Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 6.djvu/842

Rh 80G DANIEL the two positions is that of Zockler, who, while believing that the book as a whole is the work of Daniel, is of opinion that the most circumstantial passage (xi. 5-39) has been in some parts interpolated by a contemporary of Antiochus Epiphanes. He thus unintentionally supplements the theory as to the narrative-chapters held by M. Lenormant. The second part of Daniel is occupied with a series of visions and angelic communications, chiefly descriptive of the stages through which the empire of the world had passed, or was about to pass, between Nebuchadnezzar and the latter days. Of these visions, the last (x.-xii.) is the most important. In the form of prediction, the angel who discourses with Daniel communicates the history of the kingdoms to which Palestine was attached from the time of Cyrus to that of Antiochus Epiphanes. This is followed by a de cription of the deliverance and glorification of the Israelites in the Messianic period (using the word in a wide sense), which is here represented as immediately supervening en the Syrian persecution. The second vision (chap, viii.) has an equally clear reference to Antiochus Epiphanes (the &quot; little horn &quot;). What the writer can have meant by &quot;2300 evening-mornings&quot; is confessedly most obscure; and the statement that the &quot;shameless king&quot; (Antiochus, ver. 23) should fall by a sudden divine interposition (ver. 25, fane history which mark the second as well as the first part of Daniel. To the second &quot; beast &quot; of the second vision corresponds, by its description, the fourth beast of the first (chap, vii.) ; consequently both signify the Greek empire of Alexander and his successors. This is now becoming the prevalent view ; it is that of Delitzsch and Dr Westcott, no less than of Ewald and Bleek, but is opposed by the &quot;traditional &quot; theory still upheld by Dr Pusey, which makes the fourth empire that of Rome. Of the dream of the image in chap, ii., the interpretation of which depends on that of chap, vii., our limits preclude us from speaking. The 9th chapter is as instructive as it is difficult. At the very outset it suggests a very late origin for the book by the way in which the prophets are looked back upon (ver. 6, 10) ; and the minute study of the works of the prophets described in ver. 2 seems to many to point to a time when prophetic inspiration had ceased, and the prophetic writ ings (here called &quot; the books &quot;) were already collected. Meditating, like one of the later scribes, over the letter of Scripture, Daniel (or the writer who assumed his name) came to the conclusion that the seventy years appointed by Jeremiah for &quot; the desolations of Jerusalem &quot; must have meant seventy weeks of years, i.e., 490 years. The point from which and to which these &quot;weeks &quot; are to be reckoned is, however, keenly debated. Hengstenberg, following most of the fathers, takes the terminus a quo to be the 20th year of Artaxerxes (445 B.C.), and the terminus ad quern the public appearance of Christ. Dr Pusey prefers for the one the return of Ezra to Jerusalem, in 457 B.C., and for the other the martyrdom of St Stephen, 33 AD. Dr Kuenen reckons the seventy weeks from the date of Jeremiah s prediction of the rebuilding of Jerusalem (604 B.C.) to the murder of the high priest Onias III. (170 B.C.). It is true that this does not produce exactly the required number of years, but we ought not, contends Dr Kuenen, to assume that the author was a perfect master of chronology. We need not, however, dwell further on this &quot; perplexed subject,&quot; as it is more than probable that the Hebrew text is unsound. Our view of the second part of the book must be determined by the distinct, not by the obscure, passages. These show that the real centre of the thoughts of the author is Antiochus Epiphanes, and exoner ate those critics from the charge of wilfulness, who suppose the book to have been written in the reign of that king. For why, these critics ask, should one of the Jewish exiles at Babylon single out the episode of Antiochus in prefer ence to the far more important crisis of the struggle, with Rome 1 And how is it that the revelation of future events ceases to be in accordance with history precisely when we come to the passage (xi. 40-45) which relates to the closing years of the Syrian king 1 It would be unjust, however, to writers of the school of Dr Kuenen to slur over the fact that they can offer plausible historical proofs, unconnected with exegesis, which appear to favour a late date for the book of Daniel. Just as in reviewing the first part of the book we found philolo gical evidence of a post-Babylonian origin, so in the second part there are (according to this school) references to beliefs confessedly post-Babylonian. The doctrine of angels in Daniel is developed to a degree which, it is said, implies a long continuance of Persian influences. In Zechariah we see this doctrine in a less advanced stage. Even the &quot; accuser &quot; angel in Zechariah is still an appellative (&quot; the Satan &quot;), whereas the book of Daniel not only contains a full system of &quot; first princes &quot; or angels, to whom the government of the world is intrusted, but gives names to two of them (Michael and Gabriel), which, as Dr Kohut lias shown, correspond to those of the two Persian archangels, Vohumano and Craosho. The book of Daniel, too, contains the first distinct prediction of a resurrection of the dead (See Cheyne s Book of Isaiah Chronologically Arranged, p. 130, par. 5), and the researches of Windisch- mann, Haug, and Spiegel appear to have shown that this is a genuine Zoroastrian doctrine, traces of it being found in the earliest portions of the Avesta. Now, it is both natural and right to look with suspicion on theories of the importation of foreign ideas among the Old Testament writers, for experience shows that they will rarely stand a critical examination. Still the evidence for a Persian origin (or share in the origin) of the doctrine of the resurrection is so strong as to unite the suffrages of the most opposite writers. Mr Fuller, it is true, has tried to make Babylonian influences equally plausible in the development of this doctrine. But his authority, M. Lenormant, candidly admits that the Babylonian literature only contains the &quot; first germ &quot; of the doctrine which in Daniel has attained an advanced degree of development (La Magie chez les Chaldeens, pp. 155-6). We have thus endeavoured to give the leading facts on which the criticism and interpretation of this most interest ing book depend. In the present phase of the controversy, two positions only would appear to be philologically tenable. One is that so confidently maintained by M. Lenortnaut, the eminent Assyriologue, for the first part, and to some extent by Dr Zockler for the second part, which consists in assuming that the original book of Daniel has been interpolated by later hands. The other, that the work is still mainly in the form in which it was written, that its date is in the Maccabean period, and that, as in the case of Deuteronomy (according to most critics) in earlier times, and the apocalyptic writings which preceded and followed the rise of Christianity, the author, in the service of truth, assumed a name which would more than his own command the respect of his countrymen. &quot; Such a writer,&quot; thought the late Professor Weir, &quot; however much we may disapprove his procedure, yet, regarding him in the light of his age, we cannot so unhesitatingly condemn. It was not unnatural that the cessation of the voices of the old prophets should have been followed by what may bo described as echoes waked up from time to time, and chiefly at critical periods of the national history, in the breasts of sympathizing and enthusiastic disciples &quot; (Academy, vol. L, p. 70) From this point of view, we may perhaps say that the b&amp;lt;pk of Daniel is in part an attempted echo of Jeremiah , (see Dan. iii. 2).
 * f. Job xxxiv. 20) is one of those inconsistencies with pro