Αι. γι. ad MsAbiMamy as yt PM Son Nit Ant Paha 50 an Ν ΓΝ ὥς Fe, Whe FUME δι ink ἀμ ne sabia annie’ iret Ψ: Reese aN Ty 4 ΩΝ Library of The Theological Seminary PRINCETON - NEW JERSEY =P GREEN FUND Bo SI555 ω B74 Δ ENCES FEB 4 1985 THE INSPIRATION ΗΝ δ ICAL SEW OF THE BOOK OF DANIEL; AND OTHER PORTIONS OF HOLY SCRIPTURE: WITH A CORRECTION OF PROFANE AND AN ADJUSTMENT OF SACRED CHRONOLOGY. Ἧ- RK. A. ho YLE, OF LINCOLN’S INN, BARRISTER. LONDON: RIVINGTONS, WATERLOO PLACE. 1863. [The right of Translation is reserved.] LONDON: GILBERT AND RIVINGTON, PRINTERS, ST. JOHN’S SQUARE, TO THE RIGHT HONORABLE RICHARD, BARON WESTBURY, LORD HIGH CHANCELLOR OF GREAT BRITAIN, This Work Is, WITH HIS LORDSHIP’S KIND PERMISSION, RESPECTFULLY DEDICATED BY THE AUTHOR. CAO TATAROVON The ΠΤ or TTA AOSAR PREFACE. In proportion as believers feel the necessity, when called upon, of giving a reason for the hope which is in them, must they be desirous of removing any obstacles which may exist to the faith of others. Many sincere inquirers after truth have been re- strained from a thorough assent to the reality of Revelation, by finding that one of the most important prophecies connected with Christianity was not shown to have been fulfilled. This has resulted from the confusion into which chronology has been thrown. The present is an effort to establish more fully the Inspiration of Holy Scripture, and for this end to open a way through the tangled mass of dates which has hitherto hid the Christian era from view. This entanglement has arisen from the accumulated errors and difficulties of centuries. It has been attempted to invest the work, which is historical throughout, with some of the interest which attaches to con- tinuous history; and it is hoped that even its chrono- vi PREFACE. logy, though not usually an attractive subject, will not be found an exception. Heavy as the responsibility must be of any one who, with whatever view, enters upon so sacred and vital a subject as religion, the writer’s sense of this is diminished by the consideration, that the evidences here adduced have been mainly drawn, not from Christian, but from profane sources. The arrow may fall short of the mark, but can scarcely pierce and lacerate the object which it is desired to defend. The attack recently made upon one portion of Holy Writ has signally failed. It has called forth de- fenders, who with the simple weapons of Faith and Truth have prevailed over the boasting champion, who has stood up against the armies of the God of Israel*. Yet, triumphant as the defence has been, who can tell how many individual souls have been, and may still be lost, through this one man’s sin? A work once published can never be recalled— Non erit emisso reditus tibit.” Where the sap was weak and languid in its circulation, there leaves have been shaken from “ Tue Brancu,” and now in sere and melancholy ruin strew the ground. * Among the numerous answers to Dr. Colenso which have been published, the most remarkable are several papers by the Rev. W. H. Hoare and Dr. M‘Caul, also “ The Historic Character of the Pentateuch Vindicated,”’ by a Layman, and “ The Bible in the Workshop,” by two Working Men. See the last number of the Edinburgh Review. + Hor. Ep. i. xx. PREFACE. vil A mighty struggle is going on. The principles assailed are the doctrine of the Blessed Trinity and the Divinity of our Lord. It is to subvert these fundamental truths that the later Oxford movement has been originated. Its design is so to extend the limits of the Church as to efface every dis- tinctive mark of Christianity. In a public letter an influential supporter of this movement, with reference to the proceedings taken against Dr. Pusey in 1845, says, “Our object was to provide for the progress of private judgment in matters of religion, by presenting to Dr. Pusey and his friends: the alter- native of a liberal comprehension of all, who agreed in fundamental truth (?), instead of what ‘An Oxford Liberal’ rightly, in my judgment, terms ¢he scandal of Trinitarian subscription. For the rest, I am in- clined to think that the section of Liberals to which Professor Jowett belonged, in separating themselves from the older Liberals on that occasion led, as a practical result, to a contradiction of the fair latitude demanded by the age in which we live *.” By those here referred to, whether as belonging to a particular section, or to the class of “older Li- berals,” what is termed “ fundamental truth” would probably be restricted to the simple acknowledgment of a Supreme Intelligence. There are no doubt diversities of opinion even among themselves; but * Letter signed “ Oxoniensis,” in the Times, March 19th, 1863. vill PREFACE. notwithstanding these, “the latitude demanded”’ is no less than the withdrawal of all Christian doctrine as a test or qualification for Holy Orders. The aim is to pluck Christ out of Christianity; and so to convert His religion into Socinianism, Pantheism, or simple Deism. Should these views extend, then is the fate of Britain sealed. As yet the struggle has only com- menced; but it is gathering strength, and what may be the issue none can tell. Hitherto the Church has arrested the progress of this fatal evil. Hence its re-constitution is sought for, in order that this barrier being broken down, a universal licence may be allowed in matters of reli- gion. ‘This is termed “ the progress of private judg- ment” and “ the fair latitude demanded by the age in which we live.” But if there has been a Revelation from God to man, then any progress or licence of private judgment, which shall disregard this Revela- tion, can only mean departure from the truth. The momentous question raised then is, whether there has or has not been such a Revelation. So rapid of late years has been the spread of in- fidelity, and so eager are the enemies of the Church for its overthrow, that men will now scarcely brook the maintenance of sound doctrine. But if there be such a thing as ¢ruth, then are there cases in which a neglect to uphold this amounts to an abandonment of principle, and a dereliction of duty. Upon the maintenance of that religion which was PREFACE. 1X delivered by Moses and the Prophets, by Christ and His Apostles, depend not merely our national pros- perity and existence, but the salvation of each indi- vidual soul. As no part of the sacred fabric can be undermined without affecting the stability of the whole, so no portion can receive support without con- tributing strength to the entire structure. To ce- ment this is the design of the present work; if that can be called design, which in the outset was simply a determination, at any sacrifice of time and labor ἢ, to arrive at the truth on a subject of such momentous concern. May the effect be to stay the wandering, to strengthen the weak, and to afford one more assurance and source of consolation to those whose faith is established. Let Britons be but true to themselves, nor forsake Him “who sticketh closer than a brother,” and Christianity will continue to be the firmest support to the Throne, and the best safeguard to our Country. * Besides the numerous theories of previous writers, about 100 consulships, and the authorities for them, had to be investigated. In this wide field of inquiry, the author begs to acknowledge the kind assistance occasionally afforded to him by his friends the Rey. RK. Payne Smith, Rev. W. Haig Brown, Rev. G. Frost, Rey. J. Gaitskell, and 8. Birch, Esq., of the British Museum. Cuurcu Srreet, Kenstneton, April LOth, 1863. Fadi μήνα ladies hotties ποίαν atin ‘Privere mut Ἰρηδοχε meas neuter - ταν νὰ γε οἷ ont) σὲ εὐ ονντσ αν μὴ πο κα (tion Ptreedyer cle Ἰὼ) apres ον cate hiasar ἘΝ ἢ ον “ant aro ant qa finetiw μπὲ τ ἶ ἔν ifs εκῇ' μὲν | £0 Baadn!l κα jeu αἱ» » ΜΗ Σ vor iy oot het u οὐδ σἰπειἰ γὑν 1} Εἰ ἐμὰ oii te αεγυῖα οἱ = ᾿ 4} Vales 4 ᾿ rad pede δ, ἐνν εἰτῆνν ἢ ιν ὅν θυ vale end ἰ ΠῚ ear ft τὰν soak γον, ope ἐφ aleve’? 2 ‘ : Pee ἢ ἴ > if il αὐ de ᾿ jigga A ai iG Η r wl he Pao a)? ices ὅσω “γα έν. a πε... 4 pulbokiileahhes. malt 2 gepatissy ἢ i inatgias tex sed να wp wife write ts Oe ys OREO dss 3 ‘ wa wer if 7 Cig 4 ve δὶ — ey hee : seiiealoes teh sane on! shat δ Berea CONTENTS. BOOK I. CHAPTER I. General Character of and Objections raised to the Book of Daniel CHAPTER II. Language of the Book of Daniel Resumption of the Hebrew Tongue CHAPTER III. Character of the early Chapters CHAPTER IV. Age of Darius CHAPTER V. Division of the Persian Empire CHAPTER VI. The Feast and Death of Belshazzar . Chaldee Account of the same Event . Conjectural Reconciliation of the two Accounts . Real History of Belshazzar and his Death . Bearing of the Grecian and Chaldee Accounts on the Book of Daniel : d Corresponding Prophecies of Jer μὰ ἢ PAGE 16 29 30 31 32 33 94 90 38 43 Xll CONTENTS. CHAPTER VII. PAGE Alleged Greek Forms in Daniel : : : : : : . 46 CHAPTER VIII. Nebuchadnezzar’s Golden Image, and Daniel’s Absence at its Dedi- cation. : : : : ἔ Α. ; ; : . 69 CHAPTER IX. Insanity of Nebuchadnezzar . : : ‘ : : : . 80 CHAPTER X. Daniel’s Acquaintance with cotemporary History, Manners, and Customs . : : ; : , ‘ ; ᾿ . 84 Mention of the Medes and Persians . A ; : eee Imposition of Names : : : F ; ; : ᾿ 87 Capital Punishments d : : ; : : : , ἘΒ Customs of the Babylonians. : : Ξ : : rinse Description of Dress ; : : ς . : 3 sun Ds Musical Instruments : : : : : : : - Of Decay of the Babylonian Buildings . R : : Ξ 2.) aD: BOOK II. CHAPTER I. Eastern Imagery and Symbolism . : : ὃ : : . 99 Imagery of the earlier Prophets. ᾿ : , : . 94 Joel ; : : ν : ; : : ὃ : . 9 Amos. ; ‘ : Ξ : - : : : 968 Hosea, Micah, and Nahum : ; b ) ; : 7) tb, Isaiah ς : ; : : ‘ ; - - cae Zephaniah and Habakkuk : - : ; : : 68 Jeremiah : : 2 ; : : : ; ὃ . 99 Comparison of Ezekiel and Daniel . : ; : ; . 108 Ezekiel . : Β ; : d : A p ; LOS CONTENTS. CHAPTER 11. Symbolism of Daniel : § I. Daniel’s First Empire § II. Daniel’s Second Empire . § III. Daniel’s Third Empire § IV. Daniel’s Fourth Empire Erroneous Interpretations Zira of the Seleucid ‘ Application of the Fourth Empire to is Rowand . CHAPTER III. The Ten Horns or Kingdoms, into which the Roman Empire was broken up, after the Hunnic and Gothic Invasions CHAPTER IV. The Ram and the He-goat CHAPTER V. The Little Horn of Daniel § I. Various Interpretations of this Vision § II. History of the Jews from the Death of Alesandés the Great to the Reign of Antiochus Epiphanes § III. History of the Jews under Antiochus Epiphanes Unsuccessful Attempts to connect the Little Horn with Antiochus Epiphanes § IV. The Little Horn shown not to be ἜΠΗ ine § V. The Little Horn shown not to be the Turkish Power Objections to the Second Application of the Vision considered § VI. The Characteristics of the Little Horn developed in the Romans é : J ‘ : : : : BOOK III. TESTIMONIES TO THE ANTIQUITY OF DANIEL. CHAPTER I. Preliminary History ΧΙΠ PAGE 111 114 118 126 146 148 152 158 184 188 199 200 204, 213 228 242 251 274 300 366 X1V CONTENTS. CHAPTER II. Testimony drawn from the Book of Maccabees CHAPTER III. Testimony of Josephus BOOK IV. CHRONOLOGY OF DANIEL. CHAPTER I. The Terminus a quo of the Seventy Weeks § I. Decree of Cyrus § II. Decree of Darius Hpstaapis : ὃ III. First Decree of Artaxerxes Longimanus § IV. Second Decree of Artaxerxes Longimanus CHAPTER II. The First Division of the Seventy Weeks : (Should be Terminus ἃ quo continued.) CHAPTER III. The Second (should be First) Division of the Seventy Weeks CHAPTER IV. The Third (should be Second) Division of the Seventy Weeks . § I. Difficulties of the Inquiry” ὃ II. Materials supplied by Josephus ὃ III. Error in ancient Chronology § IV. Computation of Roman Consulships § V. Computation of Jewish Reigns § VI. Herod’s Elevation, and Capture of J ἘΠ § VII. Source of Errors respecting Herod’s Capture of J sfaddleni § VIII. Chief Sources of Error respecting Herod’s Death § IX. Received Date of Herod’s Death erroneous § X. Departure of Caius Cesar for Syria, and previous Hearing of Archelaus at Rome PAGE 390 410 420 422 425 426 427 429 451 456 ib. 457 462 479 481 482 506 514 525 527 CONTENTS. XV PAGE § XI. Duration of the Reigns of Herod’s Successors : . 532 Archelaus . 5 : ς : 5 : : 2 | abe Philip-Herod : d : : ς ἱ : : ὙΠ. Herod-Antipas. Ὰ ; : : : : . δ88 Herod-Agrippa I. ‘ : ; : . 636 § XII. The actual Year of Herod’ 8 ἘΞ ΠΗ. Ἶ Ξ : + ab: Partial Recapitulation . ‘ : . 640 § XIII. Widely different Views of the Christian Hira : . δ48 § XIV. True Date of the Nativity . : : : : . §44 § XV. Evidence of Early Christian Writers . ς : . 545 § XVI. Period of Universal Peace . : 3 ς ΐ . δδά § XVII. Enrolment of Cyrenius . ‘ 3 : : . 558 ὃ XVIII. Mission of John the Baptist . : : : . 606 ὃ XIX. The Baptism . : ἱ ς : - 610 § XX. Manifestation of the Messin : : a) GIG (The Third Division of the Seventy Wane ) ὃ XXI. Last Week of Years, First Division . Ξ 5 . 618 § XXII. Sources of Error respecting the Christian Eira . . 638 ὃ XXIII. Last Week of Years, Second Division . : . 648 Tabular View of the Seventy Weeks : : : : : . 656 Conclusion . 5 : 5 : : : . : Ἵ - ἴοι Appendix : : : : : : : : : : . 659 Index . : : : : : : : : : : . 667 ERRATA, Page 170, line 22, for illustration, read illustrator. — 180, — 22, for remarks similarly, read similarly remarks. — 206, — 1, for assigned, read resigned. — 259, — 2, for Western, read Eastern. — 288, — 5, 14, for north-west, read north-east. — 352, — 5, for cannot possibly express, read scarcely expresses. — 352, — 6, for true reading is, he, read truer reading is simply I. — 352, — 7, for his, read my. — 485, — 24, for preceded both, read occurred between. — 485, — 25, dele also. — 547, — 3, for Bishop, read Presbyter. — 555, — 11, for promovit, some give perduxit. et ΕΝ PEt a > ta sera ier ‘Se p ΩΣ δ. = . lh vest ἴεν: ofl ue ‘30/0 eo a! qorals 1 Wik ΠΣ = MEAT UTR fowl Yih TARE eb PA οἱ Wo πρὶ δεῖς ὙΤΑ ἃ J >, ete eesti, italsernlS τ cleeSL ts wae hia TLE ἐν ae Petr OT lnetovinl to holt 10K A : — Kearny where) ἤν ἀνρι ster melt - , : . Seat ait ον come TURE Ὁ : : ἐμὰ. δήξ: , ΠΝ nye. oft «408 Ad ; ; Avinga dt wad a καμία ea io) a , Ca aie A jer add to total pet 6 τὰν ei Β : ee gant Dyn ιν τω oF hey se) ead DS ere _ \ toe ᾿ Ue J ar τὰ ey windsor testis) ae) ΤΙΣ δου νον ἢ ΓΊΝΗ op ἢ τ ' " sine ow {1 y ΨΥ ᾽ x 2. poviviek Bove τὰ ς 24 him [f } ΠᾺῚ Sa 7 he yah | ν᾿ ὯΝ : ΝΣ vane od) Ἀπ onl 0 ae ; — ἵ : 4 - ὶ Γ 4 ha roy 7 7 ὴ - ’ Υ > ere ‘ γι fia | oo 4 4 = ‘ * pus tlts @ Ν ' 7 ¢ : \ ~ 3 » Π L : bsp S ® wag Lhd a a a¢ : ποϑμβι τῇ} basen Sei a ae “aban sb huey orale We sen Wie Aa ‘ S SRA bins lnc ier v% ," bread 7 μα EAD Wir ψῳν i ye ἥν eh », hebeniinci yest s μὴν ἐξ τίνι ι τω ded eee an ea { Veber ΠΝ a a it . one aw 7 bape: aactcha Sob ὶ ἐἀήν σα A, δροτέ gee ie ΕΣ αν. τὰ ΔᾺ i! mr er μον 7 6 ᾿ “Ὁ ; > ULULL LLL LlLOG WVALIULI, ul BOOK I. ERRATUM. P. 598, 599. An error has here occurred. But three censuses and lustra are mentioned by Augustus: and the lustrum after the forty-second year appears to be connected with the census in B.C. 28, the words indicating not the forty-second year of his reign, but an interval of forty-two years since the last lustrum was per- formed. Clint. F. H. 230.456. Dio mentions an intermediate census, though he says nothing of ἃ lustrum. xliii. 25. The author was misled by finding ¢wo verbs used, egz applied to censwm, and fect applied to lustrwm; and also annwm instead of annos, as in Suet. Aug. 26. 7. The Monumentwm Ancyranum therefore cannot be urged in support of the enrolment of Cyrenius, except to show that Augustus only noticed a census of Roman citizens, and in connexion with a lustrwm, which last was what he desired to re- cord. ‘Traces of more general statistical returns however, extend- ing to the kingdoms of the allies, occur in Tac. Ann. i. 11, Suet. Aug. 101, and in Suidas, swb verb. aroyoagn, τι. h. LILIS ucpl CUIaALLUIL UL IU tay have arisen from a wilful act of their forefathers. The books of the Old Testament are divided by the Jews into three parts,—I. the Law; II. the Prophets ; and III. the Chetubim or Hagiographa, Γραφαὶ ἅγιαι. B 2 GENERAL CHARACTER OF AND OBJECTIONS Whether this division existed before the time of our Saviour, or not, has been strenuously disputed. The learned Vossius conjectured it to be an invention of Aquila, who made a new translation of the Jewish Scriptures into Greek, and who lived in the second century. Others, particularly Professor Hengsten- berg, consider the division to be an ancient one; and maintain that it arose from distinguishing between those who were prophets by profession, and those who, not being so, yet had divine revelations made to them; between those invested with the prophetic office, and those who had merely the prophetic gift,— distinguishing thus between the munus propheticum, and the donum propheticum. On this theory the historical books, which might seem to be an anomaly, were admitted into the second division, because they were composed by those who were prophets by office ; since “ the drawing up of the history of the theocracy, which embraced at the same time indirect prophecy of the future, formed an essential part of the prophetic vocation *.” The language of Josephus respecting Daniel’s posi- tion among the greater prophets is very decided, and shows that in his time the Book of Daniel must have been included among those sacred books, which the Jews then deemed prophetical. After enjoining those, who would understand the uncertainties of futurity, to be diligent in reading the Book of Daniel, “which they will find among the sacred writings,” Josephus pro- ceeds to say of Daniel, “that he was favored with many wonderful revelations, and those as to one of the greatest prophets ...and from his writings we believe that Daniel conversed with God; for he not only prophe- sied of future events, as did the other prophets, but * Hengst. transl. by Pratten, 23, 4. RAISED TO THE BOOK OF DANIEL. 3 also determined the time of their accomplishment *.” Josephus thus not only gives this pre-eminence to Daniel; but distinguishes him, even amongst the greater prophets, for the remarkable minuteness of his prophecies, in the very particular, which, since the Christian era, has been made the principal objection to the authenticity of his writings. In another work Josephus says,—‘‘ The Jews have not a countless number of discordant books con- tradicting one another; but only twenty-two books containing the history, and records of past times, which are justly believed to be divine. Of these, five belong to Moses, and contain his laws, and the tra- ditions of the origin of mankind until his death. This period was little short of 3000 years. For the period intervening between his death, and the reign of Artaxerxes, king of Persia, the successor of Xerxes, the prophets who lived after Moses recorded what occurred in their times, in thirteen books. The remaining four books contain hymns to God, and precepts for human conduct 7. It is true, that our history has been written since Artaxerxes very par- ticularly, but this has not been esteemed by our fore- fathers of the like authority as the former; because there has not been a regular succession of peor since that time. How firmly we have given credit to these books of our own nation, is evident by what we do; for during the many ages which have passed, no one has had the temerity either to add any thing to them, or take any thing from them. So far from this, it is natural to all Jews, from their very birth, to esteem these books as containing divine doctrines; and to persist in them; and, if occasion be, willingly * Joseph. Antiq. x. 10. 