingdom, and Daniel the third. Notwithstanding all these resemblances, the points of difference are too important to allow us to assume that the latter history was imitated from the former. One characteristic of all cases of such imitation is that in every point where a direct comparison is of necessity instituted between the original hero and the hero modelled upon him, the imitator endeavours to make his hero nobler than the original. If we apply this canon, the story of Joseph ought to have been written last. Joseph dropped down to a lower degradation than did Daniel, and from a higher elevation. Further, Daniel did not rise to such an elevation as Joseph; he is only third person in the kingdom, or perhaps one of a board of three, whereas Joseph becomes the second person in the kingdom. The events in Joseph's history which make most impression on the imagination of the reader have no place in the history of Daniel. Joseph's relation to his brethren and to Potiphar's wife are not paralleled in the history of Daniel. But more, some, at any rate, of the points of resemblance between the histories have not been pressed as they certainly would have been had "Daniel" been a work of fiction "written up" to Joseph. Like Joseph, Daniel precedes the mass of his countrymen in removal to a foreign land; like Joseph, Daniel has become prominent years before the coming of his kindred; but Daniel is not represented as doing anything to make the coming of his people to Babylon easier, or their residence there more pleasant. It cannot be answered that the facts of the Babylonian captivity hindered any such invention; for any one reading the Talmud or the Jewish commentaries would see that notorious facts are no barrier to Jewish imagination. Joseph kept alive in his brethren the hope of deliverance from Egypt, and "gave commandment concerning his bones." In the return of the children of Judah to Jerusalem, Daniel is not represented as taking any part. If the Book of Daniel had been a novel modelled on the history of Joseph, the resemblance would have been closer in these critical points. We might go further. If a novel at all, and Daniel an ideal character, then certainly he would have been represented, if not as actually going to Jerusalem, helping his fellow-countrymen in their return, and aiding them in Babylon with money and influence. Explanations would, at least, have been offered to remove the seeming failure from the Jewish ideal. If, again, the Book of Daniel is an approximately contemporary record, the causes which prevented Daniel from accompanying his brethren might — probably would — be so obvious that it would be superfluous to narrate them.
Another explanation of the origin of the Book of Daniel is that it was written up to the name — either to the name as significant or as designating a person elsewhere referred to in Scripture. The name may mean either "God is my Judge," or "the judge of God." The only incident in the book that might seem to flow from the first meaning is that of the lions' den. Even this incident rather reveals God as the Help and Deliverer of his saints than as their avenging Judge. Had the name of the prophet been Azriel (Jeremiah 36:26), there might have been more plausibility in the assertion that the book was written to the name. Hitzig's contention is that the name means "the Divine Judge," and such names as Gabriel support this view. On this supposition the book is still less like one written up to the name. In the story of Susanna and the elders we see what the imagination of the Jew produced when writing up to that idea; indeed, so well does the story suit the name, that M. Renan is sure that this represents the original form of the Daniel legend — an opinion that is a reductio ad absurdum of this view. The canonical Book of Daniel cannot be written up to the name.
Has the book been written up to the references to Daniel in Ezekiel 14:14-20 and 28:3? In the first of these references Daniel is put on a par in righteousness with ]Noah and Job. The ideas of righteousness prevalent at the time when, according to the critical school, Daniel was written can be learned from Ecclesiasticus, e.g. Ecclus. 17:22, "The alms of a man is as a signet with him, and he will keep the good deeds of man as the apple of the eye, and give repentance to his sons and daughters." That Daniel gave alms is probable, but not a word is said of this in the Book of Daniel. Zeal for the cause of Jehovah is, somewhat later than the days of the Maccabees, a token of righteousness, as we may see in 2 Maccabees 6, 7. Daniel's three friends manifest that zeal much more than he; when they are threatened with the fiery furnace he is elsewhere, and no explanation of his absence is given. If he were the ideal righteous man, his absence would be explained. If we turn to the Book of Tobit, we see the Jewish ideal of a date, as it seems to us, somewhat earlier than that of the Maccabees. Tobit gives alms, buries the dead of his people, and what he does himself he urges on his son. Before he became a captive, he proclaims, as a special evidence of his righteousness, the fact that he went from Naphtali to Jerusalem to offer at the altar in Jerusalem. Daniel, on the other hand, makes no effort to go to Jerusalem, even when the people are permitted by the decree of Cyrus to return. So far, then, as righteousness is concerned, Daniel has not the obtrusive righteousness we should expect in a character written especially to illustrate this.
