_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that after the return from the Exile Hebrew was at once superseded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.