5. 4, and 11. 5. 7. + It is clear that the Book of Daniel could not have been com- prehended in this last division. B 2 4 GENERAL CHARACTER OF AND OBJECTIONS to die for them. It is no new thing, for the captives of our race, numerous as these have been, and fre- quently as they have been made such, to be seen to endure racks and deaths of all kinds in the public amphitheatres, rather than be forced to utter a single word against our laws, or the records in which they are contained.” Josephus then contrasts the conduct of his own countrymen, in this respect, with heathen nations in these terms,—‘‘ Among the Greeks there are none, who would undergo the slightest personal suffering on such an account; no, not if all the writings which are among them were destroyed; since they deem these to be mere tales or narratives, framed agreeably to the inclinations of those who wrote them *.” The fiercest attacks upon the Book of Daniel, however, have been made by unbelievers. Celsus and Porphyry were among the foremost of its assailants ; and they have been followed by a host of others in this country, and elsewhere, especially in Germany. Finding the events, which actually took place, to accord so closely with the predictions concerning them, that, viewed in the light of prophecy, they could not fail to establish the truth of revelation, many have alleged that instead of being prophecies, they were historical relations of past occurrences. Thus, while the Jews have sought merely to lower the standard or authority of the Book of Daniel, sceptics have struggled to deprive it altogether of its sacred character, and to bring down his writings to a period, long subsequent to some of the events, which he describes. But as other events are delineated, which extend to a period far beyond the lowest date ever ascribed to this book, and some of which yet remain to be accomplished, the attack falls short of its desired aim. * Joseph. contr. Apion i. 8. RAISED TO THE BOOK OF DANIEL. 5 Where, however, as is often the case, only the earlier chapters are impugned, something more is required in their support, than to show that the later chapters contain yet unfulfilled prophecy. Even Sir Isaac Newton gave way upon this point, and felt dis- posed to cede the authenticity of the first six chapters. In a Scriptural point of view, it would be of little moment, whether these emanated from the pen of Daniel or not. They are professedly historical, in the sense of being written after the events to which they relate; although interwoven with those predic- tions, in the way of interpretation, which are shown to have been immediately, or very shortly fulfilled. The late Dr. Arnold, however, is by sceptics a still higher prized authority. This learned, but not always judicious, writer rejected the entire Book of Daniel as a work of real authority; although (strangely enough) he allowed, that it very probably contained genuine passages. He must thus have considered,—that there had been such a person as Daniel; that he lived at the time in which he is said to have existed; that he was a prophet; that he committed his prophecies to writing; that, notwithstanding the extreme care taken by the Jews of their sacred writings, this one book became lost; that a spurious work was subsequently composed, and palmed off as the original; that this was generally received as genuine by both priests and people; that so learned a man as Josephus, living at no great distance of time from the period of its alleged composition, had not the least suspicion of the forgery ; and finally, that our blessed Lord Himself, and his Apostles, were equally deceived when they referred to and cited this book, as an authentic portion of Sacred Writ. Infidelity is not a negative quality; it involves the belief in a state of things, and a catena of circum- 6 GENERAL CHARACTER OF THE BOOK OF DANIEL. stances, the very opposite of those, which are the foundation of faith. Scepticism is credulous in more than in an inverse ratio to the number of facts, which it presumes to set aside *. We have aremarkable illus- tration of this before us. Dr. Arnold was any thing but a sceptic, in the ordinary acceptation of the term: yet he was so with regard to one of the Sacred Books, and that not the least important of them, which he could only have rejected by a series of assumptions, far greater in amount, and infinitely more difficult of belief, than the few simple facts, which faith is here content to rest upon. His views were equally unsound on the subject of miracles ; and, if followed out to their legitimate results, must have led far into the mazes of infidelity. From this he was happily pre- served; and although unquestionably a man of strong prejudice, so much so that he could not differ in politics, without branding those who thought other- wise as wicked +; yet the energy and truthfulness of his character, his anxiety for the spiritual, as well as temporal welfare of those entrusted to his care for education; his strong attachments; and the general piety, which, notwithstanding an erroneous bias on some points, he exhibited in his whole life and con- versation, are qualities, which have deservedly excited admiration, and endeared his memory to his fellow- countrymen. Following in his footsteps, the late Chevalier Bun- sen has elaborated the idea, thus revived by Dr. Arnold. It has recently been again put forward in a still more objectionable form in the second of the “ Essays and Reviews,” by the Rev. Dr. Rowland Williams. * The Rey. Charles Forster observes,—“ There is no credulity like the credulity of scepticism, whether theological or philolo- gical.” —Primeval Language and Voice from Sinai, i. 19. n. + See several letters in his Life and Correspondence by Stanley. LANGUAGE OF THE BOOK OF DANIEL. 7 Those who do not go this length, impugn some of the chapters only. These they view in the light of simple history, of a date long subsequent to the events, which are referred to. The period, which has been assigned for their composition, is at or after the time of the Maccabees. ‘The best judges, however, from the internal evidence, afforded by the language of the entire work, consider that it must have been of earlier date. The style and character of the book, still more than the mere diction, are of a purer age than that of the Maccabees, when the manner of writing had _ be- come perceptibly degenerated. But there are other, and still more cogent proofs, showing that the assump- tion referred to is altogether groundless. CHAPTER II. LANGUAGE OF THE BOOK OF DANIEL. OnE remarkable peculiarity exists, which has been greatly relied upon by its assailants, and has, until recently, been but slenderly accounted for by its sup- porters. It is written in two different languages, part being in Hebrew, and part in Syriac or Chaldee, now generally known under the generic term of Ara- mean. It begins in Hebrew; but this language is broken off in the middle of the fourth verse of the second chapter, where the Aramean is taken up, and is thence continued to the end of the seventh chapter. With the eighth chapter the Hebrew is re- sumed, and is carried on through the remainder of the book. Owing mainly to this cireumstance, it was at one time insisted, that the work was the composition of several writers; but besides the material fact that the change occurs in the middle of a narrative, the style of the 8 LANGUAGE OF THE BOOK OF DANIEL. book is so uniform, that even opposing critics, with perhaps two or three exceptions, have at length aban- doned the notion of a plurality of authors. The whole, it is now generally admitted, must stand or fall together. After the severest criticisms by the most hostile and subtle of the German school, Professor Hengstenberg, the great champion of its authenticity, has conclusively shown that in point of language, the Book of Daniel is of the same age as that of Ezekiel and Ezra. Here that part, which is Aramean, comes in as an important auxiliary; and although the sug- gestion has not yet been offered, it is highly probable that in moving Daniel to employ a second language, the Holy Spirit had this very end in view. Upon an investigation of the Aramean portion of it, there are found to occur a certain number of He- braisms. This is a result, naturally to be expected upon the first acquisition of a different language or dialect; but which would gradually wear out, as the use of the latter became more general. It is the cha- racter however of these Hebraisms, which is impor- tant; since precisely similar Hebraisms occur in the one Chaldee verse of Jeremiah, in the book of Ezra, and in the section of the book of Esther, written in Chaldee, all of them nearly of cotemporaneous date; while no traces of them exist in the Targums, which are the next remains of Aramean writing; although there are in these some other Hebraisms, not met with in the former books, and of a totally distinct character *. The most perverse of the German critics passes over this fact, while asserting that if Daniel in his youth had been instructed in the Chaldean lan- guage and literature, this mixture of the grammatical forms of both dialects could not have occurred f. But * Hengst. by Pratten, c. 8. 5. 5. + Bleek, 2. c. 214, &e. LANGUAGE OF THE BOOK OF DANIEL. 9 notwithstanding Daniel’s learned study of the Chal- dee, his previous education in his own land, and his subsequent intercourse with his countrymen, who, during the period of transition from the Hebrew to the Aramean, must have spoken a very impure lan- guage, are circumstances more than sufficient to ac- count for his retention of a comparatively small num- ber of Hebrew forms. ‘This is the remark of Kirms%*, which has been adopted by Hengstenberg +; and is strengthened, if (as is generally allowed) we are to understand by the Chaldee in which Daniel was in- structed, the language of the proper Chaldeans, which belonged to the Semitic family; and not the Eastern Aramean or Babylonian, which was that supposed to have been employed by the Babylonian sages in ad- dressing Nebuchadnezzar, and with which Daniel must have been also conversant 7. The latter was the language of the people, as the former was that of the court, with both of whom Daniel had constant inter- course. Thus using three separate languages or dialects, it should rather have been an objection, that so few Hebraisms were to be found in Daniel, than that no admixture of grammatical forms was to be expected. But neither could this objection have been sustained, since we find just the same amount of Hebraisms in Ezra, and other writings of the same period, with no great difference in point of number. In the admirable words of Hengstenberg, “‘ Assum- ing the spuriousness of Daniel, how are we to account for the remarkable fact, that the book has every pecu- liarity of language in common with a book, composed more than 300 years before; but on the other hand ΠΡ: 20: + 6. iil. 5. 5. in fin. 1 Berthold. Comm. 1. 184. Dereser Winer Chald. Gram. 2. Hengst. Dan. ut sup. 10 LANGUAGE OF THE BOOK OF DANIEL. is so distinct in regard to language, as this book is, from the writings (the Targums) composed not more than half of this period later at farthest? How is it to be explained that in the one Chaldee verse of Jeremiah *, which, even if it be supposititious, must in any case belong to the Babylonian period, or that immediately bordering on it, we find two forms NVR and ἼΩΝ which are analogous to those occurring in our book (Daniel), and distinct from those in the Targums? It is perfectly evident that by the observations hitherto made by the opponents of the genuineness, not even a beginning is made in the solution of this difficult enigma. The change of language then of itself, and the manner in which it occurs, remain an inexplicable problem to those, who assume the composition of our book in the time of the Maccabees:—the change itself, because it is inconceivable how the alleged pseudo-Daniel, if he did not hesitate to use the Aramean at all, should, by the use of the Hebrew, have placed an insurmount- able obstacle in the way of the general understanding of the most important part of his book, and just that which was most destined to influence his own times;. . the mode and fashion of the change, because it shows that the use of the two languages was equally natural to the author, neither of them an object to him of learned acquisition 7.) So De Wette J, although in another place he asserts that the Hebrew part of Daniel was owing to an artificial use of it§. Ber- tholdt, another hostile critic, has been constrained to call the peculiarity of Daniel’s language a remark- able phenomenon ||. * Jerem. x. 11. t Hengst. Dan. by Pratten, 248. 245. t Ennl. p. 367. § Ibid. 8. 34. || Hengst. Dan. by Pratten, 249. LANGUAGE OF THE BOOK OF DANIEL. 11 Let us now inquire whether, if Daniel were really the author of this portion of the sacred writings, there was any thing in his history, which would furnish an adequate explanation of the use of the two languages, and even make the change from the one to the other appear perfectly natural. There are numerous evidences, both external and internal, converging to this point, and otherwise indicating the writer to be the individual, to whom the book is ascribed in the sacred canon. I. In the first place, Daniel appears to have been as familiar with the Chaldee language as with his native Hebrew. He had all the elements to qualify him for, and all the advantages to assist him in the acquisition of it. He was of the royal house of Judah, and had from his infancy been carefully instructed; for he was the chief among the four selected from the children of Judah, as those who were “skilful in all wisdom, and cunning in know- ledge, and understanding science, and such as had ability in them to stand in the king’s palace; and whom,” from their youth as well as their abilities, “they might teach the learning, and the tongue of the Chaldeans*.” It is probable that he knew some- thing of their language before he was taken captive: since, from the narrative in the Second Book of Kings 7, it appears that the educated among the Jews were acquainted with the Syriac or Chaldee. But how- ever this may be, his familiarity with both languages was perfectly natural in a Jew, living at Babylon under Nebuchadnezzar; but extremely improbable, to say the least, in a Jew during the time of the Maccabees. How far he profited by these advan- * Dan. 1. 4. + 2 Kings xviii. 26. 12 LANGUAGE OF THE BOOK OF DANIEL. tages, we know from his subsequent history. At the same time, Daniel was early drawn into active life, and could have had but little leisure afterwards to devote to the critical study of the language. II. His subject, and form of writing, being that of dialogue, directly led him to drop the Hebrew, and take up the Chaldee language; for the verse, in which the change occurs, runs thus: “ Then spake the Chal- deans to the king in Syriack, O king, live for ever: tell thy servants the dream, and we will show the in- terpretation *.” The change, thus taking place in the course of the narrative, is a circumstance strongly | militating against the idea of a plurality of authors, which, though at one time put forward very confi- dently, has, we have seen, now been abandoned, even by hostile critics. It may seem surprising that the use of the Syriac or Aramean should here be the subject of notice, seeing that the speakers were themselves Chal- deans. One solution of this might be, that as the term Chaldean signifies those who were devoted to particular studies, as well as those who belonged to a particular nation, these Chaldeans might not all have been Babylonians, and therefore their concur- rence in the use of the Syriac might be the subject of remark. But this is not satisfactory; and it is rather to be inferred that by the term Syriac was meant, either the language or dialect known to the priests, and more learned among the Babylonians, and which, though still used in writing, was not that commonly spoken at the time, or else the proper Babylonian, which was spoken by the people, as dis- tinguished from that in use at the court. J.D. Mi- chaelis was of opinion that there was an old Chaldean * Dan. ii. 4. LANGUAGE OF THE BOOK OF DANIEL. 19 language of Scythian or Sclavonian origin, which has been thought to be countenanced by some of the words or names in Daniel, as Nebuchadnezzar, Belshazzar, and the like, scarce to be derived from Hebrew primitives (that is, the mixed Hebrew and Chaldee in use after the return from the captivity) ; and that this language was derived from the Chalybes near to the Black Sea, and was what Daniel and the young men were ordered to be instructed in*. Modern linguists however refer the names of Babylonian gods, kings, and other persons to the Persian language; and since Persia bordered on Babylonia, such an origin would not be surprising 7. From the number of na- tions and people at this time not merely subject to Babylonian rule 7, but mingled together in Babylon itself §, many languages and dialects must have been spoken in the kingdom; and this circumstance no doubt produced its effect upon the original language of the country: yet, though generally corrupted, its purity would naturally be longer preserved in their public records, more especially as the task of writing down these, which were considered of national concern, was entrusted to the priests ||. Further inquiry into the subject, however, would be merely speculative; for as Daniel’s attention was thus called off from the Syriac or Chaldee, and still more, * Cap.i. ver. 4. See Spicil. Geog. Heb. T. ii. §§ 77—94, and Wintle’s Notes on Daniel, p. 20. + Col. Rawlinson in one of his lectures on Persia, in speaking of the extensive subterranean aqueducts to be found in that country, has observed, “ These aqueducts had been introduced from Chaldea, they were called by a Chaldean name, and mention of them was found in the earliest Chaldean inscriptions.”-—Lect. delivered May 4, 1857. t Herod. 1. 192. Josephus Antiq. xi. 1, in Apion i. 19. § Jerem. ii. 37. || Toseph. in Apion i. 6. 