The other characteristic ascribed to Daniel in Ezekiel is wisdom. The wisdom of the period of the Maccabees, if we may judge by Ecclesiasticus, was largely gnomic and proverbial. There is no trace of that in Daniel. Another characteristic of the Jewish wise man was the solution of hard questions or riddles. This was one of the special proofs of Solomon's wisdom, that all the riddles of the Queen of Sheba he could solve. This is a character given to Daniel in the Massoretic text of Daniel 5:12 — a verse that is quite omitted from the Septuagint. In Job it is the solution of the moral problems of the universe. The only characteristic of Jewish wisdom that Daniel possesses is the interpretation of dreams, and in regard to this he expressly disclaims the credit of this power, attributing it to God. His apocalyptic visions, which occupy so large a space in the book, are in no sense connected with Hebrew wisdom. It seems impossible to imagine the Book of Daniel to be written up to the character of a wise man from whom no secret is hid, and yet only one of the special characteristics of the Hebrew wise man being attributed to its hero.
If we look at the purpose alleged a little more carefully, we think it will be seen that the Book of Daniel could not have been written merely to encourage the Jews in their struggle against Epiphanes. The incidents narrated are not such as would be naturally fitted,to fire people to resist the behests of a tyrant with force of arms. For that purpose the stories of the Book of Judges were far better fitted. If anything may be supposed to be inculcated by the incidents in the Book of Daniel, it is passive resistance. We learn from 1 Maccabees 2:29-36 how certain Jews followed the lines of passive resistance, and were all destroyed. The course followed by Mattathias and his sons was in direct contrast with this, and they deprecated any such suicidal policy. This event happened in the year B.C. 168, the date when, according to critics, Daniel was written. If it be granted that the same mistaken idea, as led to the disaster to which we have just referred, might be supposed to be dominant in the mind of the writer of Daniel, it is, on that supposition, impossible to explain the almost immediate popularity of the book. It inculcates passive resistance; and passive resistance, while the only mode of resistance open to those in the court of Nebuchadnezzar, was not the method fitted to be successful in regard to Antiochus Epiphanes. This alleged purpose must, we think, be abandoned.
As, however, no composition or compilation ever is made without some purpose, what is the probable purpose for which "Daniel" was compiled? The canon of the Old Testament is mainly the history of Divine dealings with a particular race, in order to fit them for the office assigned — that of being the race of which Christ was to come. Every crisis in their history is narrated to us under prophetic sanction. No greater crisis in the history of the Jewish people had occurred than that of the Babylonian captivity. The capture of Jerusalem, the desolation of the temple which God had promised to make his dwelling-place for ever, the overthrow of the Davidic monarchy which, like the temple, had been promised an unending duration, — all were fitted to sap their faith in God. Moreover, they had been led captive by one who ascribed all his victories to the favour of his own gods. To Nebuchadnezzar his conquest of Jerusalem and plunder of its temple was a demonstration that the God of the Jews was very inferior to Merodach (Marduk). Certainly the prophets of Jehovah had threatened the king and the people with vengeance, because they had forsaken the worship of Jehovah. In the reign of Manasseh the Jews had worshipped Baai and all the host of heaven; that worship had been abandoned for that of Jehovah under Josiah. The prophets of Baal would denounce the judgments of Baal on the people for abandoning that worship. Which set of prophets were right? Disaster had been foretold by both sets of prophets. Was the disaster due to the abrogation of the worship of Jehovah by Manasseh, or to the abrogation of that of Baal by Josiah? The miracles related in Daniel amply decided that question, and they alone must have settled it. The nation that went to Babylon were prone to idolatry, prone to abandon their national God Jehovah; they came back fanatical monotheists and fanatical worshippers of Jehovah. It could only be some special demonstrations of the supreme Godhead of Jehovah that could do this — deeds of wonder like those narrated in the first chapters of the Book of Daniel.