14 LANGUAGE OF THE BOOK OF DANIEL. as his writing assumed the form of dialogue, nothing could be more natural than that he should here adopt the language of the speakers, or of those who took the prominent part in the conversation. III. Another reason arises from the fact that the whole of what is thus written in Aramean, except the seventh or last chapter, relates to the Babylonians, and has no reference to the Jews. IV. Daniel was now high in power, being “ made ruler over the whole province of Babylon and chief of the governors over all the wise men of Babylon *.” From his position and occupation, therefore, as well as from the habit of the country, he could hardly have failed to have had a secretary or amanuensis, to whom he would dictate what he desired to write. In his own country were sacred scribes, who formed a dis- tinct profession; and it is clear that many writers, both of the Old and New Testament, employed others to write for them. Thus Jeremiah, who was co- temporary with Daniel, called Baruch the scribe, who “wrote from the mouth of Jeremiah ἡ. The Epistle to the Romans was similarly written by Tertius at the dictation of St. Paul{; and there can be little doubt that others of St. Paul’s epistles were dictated to different friends and fellow-labourers with him. In- deed, before the captivity the prophets seem to have had the power of commanding the attendance of the scribes, and requiring their assistance ἃ. During the captivity, however, this power could have been little exercised, and they must have depended on them- selves, or on those whose assistance could be casually obtained. -* Dan. ii. 48. + Jer. xxxvi. 4. 18. 32. t Rom. xvi. 22. § Jer. xxxvi. 4, 5. 8. 32. LANGUAGE OF THE BOOK OF DANIEL. 15 There is internal evidence that Daniel had the aid of a scribe or secretary, and that the individual so employed was a Chaldean, and not a Jew. No sooner was Daniel raised to be ruler over Babylon, than he pushed forward the fortunes of his countrymen and fellow-prisoners, Hananiah, Mishael or Mizael, and Azariah, more generally known by their Chaldee ap- pellatives of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, since we hear of them immediately afterwards as being “set over the affairs of the province of Babylon *;” a circumstance which excited the jealousy of the Baby- lonians, and led to these eminent men being exposed to their fiery trial. Daniel was thus deprived of that assistance from them which he had previously sought; his opportunities of seeing them being li- mited, and their avocations giving them full occupa- tion 7. Were there, however, no other Jews whom he could at this time have employed? The fact is no where distinctly stated; but as in all rela- tions having the impress of truth, where a circum- stance is immaterial in itself, and only important in its bearing upon the fidelity or genuineness of the narrative, it is left to be inferred. What, then, is the inference to be gathered? One thing seems clear, viz. that the Jews selected for instruction were not associated together in one building, but were dis- tributed among the different officers belonging to the royal establishment, to each of whom was assigned the care of a few. One of these officers was named Melzar, and to him, probably as the highest in rank, next to the chief chamberlain or prince of the eunuchs, Daniel and his three youthful companions were com- * Dan. i. 12. fig AM. τι. 17. Φ See asimilar observation made with another view in Hengsten- berg’s Dissertations on Daniel by Pratten, p. 17. 10 LANGUAGE OF THE BOOK OF DANIEL. mitted *. These lived in the same house, which there can be little doubt was the residence of Melzar him- 561. They are, moreover, distinguished among the Jews as being of the house of Judah; the others who were thus instructed and lodged, or most of them, pertaining to Israel. The latter, therefore, being already provided with a habitation, there was no reason for their removal to the house of Melzar to supply the place of those who had left, even supposing Daniel to have remained there after his elevation. It is more likely, however, that he had then assigned to him apartments in the royal palace, with suitable officers and assistants; for “ Daniel sat in the gate of the king 1." There he administered the affairs of his sovereign, and apparently exercised judicial functions ; the gate in Oriental phraseology signifying the seat of judicial authority. Now the persons employed under Daniel would no doubt be persons, who from having a knowledge of state and judicial business, which his own countrymen obviously could not have had, were able to afford him that assistance, which he must have required in his new and responsible office; and were probably those, who had held the subordinate posts previously to his own appointment. From these cir- cumstances, and likewise from the fact that no men- tion is made of any other Jews in immediate connexion with Daniel, it seems reasonable to infer that the secretary or amanuensis, at this time employed by him, was a Chaldean, and not of the race of Israel or Judah. RESUMPTION OF THE HEBREW TONGUE. A fifth reason is to be found in the resumption of the Hebrew tongue just where it occurs. The fifth and sixth chapters are chiefly concerned with his- * Dan. i. 6. 11—17. 19. + Dan. ii. 17. t Dan. 11. 49. LANGUAGE OF THE BOOK OF DANIEL. 17 torical events. The seventh chapter records a vision seen in the first year of Belshazzar; the eighth, a vision beheld in the third year of the same monarch. Was the position of Daniel in any respect changed in the interim? There is some reason to suppose that it was; and that he had ceased to be of that high consideration, and to hold the same important office, which he had done in the reign of Nebuchad- nezzar. This circumstance, however, is not mentioned, and is only to be inferred by looking carefully to other parts of the book of Daniel. If capable, therefore, of being substantiated, it would furnish one of those unde- signed coincidences, which are among the strongest corroborative evidences that can be adduced. The position of Daniel must have been greatly strengthened by the abortive attempt to destroy his three friends, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, as well as by the unhappy malady, with which, in accordance with Daniel’s intimation, Nebuchadnezzar, the mighty King of Babylon, was visited, followed as this was by his subsequent recovery, and the ecumenical letter announcing to the world the events personal to the monarch, which was circulated throughout his extensive dominions, if not beyond. But former services are apt to be forgotten by succeeding princes; and the reputation of Daniel, like that of others, seems to have waned. ‘This, however, does not appear to have taken place during the reign of Nebuchadnezzar’s immediate successor, EKvil- Merodach, the Iloarudam of Ptolemy, whose friend- ship for Jehoiachin, or Jeconiah, the dethroned and captive King of Judah, would probably lead him to continue Daniel in his high station *. But this king did not reign more than two years as actual monarch, * 2 Chron. xxxvi. 10; Jerem. Jii. 31—34. Joseph. Antigq. x. 2. Cc 18 LANGUAGE OF THE BOOK OF DANIEL: although he had formerly governed the kingdom during the mental incapacity of his father, Nebu- chadnezzar. The next king was Niricassolassar, or Neriglissar, or more properly, Nergal-sharezer *, who, according to Ptolemy, married a daughter of Nebuchadnezzar, which would make him the brother-in-law of the last monarch. Josephus varies in his account of this individual, at one time agreeing with FPto- lemy, and at another, representing Neriglissar as the son of Evil-Merodach. The former account is the most probable: but whatever may have been his relationship, he appears to have conspired against his sovereign, and to have usurped the throne. His reign continued only four years; during which time, he was chiefly occupied in resisting the growing power of the Medes and Persians, and was slain while fighting against them+. He was _ suc- ceeded by his son, Laborsordacus, or Laborosoarchod, who, though but a youth, exhibited such extreme vices, that he was killed by some of his subjects, after a reign of not more than nine months. The usurper and his son being thus removed, the sceptre, according to Herodotus, returned to the right- ful line, being assumed by Labynetus, who is described as the son of a former monarch of that name, by his queen Nitocris, so celebrated for her talents and energetic character{. The name of this king is variously given in Ptolemy’s Canon, and by the Chaldean historian, Berosus, as Nabonadius, and Nabonnedus ὃ; but from the recent discoveries in Babylonia, where numerous bricks, clay cylinders, and tablets have been discovered with the name and title of this king, these names are evidently * Jerem. xxxix. 8, 18. + Xenoph. Cyrop. 1. iv. 1 Herod. i. 188. § Joseph. in Apion. 8 20. LANGUAGE OF THE BOOK OF DANIEL. 19 identical, and were mere variations or corruptions of the real name, Nabu-nit, to which Herodotus’ Λαβύνητος closely approximates; the change of letter at the beginning of the word being merely the substitution of one liquid for another *. In the Babylonian inscriptions, he is described as the son of Nabu-dirba, who, in common with Nergal- sharezer, had the title of Rabu-emga, the meaning of which is unknown. Until recently it had. been supposed, on the authority of Josephus, that this Labynetus, or Nabonnetus, was the same person as Belshazzar 7. The ruins of Um-Qeer, the ancient Ur of the Chaldees, near to the modern Arab capital of Look-ess-Shookh, on the Euphrates, have now, however, through the labors of Colonel Rawlinson and others, revealed the fact, that Belshazzar, or Bel-shar-ezar, was the eldest son of Nabonnedus, or Nabu-nit, and was admitted by his father to a share of the government. The name, as Colonel Rawlinson remarks, is expressed by three monograms, —the first signifying the god Bel, the second, Shar, “a king,” and the third being the same sign which terminates the names Nabopelasser, Nebuchadnezzar, or Nabukudurussur, Nergal-sharezer, &c.; and when this last name is found contracted into Neriglissar, the change from Bel-shar-ezar to Belshazzar is not to be wondered at. Whether his father, Nabu-dirba, was the same person as Evil-Merodach has not yet been ascertained with certainty. Josephus makes no mention of Nabonnedus’ relation either to Nebu- chadnezzar or Evil-Merodach; but in one place gives an extract from Berosus, in which he is repre- sented as having been engaged in the insurrection against this latter monarch, while in another, after * See Gesen. under z: + Joseph. Antigq. 1. xe. 4, 8 2. c 2 20 LANGUAGE OF THE BOOK OF DANIEL. speaking of the succession from Neriglissar to his son, Josephus merely says that the kingdom then came to Belshazzar *. The general supposition, there- fore, that Nabonnedus, or Nabu-nit, was the son of Evil-Merodach, rests (independently of what is to be found in Daniel) upon the relation of Herodotus, that he was the son of a former monarch, by his queen Nitocris. But this former monarch is said to have borne the same name as his son Nabu-nit; which, as respects the first and more important part of it, appears to be correct; since from the slight variation, and that only in the termination of the name, the individual referred to, was no doubt the Nabu-dirba mentioned on the Babylonian cylinders. This identity with Evil-Merodach, however, is cor- roborated to some extent by the fact, that im Daniel’s address to Belshazzar, he twice refers to the relation- ship subsisting between this monarch and Nebuchad- nezzar; styling the latter as the father, and the former as the son; these words in Hebrew meaning equally a grandfather and grandson, or a great- grandfather and great-grandson 7. Whether this relationship, therefore, is to be traced through Evil- Merodach or not, Belshazzar was at all events ἃ. descendant of the great king Nebuchadnezzar. For the present purpose, however, these circum- stances are only so far important, as they bear upon the fortunes of Daniel. What was his position during the reign of Nergal- sharezer, and Laborsordacus is left to the dim, and uncertain light of conjecture. It may be surmised that as Nergal-sharezer’s attention was engrossed by foreign warfare, he would be content to leave the domestic government of his kingdom in the expe- * Cont. Apion. 20. Antiq. 1. xciv. 2. TeDan, vi 5529] ἡ LANGUAGE OF THE BOOK OF DANIEL. 21 rienced hands in which he found it, more especially if he were the son-in-law of Nebuchadnezzar, as he would in probability then have been acquainted with the circumstances attending the elevation of Daniel, and even with himself personally. The vices of La- borsordacus were probably of a social, more than a political character; and from that circumstance, as well as from his extreme youth, he may also have left Daniel undisturbed in the government of the province. But upon Belshazzar coming to the throne, he appears to have been distracted neither by foneien wars, nor by civil commotions; and hence it is no ‘wonder that the ordinary effects should follow upon a change of sovereign, and that the former rulers of the kingdom and chief officers should be superseded by others, and they themselves be either dismissed altogether, or sent in honorable banishment upon some distant mission. So far as can be gathered, the latter seems at first to have been the fate of Daniel, and then the former. That Daniel was thus ultimately displaced appears from this circumstance, that when Belshazzar desired to know the interpretation of the handwriting on the wall, Daniel was not thought of by the King, and could no longer have been the master or chief of the wise men, since he did not appear among the magi- cians who were summoned by the monarch into his presence. He was remembered however by the queen, who proceeds to relate what “an excellent spirit, and knowledge, and understanding” had been found in Daniel during the reign of Nebuchadnezzar. From the question, “ Art thou that Daniel, which art of the children of the captivity of Judah, whom the king, my father, (7.e. grandfather,) brought out of Jewry ?” it would appear that he was personally unknown to Belshazzar. Daniel then had fallen, and had ceased to be in his former affluent circumstances, and from 2? LANGUAGE OF THE BOOK OF DANIEL. ¢ the loss of his high station no longer required the aid of a scribe or secretary. Could it therefore be established that he had preserved his appointments during the three pre- ceding reigns, and that under Belshazzar he had first remained at Babylon, was then employed on a mission, and been ultimately dismissed, there would in these circumstances alone be an adequate reason for the disuse of the Chaldee, and the resumption of the Hebrew where it actually occurs. But the fact is left in obscurity, and its probability can only be eked out by carefully attending to what, at first sight, appears to be mere casual expressions, and incidental circum- stances. The inquiry, however, is only of importance so far as respects the seventh chapter; since the sixth, though written after Daniel’s restoration to power, is purely historical, and for that reason would naturally be written in the same language, as the other histo- rical subjects. Supposing Daniel’s amanuensis to have continued with him during the first year of Bel- shazzar, or even a portion of it, the continued use of the Syriac or Chaldee in the seventh chapter would be sufficiently accounted for. But in the third year of this king, when the vision described in the eighth chapter was seen, we find Daniel no longer at Baby- lon, but at Susa, in a different province from that, in which he had previously the administration*. He was then to all appearance no longer ruler over the province of Babylon, but had been sent to Susa on a mission, since he was there on the king’s business; and afterwards returned to Babylon, where he certainly was in the last year of the king}. It is precisely during this change of residence from Babylon to Susa, * See Joseph. Antiq. X. xi. 7, apparently referring to the same passage. + See Hengst. by Pratt., 45. 5. LANGUAGE OF THE BOOK OF DANIEL. 23 that the resumption of the Hebrew language takes place in the Book of Daniel. Not only might Daniel when at Susa not have required the aid of a scribe, but he must have often heard spoken around him a different language, or dialect from that, to which he had lately been accus- tomed*. These various circumstances would render it highly probable, that in putting on record a purely prophetical vision, Daniel should again have recourse to the Hebrew tongue. ‘This is reduced almost to a certainty by the internal evidence, afforded by the dis- tinctive style, and expressions of the two chapters referred to, when compared with each other. The seventh chapter says, that “in the first year of Bel- shazzar, King of Babylon, Daniel had a dream and visions of his head upon his bed; then he wrote (1.6. committed to writing) the dream, and fold (i.e. re- lated or dictated) the sum of the matters. Daniel spake and said, I saw in my vision,” &c. Ὁ The language of the succeeding chapter differs materially from this, and runs thus, “In the third year of the reign of the King Belshazzar, a vision ap- peared unto me, even unto me, Daniel, after that which appeared unto me at the first {.” Here, there is nothing to intimate the presence or intervention of any third person, as in the former instance; and al- though this alone would not justify the conclusion that the prophet was without assistance, yet the dif- ference in expression serves to corroborate the posi- tion primarily contended for, viz., that the seventh chapter was written with the aid of a scribe or secre- tary. Indeed, upon a closer investigation, evidence * See the opposite views on this subject of Gesenius and others, on the one hand, and Hengstenberg on the other. Hengst. by Pratt., 184. 5. + Dane veel 2. f Dan: vir. 1. 24 LANGUAGE OF THE BOOK OF DANIEL. will be found to show the great probability, that Daniel had none of his own countrymen about him at this period. In the last verse of the seventh chapter it is written, “As for me, Daniel, my cogitations much troubled me, and my countenance changed in me: but I kept the matter in my heart*.” Now while there is no- thing here to militate against the idea, that an ama- nuensis was employed for the mere purpose of in- scribing the vision, a circumstance so strongly indi- cated in the early portion of the chapter, ground 1s furnished for the supposition, that at this time the prophet was in an isolated position, and had none with whom he could hold free and unrestrained con- verse. He communicated the vision to no one. His thoughts concerning it were confined to his own breast; although from their intense and troubling character, he could not but have found relief in com- munion with some of his own nation, had the oppor- tunity offered. . When, however, the prophet was at Elam, the case seems to have been otherwise. There, probably during his recovery from the severe illness which his second vision occasioned, he appears to have communicated the vision itself to some; while in obedience to the Divine command he withheld from them the interpretation of it. He says, “I was asto- nished at the vision, but none understood it.” The persons to whom it was thus communicated might have been either Chaldeans or Jews, but were most probably the latter. As, however, it was not explained to them, they did not, as we are told, understand it. And now still stronger grounds present themselves for the resumption of the Hebrew, in the very place where it occurs. The seventh chapter, though speak- * Dan. vii. 28. + Dan. viii. 27. LANGUAGE OF THE BOOK OF DANIEL. 25 ing of changes in kingdoms, is general in its language, and mentions no country by name. The eighth chapter is different in this respect. The overthrow of Media and Persia by Macedonia is distinctly foretold. Had therefore Daniel related this, otherwise than in his own native Hebrew, particularly to a native, it might have got abroad, and brought him into trouble. But what is still more decisive to show that this chapter was written by Daniel himself, and not from his dic- tation, is this, that an express injunction was laid upon him not to reveal the interpretation, which had been given to him, when he sought for the meaning of the vision. The direction was, “Shut thou up the vision; for it shall be for many days*.” Having received this distinct command, the prophet would not have been justified in trusting even a secretary to record that, which he was thus forbidden to disclose, otherwise than as a sealed revelation, to be thereafter made known; and recording it himself, he would naturally prefer the Hebrew to the Chaldee, as being both his own language, and that in which the earlier Scriptures were written. If it be objected, that when Daniel was again in power under the Medo-Persian kings, the same result should follow as at the first, the reply would be that the later chapters are all of them prophetical; that one of them, the eleventh, is of a similar character to the eighth, and relates to the overthrow of the Persian power; that the position of Daniel under Darius and Cyrus appears to have been one rather of honor and supervision, than of engross- ing labor, as under Nebuchadnezzar; and, lastly, that the Chaldee was no longer the favored language of the country, and that, had he changed with this, the * Dan. vill. 26. 26 LANGUAGE OF THE BOOK OF DANIEL. later chapters must have been written, not in Syriac, but in Persian *. All these reasons combine to account for the use of the Aramean and for the resumption of the Hebrew, and to render the passage from one to the other, perfectly natural in the case of Daniel himself ; while the change would be altogether inexplicable on any other supposition. “ Just as little admissible” as the exploded notion of a plurality of authors “is another hypothesis set up by Krrmsf, according to which the pretended pseudo-Daniel, at least in returning afterwards to Hebrew, had it in view by strengthening the illu- sion, to make his prophecies as similar as possible to those of the other prophets. Had there been such a view, the author would have employed con- stantly either the Aramean or the Hebrew, just as the one or the other best suited his purpose; the Ara- mean, because Daniel had lived among the Arameans, and because the author, if he wrote in this language, might expect to be far more read and understood by his contemporaries, who were for the most part igno- rant of Hebrew; the Hebrew, because the delivery of a prophecy in any other than the sacred language was without precedent, and the author in his, by no means, credulous age would have to avoid whatever might evoke doubts of the genuineness, and inspiration of his prophecies. -The use of the Hebrew language, at least in the prophecies, in which even according to the hypothesis of Kirms he ought constantly to have * See Isa. xiv. 22; xxi. 4,5; xliv. 28; xlvi. 1, compared with Jer. 1. 44; li. 11—14. 505: 52. 39. 44; 1. 2. 24. 26. 29. 37, 38. 42, Hengst. by Pratt., 262 n. * ΠΟ p. 83. LANGUAGE OF THE BOOK OF DANIEL. 27 employed the Hebrew, whereas chapter seven is writ- ten in Aramean, would have appeared all the more adapted to further the illusion, since at the time of the Maccabees readiness of expression in it was rare, and what was required in a far higher degree for prophetic than for historical and didactic writing; and because, therefore, a prophetic writing composed in this language would have had the presumption in its favor, that it was composed in the old time to which it laid claim. The ground of the change of language can therefore, with Bleek * and De Wette Ὁ, be sought in nothing but the fact, that these lan- guages were so familiar with the author, that he could pass unobservantly from the one to the other on so trifling an occasion as that accruing in chapter two; and, at the same time, that he could reckon on such an acquaintance with both languages among a greater part of his contemporaries, for whom his book was immediately intended, that it was indifferent to them whether a work was written in the one or the other. That such was actually the case in Daniel’s time hardly needs proof, as being generally acknowledged. The Hebrew was his mother-tongue; he had passed by far the greater part of his life among the Ara- means; in his readers he might calculate on an equal understanding of both languages. Ezra, also, who flourished somewhat later, himself wrote in Hebrew, but inserted in his work an older history, compiled by an eye-witness, of the occurrences before his arrival at Jerusalem, written in the Aramean language, besides some records written in the Aramean, which he quoted in the original. But that the same state of things existed in the times of the pseudo-Daniel we must, in opposition to Bleek, De Wette, and others, decidedly les Ρ 212: Τρ. 367. 28 LANGUAGE OF THE BOOK OF DANIEL. deny. Shortly after the return from the captivity the use of the Hebrew language was superseded among the people by the Aramean; and although at first still known to the more educated, and perhaps in part still spoken, yet it was always an object of learned study.” The argument, by which Gesenius attempts to prove the contrary, is then ably refuted *. The Hebrew of Daniel is so similar to that of Ezekiel, that some German critics have ventured to affirm, that the pseudo-writer imitated this prophet 7. If the work were a forgery, his Aramean must also have been an imitation; since another branch of this family was in use in Palestine during the time of the Maccabees. But in that case, he would, there can be little doubt, have closely imitated the Chaldee of Ezra. This, however, is not the case, as the forms 135, 179, occur in Daniel, and those of p>), Dm, in Ezra, with other variations. De Wette has correctly remarked that what is now termed Chaldee was a mere Patois. Consequently, Ezra’s Chaldee and Daniel’s might well differ, and yet belong to the same period. There is no doubt that the termina- tion }, as in YN, these, is the ordinary Aramean plural form; while Ὁ is the ordinary Hebrew. The Chaldee of Ezra, therefore, approaches more nearly to the Hebrew, and that of Daniel to the Aramean form: but to assume that the one is the proper Chaldee of Nebuchadnezzar’s time, the other of that of the Maccabees, is an assumption destitute of all founda- tion. Ezra’s frequent use of (17,) 727, is of still further importance, as it shows that this interchange of 1 and 7 which is said to prove that Daniel’s Chal- dee is of the time of Antiochus Epiphanes, was in use also in Ezra’s time. * Hengst. Dan. by Pratten, 211. 2. + G. Von Lengerke, Ix. CHARACTER OF THE EARLY CHAPTERS. 29 How utterly wild Dr. Rowland Williams is in his assumptions ἢ, may be seen in the instance of 13, which he adduces as a proof that the author of Daniel wrote the Chaldee of Epiphanes’ time. He gives it as an instance of 7 having passed into } like bX. The word, however, is not found in Daniel at all, but is a grammatical form to represent 727, Chaldee for mis this (hic, hee, hoc). The word occurs not only in Ezra: v. 3, 4.9.12, 13; vi. 11. 15—17. 24; ii. 15; iv. 15; vi. 11; but also in Jerem. x. 11! While in the Targums we have 17, 17, Between the Chaldee of Ezra and Daniel, there occur one or two slight differences in the very particulars, which an imitator would have copied ; but which, in the case of Daniel himself, may well be accounted for, on the supposition of his having a more colloquial knowledge of the language than Ezra. The close resemblance of Daniel’s Hebrew with that of Ezekiel, is an argument of real weight, as , the knowledge of pure Hebrew, or rather, moderately pure, like Ezekiel’s, was, there can be little doubt, rare in the time of Antiochus Epiphanes. At all events, it was so rare, that the Targums, or trans- lations into Chaldee, then came into ordinary use f. CHAPTER III. CHARACTER OF THE EARLY CHAPTERS. Passinc from a consideration of different languages, or dialects, in which this valuable portion of Holy * Essays and Reviews, No. 2, p. 76. + For these latter observations I am indebted to my able friend, the Rev. R. Payne Smith, A.M., Assistant Librarian of the Bod]. Lib., Oxford. 90 AGE OF DARIUS. Writ has been handed down, the proofs that Daniel was indeed its author multiply upon us. Thus, further proof that Daniel was the author of the earlier, as well as the later chapters, consists in this,—that they form separate detached sketches of incidents personally occurring to Daniel, and his three companions, or in which he took a prominent part, and are relations of disconnected events, not having the regularity and coherence either of history, or biography. Had they proceeded from the pen of another, at a long subsequent date, this would scarcely have been the case. They would have been worked up more into a continued narrative; but so far from having this character, they have all the appearance of being contemporaneous records of such personal and important occurrences, as would be likely to have been noted down by an individual in his lifetime. CHAPTER IV. AGE OF DARIUS. A CIRCUMSTANCE is mentioned in the fifth chapter, which could only have been known to, or derived from a cotemporary. The age of Darius, when he “took the kingdom,” is said to have been “about threescore and two years *.” His age is not given in any other book, which is extant or known to have existed, and the representation in Daniel bears the stamp of original authority. Its correctness is, how- ever, incidentally borne out by heathen historians: since Darius, who, there is every reason to believe, * Dan. ν. 81. DIVISION OF THE PERSIAN EMPIRE. ol was the same individual as Cyaxares, the son of Astyages, was the uncle on the mother’s side of Cyrus, whom he assisted in carrying on the war with the Babylonians: and, when the conquest was achieved, was placed by Cyrus in the government of Babylonia, as Viceroy under himself. Ail this would make his age well correspond with that given by Daniel. CHAPTER V. DIVISION OF THE PERSIAN EMPIRE. A FURTHER proof of the record being a contem- poraneous one arises from the fact, that Darius is related to have “set over the kingdom 120 princes *.” But in the reign of Ahasuerus, the Artaxerxes Longi- manus, as supposed, of profane history, the Empire of Persia, having been extended, was divided into 127 provinces 7. Seven provinces were thus added to the kingdom by the conquests of Cyrus, Cambyses, and their immediate successors. It was afterwards ex- . tended, and divided into as many as 360 provinces f. Owing to this enlargement of the kingdom from time to time, the number of its provinces is variously stated in different authors ἃ. Now, the sixth chapter of Daniel bears evident signs of having been written by a Jew; and if, as alleged, the author of it did not live until the time of the Maccabees, he would, in all probability, have been ignorant of the earlier division of the Persian * Dan. vi. 1. + Estheri.1. Joseph. Antiq. XI. i. ὃ 2. + Joseph. Antiq. X. xi. 4. § See Xenoph. Cyrop. viii. 229. 232. 32 THE FEAST AND DEATH OF BELSHAZZAR. kingdom. He would have probably betrayed himself by giving its distribution in the time of Ahasuerus, for which he had the authority of the Book of Esther; or by making some other error in the number of the provinces, as they existed when Daniel was appointed one of the three presidents over the 120 princes, who were to have the rule over the like number of districts or provinces, into which the whole country was divided by Darius. Not only does Daniel fall into no error of this kind; but, in another chapter, treating pro- phetically of this and other kingdoms, he describes the empire of Persia under the emblem of a Ram ‘Ypushing westward, and northward, and southward.” The Medo-Persian Empire is thus represented, as history subsequently shows it to have been, in a state of progressive enlargement, and before it had received the accession of other provinces, as noticed in Esther and Josephus. CHAPTER VI. THE FEAST AND DEATH OF BELSHAZZAR. Aw historical corroboration of still greater weight exists in the agreement of Daniel with the earlier historians, and his variance with one of later date, upon a subject respecting which, looking at the several accounts, there is an appearance of direct contradiction. The death of Belshazzar is by Daniel said to have occurred during the night of his impious feast. This is confirmed in part by Herodotus, and in part by Xenophon. According to the former, Babylon was THE FEAST AND DEATH OF BELSHAZZAR. ao taken by surprise at a time when the inhabitants were feasting*. So Xenophon, after saying that the whole city that might seemed to be given up to revelry, gives a detailed account of its capture, and the death of the king. After an entrance had been effected, some of the assailants rushed to the royal apartments. These they found closed; but the gates having been opened by some of the king’s attendants, who were despatched to ascertain the cause of the tumult, the two principal generals of Cyrus, with their troops, rushed in, when the king and most of his attendants were slain f. As Herodotus was born about fifty-four years, and. Xenophon between eighty and ninety years only, after the date of the occurrence, which they thus re- spectively relate; and as Xenophon was intimately acquainted and mixed up with Persian affairs, no doubt can be entertained of the accuracy of these writers on this point. CHALDEE ACCOUNT OF THE SAME EVENT. The Chaldee historian, Berosus, who flourished about the year 270 B.c., or between one and two centuries later than the Greek historians, represents these trans- actions very differently. This portion of his history has been preserved to us by Josephus. The account given by Berosus is, that the king Nabonnedus went forth from his capital with his army to engage Cyrus, whom he encountered in the plains before Babylon. There he was defeated, and fled to the city of Borsippa, or Borsippus, whither Cyrus, after capturing Babylon, pursued him. Without awaiting a siege, Nabonnedus threw himself upon the clemency of the Persian con- Ὁ Ferod. 1. 191. + Xenoph. Cyrop. vu. 5. D 84 THE FEAST AND DEATH OF BELSHAZZAR. queror, who treated him generously, and assigned him the province of Carmania, to the south of Media, for his residence, but sent him out of Babylonia ™*. With Berosus agree Megasthenes in the fragment given by Abydenus, and also Alexander Polyhistor, as these writers are preserved in Eusebius f. CONJECTURAL RECONCILIATION OF THE TWO ACCOUNTS. These several representations sacred and profane, thus apparently contradictory, would by no means have been hopelessly irreconcileable, even without the light, which recent discoveries have thrown upon the subject. Owing to the circumstantial character of the Chaldean narrative, the writer of these pages was at first forcibly struck with the discrepancy, which the surface of sacred and profane history thus pre- sented; and for the moment felt disposed to suspect that the verse in Daniel, which speaks of Belshazzar’s death,—particularly viewed in connexion with the words, Mens Mens ΤΈΚΒΕΙ, Urnarsiy, which convey no direct intimation of the king’s death,—might be an interpolation. But a more careful comparison of the account given by Daniel, with the relation of heathen writers, soon satisfied him that there was no foundation for such a suspicion; and it is singular to how close an approximation to the truth he was brought by the mere exercise of ordinary, though anxious thought, on a matter of such high and in- teresting moment. He will just state the solution to which he himself arrived, merely for the purpose οἵ. showing what may be done by a sincere inquiry after truth, instead of giving the rein to sceptical conjec- τὰς * Joseph. contr. Apion. i. 20. + Eus. Prep. Evan. 1, 10. Eus. Chron. Γι 49. Kus. Ar, Chron. pp. 41---45, THE FEAST AND DEATH OF BELSHAZZAR. 30D tures; and then recur to that, which modern researches have shown to be the true one. His views were thus expressed, “ Although Berosus cannot be put into competition with those, who living so much nearer to the time of the occurrences which they relate, had better opportunities of know- ing the truth, I am disposed to regard his account as substantially correct, and only inaccurate in a point of little moment for the purpose of the his- torian. Incidentally however it has an important bearing upon the subject in hand. At the time of his overthrow, Belshazzar, supposing him to be the Nabonnedus of profane history, must have been of middle, though not probably of very advanced life. From the omission to notice his age when he ascended the throne, while the youth of his immediate pre- decessor is distinctly remarked, we cannot doubt that he had then attained manhood. He reigned seventeen years, and had wives and concubines; and there would therefore be every probability of his having had chil- dren, if indeed these, or such of them as were then about his person, are not expressly referred to, as princes of the empire. This appears to be the case in the passage, which speaks of the golden and silver vessels, that Nebuchadnezzar had taken out of the temple at Jerusalem, and were brought ‘that the king and his princes, and his wives, and concubines might drink therein*.’ If, then, Belshazzar had a son capable of bearing arms, all that Berosus relates might have happered to the son, instead of the father. It is independently probable that this would be so. The main body of the Babylonian army, after its defeat, retreated or was driven back into the city. But as it was usual for the sovereign to command the * Dan. v. 2. Dee 36 THE FEAST AND DEATH OF BELSHAZZAR. centre, and Babylon was a place of immense size and strength, and from the peculiar nature of its defences considered to be more secure than any other city or town, it would be most probable, even in the absence of any authentic information, that Belshazzar, the king, should be one of those, who found their way back into the capital. But if the prince royal commanded, as he would be likely to do, one of the wings of the army, his retreat into Babylon might very probably have been cut off, in which case he would make for some other walled town, or fortified post. After the death of his father, whom all accounts, except that of Berosus, concur in representing as having been slain immediately on the taking of Babylon, his followers would naturally consider the prince as their king, although he never really ascended the throne. Were he the person that threw himself at the feet of the victor, Cyrus might have been touched by his youth, and, feeling his own conquest secure, have treated him as Berosus describes. Still in placing his own king- dom of Media, upon which he could rely, between the fallen prince, and his native city of Babylon, Cyrus may be seen to have mingled the wisdom of the poli- tician with the clemency of the captor. It appears, therefore, highly probable that Berosus’ account 15 correct in all, save the individual of whom the occur- rences are related.” Such was the solution of the difficulty, resulting from the apparently opposite narratives of the Chal- dean and Grecian historians, to which the writer of these pages arrived, while yet in ignorance of the real facts of the case. REAL HISTORY OF BELSHAZZAR AND HIS DEATH. The discoveries, however, recently made in Baby- lonia by Col. Rawlinson and others have removed the THE FEAST AND DEATH OF BELSHAZZAR. By difficulty altogether, and established the accuracy of the prophet Daniel beyond dispute. The supposition that there were two royal personages on the scene, at the same time, proves to be strictly correct; and the only misconception is, that instead of Belshazzar being the older of the two, he is found to have been the younger. He turns out to have been the son, and not the father, of Nabunit or Nabonnedus, and was by him associated in the government of the country. This voluptuous prince remained with his luxurious court at the capital, while his more energetic and warlike father marched forth with his army to meet the invading forces of the Medes and Persians. Thus it happened, that while Belshazzar perished in the assault upon Babylon, as recorded by Xenophon and Daniel, Nabunit after his defeat fled to Borsippus *. He there gave himself up to Cyrus when pursued thither, as related by Berosus, Megasthenes, and Alexander Polyhistor. Both accounts therefore are equally correct ; and only vary because referring to different individuals, each of them invested with the royal dignity. That the Greek historians should speak of the one, and the Chaldean historians of the other, can readily be accounted for. With the former, the fall of the great city of Babylon was the principal feature of historical delineation; and consequently the king, who at the time presided over it, and fell at its capture, was the sovereign to whom Xenophon referred. A similar motive influenced Daniel; his only concern was with Belshazzar’s im- plous feast, and the events which followed upon it; and therefore Belshazzar, and not Nabunit, is the king who is mentioned. But Berosus and the others, who * This is supposed by Col. Rawlinson to have been the ancient capital of Shinar, which was almost coeval with the earliest Assy- rian epoch, and is represented by the modern Birs-i-Nimrtd. 98 THE FEAST AND DEATH OF BELSHAZZAR. took a wider range, and wrote not the biography of an individual, but the general history of a people, would naturally look upon Nabunit, who reigned both before and after Belshazzar, and was in truth during the jot reign with his son the real Imperator, and not upon his associated Cesar, as the principal per- sonage in the drama. They consequently fix their eyes upon this sovereign, and follow up his actions, until the Babylonian dynasty terminated with him, upon his abdication and retirement into Carmania. The clemency of Cyrus now becomes more intelli- gible. As Belshazzar had reigned jointly with his father for some years, Nabunit was probably at this time far advanced in life, and having lost the son who had been associated with him in the kingdom, was not regarded as one from whom any insurrec- tionary efforts for the restoration of his kingdom were to be apprehended. Still, in disposing of the fallen monarch, Cyrus, as we have seen, was actuated by motives of policy; and not only removed him from Babylonia, but placed him in a distant country, with Media as an intermediate barrier against any hostile attempts. BEARING OF THE GRECIAN AND CHALDEE ACCOUNTS ON THE BOOK OF DANIEL. This fragment of Chaldean history has an impor- tant bearing upon the Book of Daniel; but the im- portance of it consists, in its differing from the earlier Greek narratives, and not in its capability of being reconciled with them. Berosus, as we have seen, flourished about 270 years before the Christian era; and therefore long prior to the existence of the books of the Maccabees, the composition of which is sup- posed to have taken place from 130 to 140 years before the same epoch. THE FEAST AND DEATH OF BELSHAZZAR. 39 The tongue spoken in Judea itself was a mixed Hebrew and Chaldee, and the characters of the two languages, which were derived from a common source, bear a close resemblance. Had therefore the fifth chapter of the Book of Daniel been the work of any one, who lived at this period, he would have been much more likely to have followed the account of Berosus, whose language was his own, or nearly so, than that given by the Greek historians, with whose works and language he might have been unacquainted. This conjecture is rendered still more probable, when we reflect that the inquiry relates to that portion of the Book of Daniel, which is written in Aramean. So far, however, from the statement in Daniel agreeing with the latter, and differing from the former, the very reverse is found to be the case. There would, there- fore, be a high probability, to say the least, that the early chapters of Daniel were in existence before the age of Berosus; and, if so, they could not possibly have been written so late as the time of the Macca- bees, or even as the reign of Antiochus Epiphanes. The account of Belshazzar’s death harmonizes in a remarkable manner with that delivered by Xenophon. No intimation is given by Daniel of the siege that was being carried on. He contents himself with a simple relation of the impious feast to which he was summoned, for the purpose of interpreting the hand- writing upon the wall, and then concludes with the brief and disconnected announcement, “In that night was Belshazzar, the king of the Chaldeans, slain *.” If ever truth were stamped on any written com- position, its impress is here. What is the scene, to which we are introduced? A powerful monarch, ruling over extensive dominions, in the midst of a * Dan. v. 80. 40 THE FEAST AND DEATH OF BELSHAZZAR. capital famous for its defences, both by nature and art, entertaining at a royal banquet the princes and nobles of the land, surrounded by those whom he most loved and honored, all giving themselves up to festivity, and that not one of those drunken revel- ries, in which the Macedonian conqueror afterwards indulged, but apparently restrained within the bounds of temperance, whatever impiety, from the use of the holy vessels, or the exultation of the king, may have mingled in the feast. What has death to do with such a scene as this? Still more, what is there to associate it with a death attended by violence? Yet does the prophet declare, almost before the scene is closed,—“ In ¢hat night was Belshazzar, king of the Chaldeans, s/ain.” Yet, how improbable on the face of it does this statement appear; how wholly un- accounted for; how totally irreconcileable with the idea of a simulated tale. Unless in a narrative which, being essentially founded on truth, is upon that account careless of its own character for veracity, it is impossible to conceive but that the occurrences which led to the death of the king, would, if not given in detail, at least, have been in some way accounted for. Yet here the transition is abrupt from festivity to death. But whether Belshazzar fell by the hand of an assassin, in an insurrection of the people, or from the weapon of a foreign enemy, is left in com- plete obscurity. The only clue to the cause of his death is the brief notice which follows, that “‘ Darius, the Median, took the kingdom.” Whether, however, summoned to this by the voice of the nation, acquiring it by alliance or other rightful title, or wresting it from its former possessor by violence, is in no way intimated. To the means by which this result was attained, although his language may possibly be THE FEAST AND DEATH OF BELSHAZZAR. 41 deemed somewhat more consonant with the last of these three methods, than with either of the two former, the prophet is wholly indifferent. He cares not to inform us that Babylon was at this time in a state of siege, that its Medo-Persic assailants were silently diverting its waters, and were ready to burst open the barriers of the city. These facts we learn from heathen sources. But in turning to these, how wonderfully truth- ful do. these touches of Beat appear! From Xeno- phon’s detailed relation, it appears that the death of the king actually took place on the very night of his impious feast. After first noting that ‘the whole city was that night given up to feasting,” he proceeds to describe the unguarded state of the city, the assault upon its gates, the rush of the assailants to the royal apartments, the attitude of the king, with a drawn sword in his hand, and the slaughter or flight of those around his person. The Grecian historian next makes use of expressions, which show that these events must have occurred during one and the same night, “ When daylight appeared, and they who kept the towers became aware that the city was taken, and that the king was dead™.” The death of the king is thus only incidentally mentioned: and the particular mode of its occurrence, whether he were slain with the sword, or trampled under foot in the tumult of the fight, or in the rout which ensued, is not mentioned. Daniel’s statement, however, bears upon the face of it the marks of having proceeded from an inde- pendent source, and of bemg an authentic record of higher antiquity than Berosus; and, if of higher anti- quity, to what period can it be referred, but to that in which Daniel himself lived ? * Cyrop. Vil. έ. 42 THE FEAST AND DEATH OF BELSHAZZAR. This is reduced almost to a certainty by the records, so wonderfully preserved amid the buried ruins of Um-Qeer. Until these had been revealed, the sceptic could sneer at Daniel’s relation of the impious feast held within the royal palace of Babylon, and could point, not only to the seemingly contradictory ac- count handed down by Berosus; but demand where even the name of Belshazzar was to be met with in history. The actual king, he asserted, was Nabonne- dus, a name to which that of Belshazzar bore no resemblance; and therefore more than insinuated, that the whole of the sacred narrative was a fiction, unworthy of credit. But how stands the case at present? True it is, that the name of Belshazzar had faded from the earth. Profane history had pre- served no memorial of it. The historians, both of Greece and Chaldea, appear to have heard of Laby- nit, or Nabonnedus, alone. He it is, who, in con- nexion with the fall of Babylon, is distinctly men- tioned by Herodotus and by Berosus, and the relation of Xenophon, who gives no name, was likewise con- sidered as referring to him. We discover now, that Belshazzar’s was not a name likely to have been handed down to posterity; an associated king, he never reigned alone; a voluptuary, he performed no exploits worthy of remembrance. Having been pre- ceded on the throne, as well as survived by his father, his own share in the government was merged in his, and would have sunk completely into oblivion, but for one of those sacred books of the Jewish peo- ple, which, taken in connexion with the statement of Josephus, that Belshazzar and Nabonnedus were different names for one and the same individual, served only to raise a problem which has for ages baffled all solution. Had it not previously existed in Holy Writ, the THE FEAST AND DEATH OF BELSHAZZAR. 43 | name of Belshazzar must in the time of the Macca- bees have utterly perished. That there was no histo- rical record of it subsisting in the time of Josephus is clear; for intimately acquainted as this writer was with the various histories of his own and other na- tions, particularly the Chaldeans, he thinks it re- quisite, when about to paraphrase Daniel’s relation of Belshazzar’s feast, to apprise his readers, that this was the person, who by the Babylonians was called Naboandelus (Nabonnedus); being an attempt to re- concile sacred and profane history by that, which now appears to have been a perfectly gratuitous assumption. It is plain, therefore, almost to demonstration, that had the Book of Daniel been written at or after the time of Maccabees, nothing would then have been known of Belshazzar; and that if the account of his feast, as 1t has been alleged to be, were a fictitious story, the king, at whose summons it was related to have been held, would have been spoken of, not under the forgotten name of Belshazzar, but under that of Nabonned, which still lived in the vivid and faithful pages of history. CORRESPONDING PROPHECIES OF JEREMIAH. Hitherto I have forborne to notice the prophecies of Jeremiah relative to the same event; and have left Daniel to bear unsupported, except by the inti- mations conveyed by Herodotus and Xenophon, the whole weight of the apparently conflicting testimony of the Chaldean historians. Modern discoveries, however, having reconciled these seemingly opposing forces, it will now be seen that the prophecies of Jeremiah dovetail in a remarkable manner into all the various accounts that have been delivered, both sacred and profane. 44 THE FEAST AND DEATH OF BELSHAZZAR. The rumored, though averted, approach of the Median king in one year, followed by his actual invasion the next, are foretold* with a precision almost equal to that of Herodotus, when this historian relates that Cyrus, in his march to Babylon, was stopped by the river Gyndes, and was compelled to suspend the campaign during the remainder of the year; but that having by prodigious labor overcome the obstacle in the interval, he “at the first gleam of spring,” in the year following, continued his march onwards to Babylon 7. The battle which ensued before Babylon between the two armies, commanded by their respective sove- reigns, under the expressions, “ἃ sound of battle is in the land,” “and after that in another year shall come a rumor, and violence in the land, ruler against ruler,” is predicted{, if not with as great minuteness, yet with a clearness almost equal to that of Berosus, Megasthenes, and Alexander Polyhistor, when these relate that Nabonnedus sallied from the city with his troops, and encountered Cyrus in the Baby- lonian plains, and was there defeated by the Persian monarch. The peculiar mode of Cyrus’ attack, by turning aside the waters of the Euphrates, which had by Queen Nitocris been so diverted as to constitute the main defence of the city, is pointed out § with a dis- tinctness almost as great as that of the Grecian historians, who but supply the details of that, which is here given in strong outline ||. The feast and impious revelry of Belshazzar, and the capture of the city by surprise, are intimated 4, * Jer. li. 11. 28. 46. + Herod. Clio, 189, 190. { Jer. 1. 22; li. 46. § Isa, xiv. 23. Jer. 1.38; li. 36. || Ut sup. Herod. Clio. Xenoph. q Jer. 1. 24; li. 7, 8. 39. 41. 57. THE FEAST AND DEATH OF BELSHAZZAR. 45 if not with the minuteness of Daniel, yet with an allusion as close as that of Herodotus and Xenophon, when these relate, the one that the inhabitants were feasting when the city was captured, and the other that it was taken unawares. The fact that one of their kings should be in Ba- bylon and perish at its fall, is disclosed * as certainly as it stands recorded in Xenophon and Daniel. And lastly, the fact that the Babylonians should shut themselves up in other strongholds besides Ba- bylon, is declared as surely }, as is its actual occur- rence by the Chaldean historians, when they relate that after Babylon had been taken, Cyrus pushed for- ward to the city of Borsippus, where Nabonnedus had vainly fled for refuge with the remnant of his forces. True it is that these various allusions, when looked at simply by themselves, are not seen with that vivid- ness which afterwards becomes apparent. As with all prophetical sketches, there is a haze or dimness hanging over the prospect, which history can alone dispel. Goéthe has beautifully remarked of a very different subject, but which yet furnishes a strong analogy,—‘‘ Who is able to speak worthily of the fulness of childhood? Growth is not always mere development: the child is not always father of the man. And yet, though on this account the most ex- perienced observer cannot certainly, or even probably, predict beforehand what direction the child will take, it is easy afterwards to mark what has pointed to a Juturet.” Substitute prophecy for child, and a key is furnished to the due appreciation of predictions, which can be well understood after they have been fulfilled, although they cannot be solved or compre- * Jer. li. 30. 32. 43. 4. 23. 39. 44. 47. 49. 57. + Jer. li. 30. ¢ Autobiography. 40 ALLEGED GREEK FORMS IN DANIEL. hended beforehand. “It being,’ as another able writer has well observed, ‘the nature of such pro- phecies, not thoroughly to be understood, till they are thoroughly fulfilled *.” CHAPTER VII. ALLEGED GREEK FORMS IN DANIEL. Tuat the Book of Daniel is of earlier date than the time of the Maccabees is still further shown by the absence, or almost entire absence, from it of words of Greek derivation. This is an arrow from the quiver of the adversary returned upon himself; since the oc- currence of some few words, said to be of Greek origin, has been urged as a proof of its later com- position. When however these come to be examined, far from tending to bring down the date, or weaken the authority of the Book of Daniel, they are found to establish its antiquity in a remarkable manner. It should be borne in mind that a Greek derivation is very different from a Macedonian one. The former may be compatible with almost any age, though the latter would not be so f. Greece itself was chiefly peopled from the adjacent continent of Asia. Bryant supposed that the Grecians were in a great measure of the same family as the Persians, being equally Cuthites from Chaldea f. Others have derived their descent from the Pelas- * Prid. Connect. ii. 1. 8, in fin. + Dr. Rowland Williams is the only individual who has ven- tured to speak of “ Macedonian words’’ in connexion with Daniel. This phraseology, however, accords perfectly with the general spirit of the work, in which the expression occurs. Essays and Reviews, No. 2, p. 76. Ζ Bry. Myth. v. 24, 25. ALLEGED GREEK FORMS IN DANIEL. 