It would, however, have value for this end only if it were a record of facts, not a moral romance. Its popularity is explicable only on the ground that it was regarded as history. No such book as Daniel ever was popular unless on the idea that it was a series of accounts of real events. It is a series of disconnected accounts of events and visions written, some in one language, some in another. It has few graces of composition; the rhetorical passages we find in some parts being in so many cases suspicious, since they are not in all the versions, that the remaining instances are suspicious also. If it is a record of facts, and regarded to be such, this popularity is thoroughly intelligible. No novel of Covenanting times in Scotland ever had the popularity among the Scottish people that Howie's 'Scots Worthies' had, and that was because, simple and rough in its style as it is, it was looked upon as a statement of facts.
3. The linguistic peculiarities of the Book of Daniel. We have referred to the fact that there are in Daniel two languages used. There have been several different explanations of the two languages.
(1) Some of these explanations are logical, as that of Keil, which declares that the first, the Aramaic part, gives us the development of the world-power in relation to the kingdom of God; and that the second, the Hebrew portion, represents the development of the kingdom of God in relation to the world-power. Against this view it may be effectively urged that the eighth chapter gives the development of the world-power of Macedonia over against the kingdom of God, as much as do the second and seventh, and as little gives the development of the kingdom of God. Indeed, the Messianic kingdom is more prominent in the two earlier visions.
(2) Another explanation is difference of audience contemplated. This is the theory of Merx. Where the contents were relatively simple and suited for ordinary Jewish society, the language used was Aramaic, the common language of business and social intercourse. Where the contents of the prophecy were more recondite, the sacred language, Hebrew, was used, which was known to few beyond the learned Jews. To this the answer of Lenormant is sufficient. The first chapter is simple narrative, yet it is in Hebrew. On the other hand, the seventh chapter, with its account of the four beasts, is as recondite as the account of the combat of the ram and the he-goat in the following chapter, yet the former is in Aramaic, and the latter in Hebrew.
(3) Another theory, that of Eichhorn, explains the two languages by difference of authorship. Meinhold has a view somewhat akin to this, only he makes the division between the authors at the end of the sixth chapter, because he thinks the seventh chapter indicates Aramaic of a different age. The connective on which he lays stress may be explained in a different way. Neither hypothesis explains why the writer of the first chapter, having written that whole chapter in Hebrew, and a few verses in the second, should suddenly break off into Aramaic. Meinhold's theory adds the difficulty — why the writer of the latter portion, having begun in Aramaic, should suddenly turn off into Hebrew. The problem is still there, only it now applies to two authors instead of one.
(4) Lenormant's theory is that the Aramaic portion is really a Targum or interpretation, and that during the Antiocheau persecution the Hebrew of this portion was lost. This theory is, to some extent, adopted by Mr. Bevan. Certainly it is in favour of this view, that the Hebrew ceases in the middle of the fourth verse of the second chapter, in quite an accidental way, at a point that marks no change in the subject of the narrative. Against it is the fact that the Aramaic section concludes with the end of a chapter. Had any such disaster befallen any of the sacred books, some trace of the event would certainly have been found in the Talmud, terribly distorted, no doubt, but none the less recognizable. The Talmudists do not discuss the question at all; they certainly call the Aramaic portion of Daniel "Targum" in reference to the language, but assert it "to defile the hands." The task of the defenders of Daniel would, in some respects, be made easier if this theory could be maintained.
(5) Another theory is that the difference of language represents a difference in date in the delivery of the prophecies or narrative, those written under the Babylonian supremacy being in Aramaic, but those under the Persian rule in Hebrew. This, were it accurate, would be merely a statement of fact, not an assignment of a reason for that fact. The original framers of this view have failed to note that the eighth chapter is dated under Belshazzar, while the sixth is under Darius.
(6) Dr. Wright, the author of the Donnellan Lectures on Ecclesiastes, and of the Bampton Lecture on Zechariah, has a theory which he indicates in his 'Introduction to the Old Testament'. His theory is that the Book of Daniel is compiled of "excerpts from a larger work (partly preserved in the original language, and partly translated)." While there is, in favour of this view, the fact that the canonical books of Samuel, Kings, and Chronicles seem to have resulted from a process analogous to this, against it is the fact that there are no links of connection in Daniel, as there are in the books in question. It also assigns no reason for the translator selecting certain portions of the book to be turned into Hebrew, and omitting others. There must have been at least two books from the twofold chronological arrangement. Further, it does not explain the peculiar phenomena presented to us by the Septuagint Version preserved to us in the Codex Chisianus.