47 gians *: though in any case they may have come last from Asia Minor, Syria, or Egypt. The Grecian language was not an original one, but was a branch of the Indo-Germanic or Indo-Teutonic stock}; and Greece was indebted for her alphabet and the art of writing toan Oriental source f. It has been conjectured that the Shemitish and Greek languages bore a common relation to an older tongue§. This has since received the appellation of the Aryan race ||. Testimony to the affinitives of the two great families of language, the Semitic and Indo-Germanic, which are branches of this race, has been borne at various times by writers of almost every nation. “The Pelasgi,” says Cuvier, “ were originally from India, of which the Sanscrit roots which occur abund- antly in their language do not permit us to doubt. It contains the roots of the Greek, Latin, German, and Sclavonic §.” Levesque, another distinguished French scholar of the last and early part of the present centuries, shows that the Sclavonic, Greek, Latin, and German lan- guages contain Persian and Sanscrit roots **. Furst in his Formenl. der Chald. Grammatik and Hebr. Chald. Handworterbuch, Delitzsch in his Je- surun, and Meier in his Hebr. Wurzelw6rterbuch, show that the whole of the acknowledged Sanscrit roots given by Pott are likewise common to the Semitic language. * Clinton’s Fasti Hellen. i. 1, ἄς. But see Max Miiller’s Science of Language, 184. + Mure’s Crit. Hist. of the Language, &c., of Greece, 1. 89. 78. t See the Phoenician, Hebrew, and Greek Alphabets in Jackson’s Chrono]. iii. 151—153. Also the Tables prefixed to Gesenius’ Heb. Gram., Bagster’s edit. § Philadelphia Bibl. Repert. iv. 51. Horne’s Introd. iv. 212, n. 2. || Max Miiller, Science of Language, 198. “ Lectures on the Natural Sciences. ** Etudes de |’ Hist. Ancienne, liy. ii. 73. 48 ALLEGED GREEK FORMS IN DANIEL. Nordheimer, in his Critical Grammar of the Hebrew Language, has pointed out many surprising agree- ments between the Semitic and Indo-Germanic families, both in grammatical and lexicographical points. Halhed found in Sanscrit an equal affinity to the Persian and Arabic; and observes with great force,— (1 have been often astonished to find the similitude of Sanscrit words with those of Persian and Arabic, and even of Latin and Greek; and that not in techni- cal and metaphorical terms, which the mutation of refined arts and improved manners might have occa- sionally introduced; but in the groundwork of lan- guage, in monosyllables, in the names of numbers, and of the appellations of such things, as would be first dis- criminated in the immediate dawn of civilization *.” Mure, who lays greater stress on radical differ- ences, resulting from the divergence of various lan- guages in course of time from the parent stock, than the investigations of other philologists ¢ fully justify, remarks,—“ While the Greek and Phoenician lan- guages are as radically distinct as the Greek and Egyptian, the number of kindred words in the two former so far exceeds that which any law of primeval affinity could justify, as to afford strong evidence of a further admixture by subsequent intercourse. A con- siderable portion of these words denote objects or ideas connected with a comparatively advanced stage of society, such as the more rude might have bor- rowed from the more civilized f.” * Pref. to the Bengal Gram. p. 3. + One of the most able linguists of the present day observes, “ Ag sure as the six Romaunce dialects point to an original home of Italian shepherds on the seven hills of Rome, the Aryan lan- guages together point to an earlier period of language, when the first ancestors of the Indians, the Persians, the Greeks, the Ro- mans, the Slaves, the Celts, the Germans were living together within the same enclosures, nay, under the same roof.’”’—Max Miiller’s Sci. of Lang. 198. t Mure’s Crit. Hist. &c., i. 78. ALLEGED GREEK FORMS IN DANIEL. 49 In a curious and interesting calculation by Cony- beare, he assumes the radical terms in any language not to exceed 2000, and the literal roots from which those terms are formed not to exceed 512. He goes on to show that by the ordinary method of calcu- lating chances, the probable accidental coincidence between two such mother tongues would be less than five; and then adds, “But no one can cast a hasty glance over the tables of coincidences of the Semitic dialects, with those of the Indo-European languages, without being at once struck with the evidence of the superiority in number of actual coincidences to those, which can appear at all probable as of accidental occurrence *.” Dr. Doran, the eminent missionary, as the result of his research and experience, writes, ‘It is evident that the Greeks have borrowed largely from the Sanscrit. Iam delighted and surprised at times to meet with whole passages actually Greek both in words and grammatical construction f.” Mitford remarks that “the affinity of the early languages of Asia, Africa, and Europe has been no- ticed by Sharpe on the Origin of Languages, Mon- boddo on the Origin of Language, Pownall on the Study of Antiquities, and Volney in the Narrative of his Travels in Egypt and Syriaf.” He then men- tions Sir William Jones’s works, and proceeds, “ Re- ferring however to all these, I will just farther observe * Lectures on Theology. + Letter from Travancore, 1830. { As further authorities, see Grotius’ Comm. in Gen. xi. 1; Count de Gebelin’s Monde Prim. Orig. du Langage; De Guigne’s Mém. de ]’Acad. des Inser. xxix. 7; Pritchard’s East. Orig. of Celtic Dial. 177 ; Gesen. Heb. Gram., Bagster’s edit. Introd. p. 3; Max Miiller’s Science of Language, 133, 134. 150. 157. 160—165; Conybeare’s Lectures on Theology, and numerous other works. E 50 ALLEGED GREEK FORMS IN DANIEL. here that the Greek and Latin languages are of ac- knowledged Oriental origin; that [even] the Teutonic dialects, notwithstanding their coarseness, have a manifest affinity with the Greek and Latin; that the Celtic have in many characteristical circumstances a close analogy to the Hebrew, and its allied Oriental tongues.” He then notices the Welsh, and “its par- ticular resemblance to the Arabic in its innumerable forms for plurals of nouns*.” And concludes, “ Whence arose the strong characteristical differences which distinguish the Greek and Latin from their parent languages of the East, and how, among the Western nations the Celtic, the most westerly, held the Oriental character, while the Persian, eastward among the Orientals, acquired a middle character between the more westerly Asiatic and the Greek, are problems which may still excite curiosity 7." Such is the concurrent testimony of the most learned philologists, given for the most part without re- ference to Holy Scripture, as regards the general coin- cidence of the Semitic and Indo-Germanic languages. If the radical forms and general structure of these two families thus correspond, it can scarcely be requi- site to descend from generals to particulars. Yet since it is in respect of these, that the attack has been directed against the Book of Daniel, it may not be super- fluous to show specifically how these also coincide. The earliest testimony on the subject ascends almost to the age of Daniel himself, and is no less * A remarkable illustration of this is derived from the centre of Africa: “ Mrs. Logie, a Welsh lady, the wife of a British consul residing at Algiers, was astonished at hearing in the bazaar some people from the interior conversing in a language so similar to the Welsh, that she could understand much of what they said: she then addressed them in her native tongue, and found that she could make herself intelligible to them.’”’—Archzologia, xvi, 119. + Hist. Gr. i. 124, n. 44. ALLEGED GREEK FORMS IN DANIEL. ol than that of the father of Grecian history. Hero- dotus takes notice of a similarity between the Greek and Persian languages, observing that “ not only the Tonian festivals, but those of all the Hellenes without exception, end in one and the same letter, semlar to the Persian names ;” κατάπερ τῶν [Πεῤσέων τὰ οὐνόματα τ: Various names or epithets of deities, mythological persons, and places, not referable to Greek etymology, are significant and appropriate when tested by that of the Semitic dialects 7. Allusion to numbers is made by Halhed in the pas- sage quoted above. These, however, have been more fully investigated by Lipsius, who has shown the entire agreement of the two families on the subject of numerals 7. Articles of clothing are also common to both. Thus Χιτών, 3nd, is the same in Greek, Hebrew, Syriac, Arabic, and Sanscrit. It originally meant any garment made of flax: though in recent times it has been transferred to cattun, cotton. So pw, a garment of hair-cloth, besides occurring in the Oriental tongues, appears twice in Greek as σάκκος and cayoc: twice in Latin, as saccus and sagum ; and also in the modern German sack, French sac, and English sack. The names of many animals equally point to a common origin of these languages. For instance, Taurus in Latin, and the Hebrew ἢ, Thor, the first animal trained for man’s use, have a common derivation. The same is even more striking in the names of spices, which are every where the same, having been introduced with the things themselves ἃ. So many and various are the resemblances, both * Herod. i. 148. + Mure’s Crit. Hist. i. 78. { Letters to Chevalier Bunsen in 1835. § In some of these proofs I am further indebted for several valuable suggestions to my friend, Rev. R. Payne Smith. 2 52 ALLEGED GREEK FORMS IN DANIEL. structural and verbal, to be found in these two families of language, that it would require a strong case indeed to fasten upon the Book of Daniel a later date on any philological grounds. The imputation of a Greek origin extends to ten words, or more properly speaking to nine, two of them being the same word in its different formation of verb and substantive. It is observable that all of these occur in the chapters which are written, in Aramean. The Hebrew chapters contain none; a circumstance which, with the characteristic perverseness of the more determined sceptics, is itself made a ground of attack, Griesinger insisting that the author here avoided Greek words for the very purpose of decep- tion, in order thereby to give to his prophecies the appearance of antiquity *! The words referred to, with their alleged Greek originals, are as follows :— 1. DYDD, πρότιμοι, princes, or those had in honor. Dan. 1. 3. 2. DIND, φθέγμα, sound, or voice. Dan. iii. 16; iv. 14. Ὁ. MII, νόμισμα; eift in Chaldee, but in the Greek, coin or receipt from customs. Dan. 11. 6. 4. wD, πέτασος, in Chaldee coat, but in the Greek, a broad hat or covering for the head. Dan. 111. 21. 5. in, κηρύσσειν; and NID, κηρυξ, the one to pro- claim, and the other a herald. Dan. v. 29; iii. 4. 6. NDAD, (sab-b’cha,) σαμβύκη, sackbut, an instru- ment with strings, resembling the harp. Dan. i. 5. 10. 15. 7. pIwIDD, Psanterin, ψαλτήριον, psaltery, supposed to be also a stringed instrument, but this is not certain. 8. MIDOD, or MID], συμφωνία, dulcimer, or in the Greek, symphony. * Page 28. ALLEGED GREEK FORMS IN DANIEL. 53 9. Damp, κίθαρις, or κιθάρα, harp, or rather, guitar. Dan. iii. 5. 10. 15. The Greek words have been given by some writers as an approach to the original words, but they are by no means identical with these. Of the Aramean words, numbers 1 and 2 (the latter of which occurs also in Ezra) are now admitted to be of Persian origin. No. 3 is allowed to be either Persian or else formed from a Chaldee root, neither of which has the meaning of money conveyed by the Greek, a sig- nification manifestly unsuitable to the passage in Daniel. No. 4 is from the Syriac petsho, and the alleged Greek origin has been rejected by etymologists. No. 5 is from a widely diffused root in Chaldee and Syriac and the Indo-Germanic languages generally ; and though cognate with the Persic Zend Khresio, to call from behind, to shout, its origin is probably Semitic. Anquetil gives AKhresio as a substantive, and translates it clamans, preeco, Zendavesta i. 442. No. 6 is the name of an instrument of great antiquity, the origin of which was foreign to the Greeks, as was the name itself; facts distinctly noticed by the Greeks themselves, as well as by other writers presently quoted *. So far the etymologies of Hengstenberg have been approved by Gesenius in his Thesaurus f. No. 7 has an accidental similarity of sound { with the Greek word ψαλτήρ, from which De Wette would derive it. ‘This, however, never signifies a stringed instrument, but always the player upon it. The * Strabo, 1.x. Athenzus,].iv. Clemens Alex. Strom. 1. 1.307. + Hengst. Dan. by Pratten, ὁ. 11. p. 9, &e. t In the Semitic tongues “a great number of stems and roots resemble in sound those of the Indo-Germanie class.’’—Introd. to Gesen. Heb. Gram., Bagster’s edit. p. 3. δέ ALLEGED GREEK FORMS IN DANIEL. identity with ψαλτήριον can as little be made out. Under γ 205 Gesenius indeed assigns to it a Greek derivation, and assumes it to have been introduced by the Macedonian conquest, because of the substitution of m for 1. But the same Gesenius under 2, says that this letter is interchangeable with any of the liquids, and especially with }: and he there gives Psanterin*, among others, as a word with which the Macedonians had nothing to do. Among Gesenius’ examples he cites Herodotus, who gives the name of Labynetus to the Nabonnedus of Berosus, and others of the Chal- dees. As this change of liquids was thus common among the Greeks; so it was one customary with the Orientals in adopting Greek words, and did not come through the Macedonians. They could not, in fact, have pronounced Psalterin ; though with a tendency to nasalize every thing, they cculd manage such a word as Psanterin tolerably well. The change of » and / is common to the whole Dorian race; and, independently of the Greeks, it is a euphonic rule among the Semites. No: 8. The second or alternative Aramean word given to this instrument in Daniel shows a cor- respondence with the Syriac, tzephunyo, tuba, tibia, and leads to that as it source; while συμφωνία in the - Greek almost invariably has the sense of symphony, a concord of sounds, or else a concert of vocal or instru- mental music, or a union of both. Only one Greek writer uses the word for a musical instrument; and this writer is Polybius; who travelled to Carthage and other Tyrian or Persian colonies, where he is likely to have met with it. Carthage was founded by the Tyrians rather less than a century and a half after the building of the Temple by Solomon, or about three centuries before the time of Daniel; and at its capture by the Romans under Scipio Africanus, Poly- * No Chaldee scholar would write Psanterion, as Dr. Rowland Williams has done, Essays and Reviews, No. 2, p. 76. ALLEGED GREEK FORMS IN DANIEL. δὸ bius was present. Gesenius, a critic somewhat hos- tile, has, indeed, attributed this word to Greece, but Parkhurst is doubtful. Meier, the best Hebraist of the Tiibingen School, says that it is decidedly of Se- mitic origin*. Its true form was probably np. If the Greeks ever called the instrument συμφωνία, it must have been because this was something like its Semitic name, and from the common tendency to give a familiar designation to an object previously un- known f. * Hebraisches Wurzelworterbuch, p. 719. + In his anxiety to disprove the authenticity and inspiration of the Book of Daniel, Dr. Rowland Williams terms symphonia and psanterion (!) not Greek, but Macedonian words. He intimates that there are several such words, since he gives these two by way of ex- ample only. His language is, “ Not only Macedonian words, sucH as symphonia and psanterion (!), but the texture of the Chaldee, with such late forms, &e. [the fallacy of which latter assertion is pointed out supra p. 29], remove all philological and critical doubt as to the age of the book.”—Essays and Reviews, p.76. Yet this hardy assertion proceeds from the same pen, which had just before written, “ How unlike is English to Welsh, and Greek to Sanserit, yet all indubitably of one family of languages! What years were required to create the existing divergence of members of this family !”—Ib. 54. And again, referring to Baron Bunsen, “ He shows what Egypt had in common with that primeval Asiatic stock, represented by Ham, out of which as raw material, he con- ceeives the divergent families termed Indo-European and Semitic (or the kindreds of Europe and of Palestine) to have been later developed.” —Ib. 55, 56. Dr. Rowland Williams thus clearly evinces his knowledge of the affinitives between the Greek and Eastern languages. When, therefore, he affirms the existence of Macedonian words in the Book of Daniel, as if this were an established fact, but gives no intimation that the only two, which he cites as examples, are the names of musical instruments, one of them, at least, having a very different signification from the Greek,—he abandons all fair argu- ment, and trusts to a want of acquaintance with the Eastern lan- guages, on the part of the great majority of his readers, for escape from detection. He must have known that he had no authority 56 ALLEGED GREEK FORMS IN DANIEL. No. 9. This is the only word out of the whole number for which a root has not been found, and it is therefore alleged that the word must be Greek. The terminal ic or a, however, in the Greek, seems to denote a word which was originally derived from another language, and has been modified or lengthened in its passage. The instrument itself is of remote antiquity, and probably existed for several ages before Greece had acquired a regular polity, or was even inhabited*. It is one of the two or three instruments, the names of which are given in the Iliad. Homer, however, does not describe it as an instrument in use among the Greeks, but places it in the hands of Paris, who is re- proached by Hector for the use of it, at a time when he ought rather to have been grasping the sword, or spear of the warrior. Another instrument of a similar character, the φόρμιγξ, both appearing to be much the same as the λύρα, the lyre or harp f, is made the solace of Achilles during his resentful seclusion from the Grecian host. This was, no doubt, the larger and grander instrument of the two; and Homer has shown his usual art, in assigning the one to the effeminate Paris, and the other to the warlike son of Thetis; but it is observable that he attributes a foreign derivation to both. The φύρμιγξ of Achilles is described as one of the trophies of this hero, taken upon the assault for the allegation, except, in the case of one of these words, an innuendo of Gesenius, which in another part of the same work is contradicted by Gesenius himself. As regards the other, uo Hebrew scholar ever dreamt of asserting a Macedonian origin ; and Meier, one of the best of his own school, declares that it is unquestionably Semitic. * “The Greeks bad made some progress in the arts of civilized life before their first settlement in Hellas.””—Mure’s Crit. Hist. &c., 1. 65. + Smith’s Dict. Gr. and Rom. Antiq. tit. Lyra. ALLEGED GREEK FORMS IN DANIEL. 57 and pillage of the Asiatic Thebé, the capital of Cilicia, lying to the south-east of Troy, and extending towards Assyria. But besides the more direct testi- mony thus to be gathered from Homer, there is a fur- ther circumstance noticed by him which tends to the same conclusion. The lyre or harp of Achilles is described as an instrument of elaborate workmanship, and partly constructed of silver. The Greeks were in too rude a state at this period to have fabricated so costly and elegant. an article as this; and therefore Homer’s description of it, and the foreign origin which he ascribes to it, are found admirably to coin- cide*. It thus appears that it was from no casual circumstance or poetic licence, that these instruments were represented by the Grecian bard, as either being used in, or having been brought from a foreign country. The evidence however does not rest here. The Greeks made it no secret that they had been in the habit of adopting musical instruments from other na- tions. Some are distinctly mentioned by name, while others are referred to in general terms only. On this point there is a concurrence of testimony, that at dif- ferent periods various instruments were introduced into Greece from other countries. Tov ὀργάνων ἔνια βαρβάρως ὠνόμασται, νάβλα, καὶ σαμβύκη, ἢ καὶ βάρβιτος, καὶ μαγάδις, καὶ ἄλλα πλείω. ‘Some of the instruments are called by foreign names, as νάβλα, σαμβύκη or βαρ- βιτος, and payadic, and several others 7. So Athenzus, speaking of only one of these instruments, but being one of those mentioned in Daniel, informs us from an earlier writer,—Svpwv εὕρημα εἶναι τὴν καλουμένην λυρο- φοίνικα σαμβύκην, “ That the Sambuca, which is called the Phenician lyre, was an invention of the Syrians 1." * Thad in. 54; ix. 186—188. 193, 194. + Strabo, 1. x. ¢ Athen. 1. iv. 58 ALLEGED GREEK FORMS IN DANIEL. The foreign origin of the Sambuca is likewise noticed by Clemens Alexandrinus*. The same may be col- lected from Suidas; while the performances known as the σαμβυκίστριαι are said to have been only known to the early Romans as luxuries introduced into their country from Asia f. The particular instrument here spoken of was of an analogous character to the κίθαρις, and bore a close resemblance to the φόρμιγξ. We may, indeed, be unable to discover whether the κίθαρις was one of the instruments thus in general terms referred to by Strabo; but the fact that the Greeks had been accustomed to make the instruments of other nations their own is strongly corroborative of the intimations thrown out by Homer. Indeed the mere circumstance of its being mentioned by Homer at all. goes a great way to prove that it was not of native manufacture. The higher the antiquity of any word, the more certainly is it derived from a parent source; and as respects No. 9, there can be little doubt, though no actual root for it may be found, that like the common Greek word θάλασσα, Atticé θάλαττα, which is derived, on the authority of Berosus, from the Chaldee Tha- latth 1, Θαλάτθ, the word ὉΠ was of Chaldean, Phee- nician, or Persian origin. It has been supposed that the names of musical instruments were in the first instance onomapoetic, and therefore might be analogous in languages totally distinct §. The name of such an article as a musical instrument at once becomes naturalized on its intro- duction into a country. Thus the very instrument to * Strom. i. 307. + Plaut. Stich. ii. 3.57. Liv. xxxix. 6. + Syncel. Chron. Euseb. Chron. p. 6. Bryant’s Myth. iii, 252. Cory’s Fragm., p. 25. § Philad. Bibl. Repert. iv. 51. Horne’s Introd. iv. 212, n. 2. ALLEGED GREEK FORMS IN DANIEL. 59 which our attention is mainly directed has travelled with its name, as a label or appendage, throughout every country of Europe. The κίθαρις of the Greeks (however derived) has been successively introduced into Italy, France, Great Britain, Germany, and the Spanish peninsula, and the identical Greek word may be distinctly traced in the Cithara of the Romans, the Citharra of the Italians, the Gwitare of the French and Germans, and the Guitar of the English, with very slight modifications in any of these languages. This, at least, shows that it is a word of ready adap- tation. It cannot, therefore, be reasonably doubted that the pimp of the Babylonians had its birth- place, not in Greece, but in some country still further east, as in the case of the Sambuca or lyre. So close, indeed, was the resemblance between these two instru- ments, that the two names are often used interchange- ably. Testimony to the same effect is furnished from a totally different quarter. An instrument having all the appearance of the κίθαρις may still be seen depicted on the walls of various structures in Egypt, indicating its existence in that country for a period probably long anterior to the time of Daniel *. But, could it be established that the κίθαρις owed its origin solely to the inventive genius of the Greeks, not a step would have been gained in the attempt to depress the Book of Daniel by some four centuries in point of date. To .accomplish such a task, it should be shown that Daniel lived at a period when there was an impossibility, or, at least, little probability that a musical instrument of Greek invention should have found its way to Babylon. But so far from there being the slightest foundation for such a posi- tion, history exhibits a state of commerce, and a pro- * Wilkinson’s Manners and Customs of the Egyptians, i. 232-—239. 60 ALLEGED GREEK FORMS IN DANIEL. gress in the arts and sciences, with which it would have been perfectly compatible, that every musical instrument known to the Babylonians should have been derived from Greece, and this state of things subsisted for centuries before the time of Daniel. Between Greece and Babylonia lay Tyre, which at the foundation of Solomon’s Temple in the year 1012 B.c. was already famous for its commerce and manu- factures, including instruments of music *. She is styled by Ezekiel ‘a merchant of the people for many isles 7. Situated like Greece on the Mediterranean, its shores were the constant resort of its mariners; but far from allowing themselves to be shut in by its waters, the Tyrians passed through the pillars of Her- cules, and sailed to the remotest confines of the west; while through the Hellespont and the Bosphorus they gained the Euxine and the Palus Meotis, or Sea of Azoff, and thence extended their commerce to Meso- potamia, Persia, the remotest parts of Asia, and even to Indiaf. But with such a neighbouring country as Assyria they had frequent intercourse by land; and the city of Nimrod offered a ready mart for whatever could contribute to the luxury or amusement of its inhabitants. The Assyrians themselves carried on a most extensive commerce, which is thus noticed in Scripture, “Thou [Nineveh] hast multiplied thy mer- chants above the stars of heaven §.” The lust of conquest, which at some period of their history seizes upon all nations in a state of imperfect civilization, brought the two countries into still closer contact. After invading the Holy Land, and carrying upon the capture of Samaria the ten tribes into cap- tivity, the Assyrians overran the country of the Phi- * Ezek. xxviii. 13. + Ezek. xxvii. 3. 1 See Herod. i. 1. § Nah. iii. 16. ALLEGED GREEK FORMS IN DANIEL. 61 listines, and then turning northwards took the city of Sidon, and encamped before Tyre. Having caused large vessels to be constructed, they besieged this famous city both by sea and land for five years, at the expiration of which the Tyrians overthrew their assailants in a great naval battle, after which the siege languished, and ultimately the Assyrian army withdrew. About half a century later the Assyrians again turned their arms against the rival city of Babylon, then rising into renewed greatness, which they took. The captured city, however, at this time rose superior to its evil fortune, and, taking the place of Nineveh, became the great capital and emporium of the East. With its inhabitants both before and after its capture the Tyrians carried on a considerable traffic, until at length the Babylonians in their turn overflowed their borders, and, in fulfilment of LEzekiel’s prophecy, drew their sword against Egypt *; and then, as other prophecies had foretold, after sweeping repeatedly over Judea, destroying the temple and city of Jeru- salem, and leading away captive the children, not of Israel only, but of Judah, including Daniel and his companions, made-Tyre a second time the object of attack. Such, however, was the valour and obstinacy of the Tyrians that this siege was protracted for the extraordinary space of thirteen years, when after “every head was made bald, and every shoulder was peeled +,” from the constant wear of helmet and armour, and the unremitting and prolonged labor of every individual engaged, the renowned city of Tyre fell before the army of Nebuchadnezzar ; another prophecy of Ezekiel thus being fulfilled 1. * Ezek. xxx. 4; xxxii. 11, 12. + Ezek. xxix. 18; xxx. 4. 1 Ezek. xxvii. 32. 62 ALLEGED GREEK FORMS IN DANIEL. It was just after this great achievement, and the easy conquest of Egypt which followed it, that the events recorded in the early chapters of Daniel are related to have occurred. Had the Babylonians en- joyed no previous opportunity of acquiring a know- ledge of Tyrian or Egyptian art, this surely was a time when every article of taste would be transported as a trophy to Babylon, and when the victorious monarch would celebrate his victories above all things, by means of those instruments, the sounds of which were so well calculated for the hour of triumph, and the gratification of his people. At such a period of universal joy, trophies of this kind, which abounded in Tyre, and had been there manufactured almost from her very foundation *, would be sure to attract universal attention. If therefore we could conclude, which however the facts will not warrant, that an instrument like the κίθαρις was previously unknown to the inhabitants of Babylon, the very time when the Aramean ὉΠ is introduced by Daniel (whether the same as the Grecian κίθαρις, or not, ) would be that, in which it would have been most likely to be brought forward, and noticed in any contemporaneous record bearing upon the history of the country. Yet ere this, her first overthrow, Tyre had flou- rished as the merchant city of the earth for a period of unknown duration, though certainly extending to 500 years, during which she sent forth and planted colonies in almost every part of the globe. The civili- zation of Egypt reached still further backwards, and was coeval with the earliest records of the human race. But without extending our views into such remote antiquity, long before the fall of Tyre Greece had been famous for its poetry and music. Homer * Ezek. xxviii. 13. ALLEGED GREEK FORMS IN DANIEL. 63 and Hesiod had already for about three centuries and a half excited the admiration of mankind, while Ar- chilochus the inventor of Jambic verse, Tyrtzus, Theocles of Messenia, Alcmenus, Alczus, Sappho, and others, had at various intervening periods added to the poetic celebrity of their country. Besides this brilliant array of poets, history has preserved the names of at least two individuals, Thaletas and Arion, who were distinguished in the sister art of music: the first of whom flourished about a century, and the latter nearly half that period before the time of Daniel. Long, however, before either of these appeared on the scene, and so far back as the Trojan war, or at least the days of Homer, the Greeks pos- sessed, or were acquainted with a variety of musical instruments, including this very κίθαρις, and had prac- tised choral and antiphonal singing. Musical in- struments were therefore common in Greece for several centuries before Daniel came into existence. These, like other things, were no doubt articles of commerce, since the Greeks themselves had their markets for the sale and purchase of goods *, which were either sought out by the Tyrians, or brought to them by others. It was not alone that the Ty- rians traded with the various nations of the earth; many of these themselves resorted to Tyre, by far the greatest emporium of antiquity, as a ready mart for their products and merchandise. Foremost among them were the inhabitants of Javan (Ionia), and the isles of Greece on the one side, and they of Damascus, Syria, Babylonia, Judea, Arabia, and the whole of Asia on the other: Babylonia being also reached through the Euxine, the Sea of Azoff, and various other chan- nels f. * Herod. i. 153. + See Ezek. xxvii. xxviii. passim. 64 ALLEGED GREEK FORMS IN DANIEL. The ancient intercourse carried on between the Greeks and Babylonians is mentioned by Strabo, and Quintus Curtius, as well as by Berosus. Cyrus him- self made an expedition to Lydia: and from the remotest times an active caravan trade was carried on across the whole of Asia. Καὶ τῴ Διονύσῳ τὴν ᾿Ασίαν ὅλην καθιερώσαντες μέχρι τῆς Ivducne, ἐκεῖθεν καὶ τὴν πολλὴν μουσικὴν μεταφέρουσι. “ And having already de- dicated to Bacchus the whole of Asia, as far as India, they transport from thence much that relates to art *.” Josephus also, referring to the antiquity of his own and other nations, says, “that the Phcenicians came early by trading and navigation to be known to the Greeks, and by their means the Egyptians became known to the Greeks also, as did all those nations from whom the Pheenicians in their long voyages over the seas transported wares to the Greeks}. The Medes also, and the Persians became well known to them: and this was especially true of the Persians, who led their armies as far as the other continent, i.e. of Europe. The Thracians were likewise known to them by the nearness of their countries, and the Scythians by means of those that sailed to Pontus {.” Thus the progress of the arts, and the stream of commerce were such, as necessarily to lead to the interchange, through Tyre and other channels, of various products and articles of manufacture. As Babylonia, and not Greece, was the opulent country, it is certain that after the fall of Assyria she must have been one of the chief recipients or purchasers of those commodities which, like instruments of music, contribute to the amusement of a rich and luxurious people. Not only is Babylonia depicted as “a land * Strabo, x. 471. + See Herod. 1. 1. t{ Cont. Ap. i. 12. ALLEGED GREEK FORMS IN DANIEL. 6d of traffic,” and Babylon as “a city of merchants *,” but their love of, and devotion to music are strikingly evinced by a passage in Isaiah, where the king of Babylon is represented as going down to Hades with the soothing accompaniment of musical instruments f. In addition to the continued flow of commerce, there were such frequent interchanges of empire among the Assyrians, Babylonians, and also the Medes and Persians, in the various heavings to and fro of these different nations, and such a general admixture of the people at almost all periods of their history, that what was known of these arts in any one of these countries was also likeiy to be known in the others 7. Two centuries and a half before the age of Daniel it appears that the Chaldee language was familiar to the more educated of the Jews, as that of the latter was to the superior class of Assyrians. ‘“‘ Speak, I pray thee,” said the officers of king Hezekiah unto Rab-shakeh, in the vain attempt to prevent the insolent summons and taunts of this haughty commander of Sennache- rib’s host from being understood by the people at large,—“ Speak, I pray thee, to thy servants in the Syrian language; for we understand it; and talk not with usin the Jews’ language in the ears of the people that are on the wall §.” Nearly 1000 years previously to this, or about 1200 years before the time of Daniel, Laban and Jacob could freely enter into converse. When Laban, after pursuing Jacob, made a peaceful compact with the patriarch, a heap of stones was set up as a witness between them: “and they did eat upon the heap. * Ezek. xvii. 4. 1 Isa. mvs 11: 1 See Alex., Polyh. and Abyd. in Euseb. Ar. Chron. 41—53, and Herod. i. 106. § 2 Kings xviii. 26. 66 ALLEGED GREEK FORMS IN DANIEL. And Laban called it Jegar-sahadutha, but Jacob called it Galeed. And Laban said, This heap is a witness between me and thee this day. Therefore was the name of it called Galeed*.” Where both the Chaldee of Laban, and the Hebrew of Jacob have precisely the same meaning,—a heap set up for a witness. From a passage in Josephus it may be inferred that a literary intercourse was carried on between Pheenicia and Babylonia; since he mentions that the “records of the Chaldeans and Tyrians agree with our writings about the Temple,” referring to the destruction of the first, and the building of the second temple at Jerusalemyf. The Tyrian army was mainly composed of Persians, and various other foreigners. So intimate indeed, after the conquest of Tyre by Nebuchadnezzar, was the intercourse of the Tyrians with the Babylonians, that the former for a long period received judges, and afterwards fetched two kings to rule over them from Babylon 7. Besides the possibility of Greek words with their names being spread over Asia, and well known at so great a city as Babylon, by means of the traffic there carried on with the surrounding, and even far distant countries, there is another point not much thought of by critics; viz. the possibility of copyists haying put words well known to themselves in the place of other words, which had become obsolete. That such substitutions may have taken place during the course of the second century of the Christian era is by no means improbable §. At the same time it is * Gen. xxxi. 47, 48. + Cont. Ap. i. 21. Φ Dius in Joseph. cont. Ap. i. 21. § Miinter remarks that Greek names for musical instru- ments, if such exist in the Book of Daniel, should occasion no difficulty, as they might well have been introduced into the text ALLEGED GREEK FORMS IN DANIEL. CF . abundantly evident, that there is no occasion here to resort to this supposition. To every sincere inquirer after truth, the result of this research cannot but be satisfactory in the highest degree. The Book of Daniel having been ransacked _ for objections, the charge of a Greek form or deriva- tion is attempted to be fastened upon nine words out of the twelve chapters. As respects six of these the charge palpably fails; there can be very little doubt that it fails also as respects the seventh; it appears likewise to fail as to the eighth, though at the utmost the point is doubtful; and, as regards the ninth, there is not only distinct proof of the foreign origin of the thing itself, but this and the two previous words are all of them the names of musical instruments, which would certainly in the time of Daniel have already found their way to Babylon. This city would be reached either through Persia or Tyre, between which Babylonia was situate, as well as by other routes. If through Tyre, they might have been transported thither from Syria, from Greece, or elsewhere; although, as far as the Book of Daniel is concerned, they might just as well have come from Greece as from any other part of the world, since the Greeks were famous for their music, and were in possession of musical instru- ments for centuries previously. Most of their musical instruments, however, as they themselves acknow- ledged, were from time to time introduced into Greece from other countries. That this was so with the Sambuca or lyre, one of the instruments mentioned in Daniel, is shown by abundance of testimony; while the authority of Homer tends to prove that it was equally the case as respects the κίθαρις or guitar. at a Syrio-Macedonian or other later period, instead of the original terms, which may have ceased to be understood.