(7) If we may venture to suggest another theory, it would be that, as Daniel was originally compiled from fly-leaves, some of these tracts were composed in Aramaic, others in Hebrew, and that the whole was edited by some one who wrote the prologue. It would be impossible to assign the reason why a writer, to whom two languages were equally familiar, should write one leaflet in one language, and another in another. After they had been so written, it would be natural that each tract, even though it may have been epitomized, should be kept in the canonical book in the language in which it was originally written. There may have been some reason of policy why certain prophecies that seemed to relate the overthrow of the Persian empire should be shrouded in Hebrew rather than published in Aramaic. The Persian police, who would certainly be able to read Aramaic, were probably ignorant of Hebrew.
Since we have now discussed the question of the two languages, we must next take them up successively.
(1) As it is the first language which the reader encounters in his study of the Book of Daniel, we must look at the Hebrew. When one investigates the age of a work, the circumstances of the book must be kept carefully before him. If the book is one that has been frequently transcribed, if there is not any cheek on the changes introduced that exist in the case of a book that is regularly read, then we may expect to find alterations in the direction of modernization. Thus in Urry's edition of Chaucer, published before the recent effort was made after extreme accuracy, many changes are introduced, all in the way of modernization. In such an edition, the occurrence of a recent word had little worth in settling the date of the book; on the other hand, every ancient word had full chronological value, So it is with Daniel. The presence of relatively recent words means much less than many critics make out, while the presence of ancient words has all its probative force intact.
It has been said by Canon Driver that "the great turning-point in Hebrew style" between old and middle Hebrew "fails in the age of Nehemiah." The Jews, returning from Babylon to Palestine, found their own land filled with foreign settlers of different nationalities, to whom Aramaic was the only common tongue. The Jews were necessitated to carry on commerce with these intruders, and therefore obliged to use Aramaic. But more in Babylon and the cities of the Medes, in which they had dwelt as captives, they would be obliged to use Aramaic constantly; consequently, they soon ceased to speak Hebrew at all, and even when they wrote it, Aramaic words and idioms were prone to intrude. Even before the days of the Captivity, Aramaic had begun to infect Hebrew — not unnaturally, as Aramaic was the language of commerce and diplomacy. The change that had become marked in the days of Nehemiah may well have been exemplified in men like Daniel, though living in an earlier generation. Any one who, unaware of the history of the poets, passed from the study of the 'Canterbury Tales' to peruse 'Piers the Ploughman,' would be ready to assert the latter-named poem to be one of a very much earlier date than the other; yet we know they were contemporary poems. The reason was that Chaucer, living in the court, accustomed to foreign ways, wrote in the style that was on the way to become prevalent, whereas Langland (or Langley) had a homely muse, and retained the older forms of phrase and modes of versification that were fast disappearing. So too Spenser and Shakespeare present the same contrast — the old and disappearing as over against the new and rising characteristics of the language. Thus it is not a proof that Daniel is later than Haggai and Malachi that in some respects his language seems more akin to the later Hebrew than theirs. He is like Geoffrey Chaucer in the court, and engaged in diplomacies with foreign courts; they are more like Langland, with homelier wits and surroundings.
Although we thus can fix the date when old Hebrew passed into middle Hebrew, it is not so easy to fix when it passed from middle Hebrew to new Hebrew. There are no complete books in Hebrew extant, universally acknowledged to belong to the period of the Greek domination. Of course, from a priori grounds and internal evidence, several of the psalms are called Maccabean. To us the evidence seems utterly insufficient. But even if the critical decision were granted in regard to the Psalms, verse retains archaic forms that have been long disused by prose. The next mass of Hebrew is not reached till we come as far down as the age of the Mishna, that is to say, A.D. 200.
Although we have, as we have said, no complete Hebrew works from the period of Greek supremacy, we have, fortunately, considerable fragments of a very famous work written in Hebrew in the period in question. The Book of Ecclesiasticus was translated into Greek by the grandson of the author. There is certainly a doubt as to the date at which this translation was made, whether B.C. 130 or B.C. 230; although we think the balance of evidence is in favour rather of the earlier than of the later date, we will not contest the matter. The Hebrew from which it was translated was thus probably written B.C. 180, if not B.C. 280. This is a work which has disappeared as a whole, but there remains, as we have said, considerable quotations from it in various tracts of the Talmud, and in other Rabbinic writings. The fact that even when the treatises in question are in Aramaic, the quotations from Ecclesiasticus — or to give the book its Rabbinic name, Ben Sira — are in Hebrew, shows that Hebrew was the language in which the book was written. These quotations have been collected by various hands. We shall make use of two — that in Dukes' 'Blumenlese,' and that in an article by Dr. Schechter, in the Jewish Quarterly. The number of these quotations is not very large, amounting in all to what would be equal to a somewhat long chapter. But for purposes of comparison we would lessen the number still further. We would take only those quotations which are not only attributed to Ben Sira, but which we are able to identify in one or other of the three versions and those which, when quoted, are introduced by the formula, "It is written in the Book of Ben Sira," or some such phrase. When there is a variation in the quotation, we would prefer the more archaic forms, as any change towards modernization might be the result of a copyist's blunder. Even of those that remain we shall restrict ourselves to a few specimens.
The first of those we select is the fourth of the quotations brought together by Dr. Schechter, and the eighth in the collection of Dukes. It occurs in 'Hagigah,' 13 (a). This is the twelfth tractate of Seder Moed, the second division of the Talmud. It is also quoted in the Rabbinic treatise on Genesis, Bereshith Rabbi, and by Yalkut on Job. These vary from the Talmudic form of the quotation, but only to a very slight degree —
ðîåôìà îîê àì úãøåשׂ åáîëåñä îîê àì úç÷åø áîä שׂéú äçáøðï àéï ìê òñ÷ áðñúøåú "Into that which is too wonderful for thee, do not search; into that which is veiled from thee, do not inquire; upon that which is permitted, reflect: thou hast no business with secret things" (Ecclus. 3:21, 22). The versions agree fairly well with this, and it is quoted as from "the Book of Ben Sira."
When we compare this sentence with Biblical Hebrew, we at once feel how far we are removed from the Hebrew of the age of Nehemiah and Esther, not to say that of Daniel. There is a resemblance to the language of Ecclesiastes, which, with the similarity of subject, suggests that Ecclesiasticus is an imitation of Ecclesiastes — an idea that is confirmed by the name of the Greek translation. If we look at the Hebrew word by word, we find that in these two verses there are three words that are not in use in Biblical Hebrew. In the first verse we find îåôìà , "a wonder." The root ôÈìÈà occurs frequently in Scripture, but the noun above never occurs at all. The cognate form, îÄôÀìÈàÈä occurs in Job; the common word is ôÆìÆà . øÈשׁÈä , "to permit;" in Ezra 3:7 there is a derivation from it, øÄשׁÀéוֹå , "permission." In Biblical Hebrew In) would have been used. It is frequent in Rabbinic, and in the Aramaic form occurs in the Targum. òÅñÆ÷ , "business," is another word unknown to Biblical Hebrew, but frequent in Rabbinic. Buxtorf says the Biblical equivalent of this is ãáø . Further, there is one construction used which only occurs in Ecclesiastes, îÈä שׂÆÎ . In Daniel there is no instance of the short relative; it is always the long, àÂשׂÆø , that is used. Here then, in the short space of two verses, we have three words not used in Biblical Hebrew, and one construction that is found only in Ecclesiastes. These words do not represent any rare thought or thing, but have common equivalents in the Bible, and so too with the construction.
To show that our conclusion is not based on merely one instance, we shall consider the seventh in Dr. Schechter's list, which is the next that suits our requirements. It is a quotation of Ecclus. 42:9, 10, and is found in Sanhedrin 100 (b), the fourth tractate in Seder Nezeeqeen, the fourth division of the Talmud. This passage is all the more interesting because it is assigned as a reason why the Book of Ben Sire was not allowed to be read. It is (14) in Dukes. The passage is —
ìàúéðשׂà ðéשׂàú שׂîà ìà éäéå ìä áðéí äæ÷éðä שׂîà úòשׂä ëôéí áú ìàáéä îèîåðú שׂåà &icir