—Rei. d. Bab. 75. F 2 68 ALLEGED GREEK FORMS IN DANIEL. The objection brought against the Book of Daniel from its alleged Greek complexion thus wholly fails. As regards this last word in particular, against which the charge has been mainly directed, nothing can show more strongly the extreme perverseness of the sceptical mind, than this attempt to exclude from Babylonia all acquaintance with an instrument, which had been known to mankind for upwards of six cen- turies, taking the date of the Trojan war, or for at least three centuries and a half, reckoning only from the age of Homer, anterior to the time when it is spoken of by Daniel. The chief importance, however, of the investigation consists in this, that not only is the charge disproved ; but further, its result is to show that the language employed by Daniel was that, which was in use before there was any admixture of Greek words, and there- fore at a time prior to the Macedonian conquest, and consequently long anterior to the existence of the Maccabean writers. Unless in these two or three verba technica, which, even if derived from Greece, are just what might be expected to occur in a writer of his age, not a single Greek form is to be found in Daniel. What would be said of a purely Saxon writer, such as Addison for instance, being charged with being a Frenchman, a Spaniard, a Portuguese, an Italian, a German, or one out of the countless Asiatic nations, or with having borrowed from any of their languages, because the word gwitar, or any other technical word, which had been current with them all, were found in one of his numbers of the Spec- tator? Such a charge would be below contempt. In the time of the Maccabees, a different branch of the Aramean was in use in Palestine; and if a pseudo-Daniel had been the author of the book, which NEBUCHADNEZZAR’S GOLDEN IMAGE. 69 bears his name, it is scarcely possible but that he would have betrayed himself in some other words than those, which can thus be proved to have ori- ginated neither with the Babylonians nor the Greeks. CHAPTER VIII. NEBUCHADNEZZAR’S GOLDEN IMAGE, AND DANIEL’S ABSENCE AT ITS DEDICATION. SACRED and profane writers concur in representing Nebuchadnezzar as the most renowned of all the Babylonian rulers. He was distinguished as a con- queror, and among his greatest achievements were the captures of Jerusalem and of Tyre, the most celebrated cities in the world. Berosus relates that “this Babylonian king conquered Egypt, Syria, Phe- nicia, and Arabia; and exceeded in his exploits all that had reigned before him in Babylon and Chaldea*.” He was not less distinguished for his internal than for his foreign enterprises. He rebuilt the old city of Babylon, and added to it a new city and palace, and executed other stupendous works. After he had attained this greatness and his fame was spread over the earth, what more likely as he trod the sumptuous palace which he himself had reared, and surveyed the magnificence with which it was adorned, and the costly works of art which lay spread before his eyes, than that his heart should be elated, and pride take possession of his soul? When, however, we turn to the Book of Daniel, we find the victories of Nebuchadnezzar passed over almost in silence. In the outset, the prophet does * Joseph. in Ap. i. 19. 70 NEBUCHADNEZZAR’S GOLDEN IMAGE, but glance at the taking of Jerusalem, in connexion with his own and his companions’ captivity; and then, in addressing himself to the waking or sleeping visions of the king, briefly refer to the greatness and glory of his kingdom, without an attempt to account for this monarch’s exaltation or power. Nor, except in the case of the dream which brought him into notice, does Daniel in any way connect the events, which he describes in the life of Nebuchadnezzar, with any period of this reign. Abruptly entering upon a description of the golden image, without the slightest clue to the cause of its dedication, Daniel with the most perfect artlessness introduces us to the king, as one whose pride was immediately excited by the sensible objects which met his gaze, rather than by the contemplation of any past victorious career. “Ts not this great Babylon that I have built for the house of the kingdom by the might of my power, and for the honor of my majesty *?” Yet though not a word is breathed of any warlike achievements, there is quite sufficient to convey an intimation of acquired ereatness; while the sentiments thus attributed to Nebuchadnezzar are just those, which might be ex- pected to rise to the lips of a monarch, whose mili- tary exploits had been erowned with success, and who was drinking in the delicious draught of conscious power, and glowing with the anticipation of prolonged and multiplied enjoyments. At this period, Nebuchadnezzar had reached the height of his prosperity and power. In the expressive language of Daniel, “‘ he was at rest in his house, and flourishing in his palace f.” In the reign of his father he had led his victorious armies into Egypt, and now had subdued Syria, Africa, Egypt for the second * Dan. iv. 30. + Dan. iv. 4. AND DANIEL’S ABSENCE AT ITS DEDICATION. 7] time, and various other nations, and had captured two of the most celebrated cities in the world; one of them being that which for upwards of five years had withstood all the efforts of the powerful Assyrians. Besides these extensive and important conquests, his name was associated with the enlargement and em- bellishment of his capital; and with a new and mag- nificent palace, within whose walls he might expect to hear the plaudits of assembled multitudes, and to indulge in every species of personal gratification. It is obvious that this was a position calculated to pro- duce the very frame of mind which Daniel ascribes to Nebuchadnezzar. So likewise, slender as are the materials in this respect furnished by Daniel, the events which he relates are found admirably to harmonize, in the date and order of their occurrence, with the ampler range of profane history. It is clear from both sources, that the destruction of the city and temple of Jerusalem took place towards the middle of Nebuchadnezzar’s reign. It is no less apparent that the dedication of the golden image, and the madness of the king hap- pened some years later, and towards the close of his brilliant career. According to Berosus, he was en- gaged upon his last great work of adding another wall to his capital, when “he fell into a state of mental depression, if not of bodily sickness, ἐμπεσὼν εἰς ἀῤῥωστίαν, and died after a reign of forty-three years*.” This, therefore, was after the capture of Tyre; and the succession of events, according to the best chronologists, seems to have been as follows :— Jerusalem and its temple were destroyed in the year 87 B.c. The siege of Tyre commenced some two years afterwards; but from the strength of the place, * Joseph. c. Ap. i. 20. 72 NEBUCHADNEZZAR’S GOLDEN IMAGE, and the determination of the besieged, it was not taken until thirteen years later still, or in the year 572 before the Christian era*. This would be about the thirty-third year of the king’s reign. He then made another expedition into Egypt, and there ap- pears to have taken many captives, and possessed himself of much spoil and treasure 7. The dedica- tion of the golden image occurred some little time subsequently, and was followed after a brief interval by the insanity of the king;—these events filling up the remaining ten years of his life. It cannot reasonably be doubted that the image of gold, set up by Nebuchadnezzar with so much ceremony, was designed to perpetuate the remem- brance of some great national event. Accordingly profane history, as well as the prophetical delineation of other portions of sacred writ, disclose or predict an event or a series of occurrences of such magnitude and importance, as would be likely to lead to some commemorative act. The capture of Tyre was the crowning work of thirteen years’ arduous labor, the glorious reward of Nebuchadnezzar’s perseverance, after another nation, at least equally powerful, had failed in the attempt. The city, previous to the siege, was rich beyond conception; the accumulated wealth of ages was there; and amongst its riches is distinctly enumerated its gold{. On Jerusalem being previously taken and destroyed, a considerable quan- tity of gold, broken up for the purpose, had likewise been transported to Babylon §, which was already famous for its treasure, and had itself acquired the Dean Prideaux’s dates are in each case a year earlier. Kzek. xxix. 19. Joel iii. 5. Ezek. xxvii. 22; xxvii. 4. 2 Kings xxiv. 13; xxv. 15. itt + * AND DANIEL’S ABSENCE AT ITS DEDICATION. 73 epithet of “golden *.” Much of this treasure was the spoil of ancient Nineveh ἢ. But when Tyre was over- thrown, there must have been a large and sudden influx of the precious metals into Babylon. In the forcible language of the prophet Zechariah,—“ Tyrus did build herself a stronghold, and heaped up silver as the dust, and fine gold as the mire of the street {.” The amount of spoil, however, was not so great as it might have been; for the protracted and arduous nature of the struggle must have tended to drain the resources of the besieged. And when at length the fall of the city became imminent, the inhabitants were enabled to remove their most portable effects either to the city on the adjacent island, or to their neighbouring colonies; so that the plunder was not sufficient to defray the charges of the siege, or recom- pense the army for the toils and dangers it had under- gone, compared with which it was insignificant. In the language of Ezekiel, Nebuchadnezzar “had no wages, nor his army, for Tyrus, for the service that he had served against it$;” although in another place he predicts of the Babylonians, with reference to Tyre,— “They shall make a spoil of thy riches, and make a prey of thy merchandise; and they shall break down thy walls, and destroy thy pleasant houses ||.” Valu- able property there no doubt was; but not to the extent anticipated, nor adequate to the expenses or labors of the siege. Egypt, however, was abundantly sufficient to supply the deficiency; and thither Nebu- chadnezzar led his victorious army, and meeting with little opposition, returned laden with booty. The taking of Tyre, and the subsequent conquest and * Isa. xin. 17; xiv. 4. See also xlvi. 6. Jer. 37: li. 7. 18. Ezek. xxvi. 12. + Nahum ii. 9. i Zechs ix 3: § Ezek. xxix. 18. || Ezek, xxvi. 12. 74 NEBUCHADNEZZAR’S GOLDEN IMAGE, plunder of a country, so wealthy and highly civilized as Egypt, were the very events which were likely to be publicly recorded. In no way could this be done more appropriately, than by the erection of some monument, manufactured from the spoils of the fallen city, and devastated country. These spoils do not appear to have fallen to the lot of the first captor, but to have been thrown into the general stock, and subsequently made the subject of regular division, a large share belonging to the king*. ‘The better to effect this division, the booty was collected together, and an account of it then taken, scribes being em- ployed to register it on rolls of papyrus or leather. In the case of the Assyrians, whose customs were followed by the Babylonians +, a representation of the plunder of the city of Mekhatseri has been preserved on a bas relief at Khorsabad, where the process of examining the spoils is depicted, which is not con- fined to the cattle, but extended to all kinds of valu- ables, such as metals, which were weighed in large scales 7. It appears that gold, silver, and jewels, were given up to the king, who retained a large proportion of them. Thus, both on the fall of Jerusalem and of Tyre, and still more in the ransack of Egypt, the Babylonian monarch must have had at his immediate command an immense quantity of gold and other precious metals. In this state of things we find that the very next act of Nebuchadnezzar’s life was to erect in the plain of Dura an image of gold, and that this was dedicated by the monarch himself with the utmost pomp and magnificence. Daniel, however, does not even so * Numb. xxxi. 1 OF. t+ 2 Kings xxv. xxvi. 1 See Botta, pls. 140, 141. Also Homer (Iliad ix. 896), and the laws of Menu (vii. 96, 97). AND DANIEL’S ABSENCE AT ITS DEDICATION. 75 much as touch upon any antecedent history. He simply records the fact of the ceremonial in connexion with the occurrences to which it gave rise; yet though he in no way hints at the circumstances which led to the dedication, other sources reveal an adequate and highly probable cause. Had, however, the relation of Daniel been the production of any later author, desirous of palming off his writing as the work of antiquity, it is almost certain that he would have endeavoured to account for the erection of such a memorial, by linking it with some event in the life of the king, or the history of the nation. But nothing of the kind is attempted; and there is thus that ad- mixture of appropriateness, with the absence of all effort or design, which are among the surest marks of a genuine narrative. It has, indeed, been urged that the quantity of gold required for an image like that described by Daniel would have been immense, and that the height of the image was too great for its breadth; but these are frivolous objections. The amount of gold employed must have depended upon the mode of its manufac- ture, for it is impossible to suppose that an object of such magnitude was a solid mass of metal. A cover- ing of gold would have been quite sufficient to attract to it the designation of golden; more would have rendered it almost immoveable. Many otherwise ad- verse critics, as Bertholdt and others, have combated the notion of these colossal statues of gods being made of massive gold. There are many instances both in sacred and profane writing, as these critics, following in the steps of Chrysostom, have shown, in which the title of golden was given to that, which was either hollow, or merely covered over with a plate of gold. Thus in the Pentateuch the altars, composed principally of wood, but overlaid the one with gold, 76 NEBUCHADNEZZAR’S GOLDEN IMAGE, and the other with brass, are described as the golden altar, and the brazen altar respectively *. It is clear, also, that, with one exception, the golden statues of Herodotus and Diodorus Siculus were either hollow, or of a similar description. According to Herodotus the great golden statue of Belus, the gread table standing by it, the golden steps, and the golden seat, together consisted of only 800 talents of gold, which would be very far from enough if these objects con- sisted of massive gold. According to Diodorus there were only 1000 talents of gold in the statue forty feet high, which would be a mere trifle for a massive figure of such height and proportionate bulk. Dio- dorus likewise expressly represents this statue as wrought by the hammer, and consequently it was not massive t. This conclusion is rendered still more apparent by the fact, that Herodotus, after speaking of the particular statue above referred to, which he terms colossal, immediately afterwards mentions another statue of inferior size, being only twelve cubits, which he says was of solid gold; subjoining, however, ‘ Not that I ever saw it; but what I say, I repeat on the authority of the Chaldees.” He then proceeds to relate that this had been much coveted by Darius, who feared to possess himself of it, but that the statue was afterwards seized by Xerxes §. He thus singles out this statue for description from its being, as re- ported to him, of solid gold,—a circumstance which he considers so remarkable as to call for a particular history of its fate; accompanied, however, by an ex- pression of doubt or hesitation on his part, with the obvious design of guarding himself from the charge of * Exod. xxxix. 35. 39. And see Isa. xl. 19; xli. 7; xliv. 13. Jer. x. 3—5. + ii. 9. + Hengst. Dan. by Pratten, p. 81. § Herod. Clio, 189. AND DANIEL’S ABSENCE AT ITS DEDICATION. 77 eredulity. Diodorus mentions that Xerxes also took away the larger statue of forty feet in height when he demolished the temple of Belus in Babylon*. The vast quantities of gold possessed by Solomon, the Ptolemies, and others are frequently referred to f. Another objection, assuming the statue to have represented a human figure, is that the height of the figure is disproportioned to its breadth, being in the proportion of ten to one, instead of six to one. This objection, like the other, has been ably met by Wintle, Hengstenberg, and others. The statue, instead of having a human head and human proportions, may have been a simple column surmounted by a human head or figure. Houbigant conjectured that it was a column or pyramid. ‘Such columns we every where find in antiquity connected with the statues of gods properly so called [: they were very common, for example, among the Egyptians, whose idolatry was very nearly related to the Chaldean ἃ." Jasioysk1 | has shown that the obelisks were idol pillars of this sort. Still more distinctly is it shown that they were in use in the very regions of which we are speaking by a passage in the Chronicon Alexand. p. 89: “The early Assyrians erected a pillar to Mars, and wor- shipped him among the gods.” According to Philo- stratus 41, Apollonius in his travels to these parts still found such columns. If, however, from the simple ground that the statue is here called oby, which word ** occurs as the designation of a human-like figure, it should be inferred that the statue must necessarily have had a human shape and human pro- ee + See Prid. Con. i. 273, &. Rollin, vii. 177. 186—188. 277. t Comp. Selden de Diis Syr. prol. iii. 49. § Comp. GeEsEnivs, Jesaias, p.330. || Panth. Mg. p. lxxx.s. 99. 4 Vit. Apoll. i. 27. ** ¢. 11. 31, seqq. 78 NEBUCHADNEZZAR’S GOLDEN IMAGE, portions, (which two things cannot for a moment be set down as necessarily connected, since we know just nothing of the extent to which the arts had progressed among the Babylonians,) yet nothing could be con- cluded from the disproportion of the height to the breadth, since the statue in this instance must surely have had a pedestal, and a particularly high one, to make it visible to the whole surrounding multitude, and the pedestal may be included in the sixty cubits. The difficulty of raising the statue was not at all greater than the Egyptian obelisks, which were fre- quently still higher, or in the colossus at Rhodes, which, according to Pliny *, was seventy cubits high f. That mentioned by Daniel was probably put together, and soldered on the spot. That there was a furnace there is clear; for this was commanded by the king to be “heated one seven times hotter than it was wont to be heated {.” This may have been in com- parison with the heat of the furnace for ordinary purposes, although burning was one of the capital punishments in use in Babylonia. There is still a third supposition, suggested by Miinter, that, like the Amycleean Apollo, the body of the statue was a column, running into a human head or shape towards the top, and terminating at the base with human feet; although it is scarcely probable that such a statue should have been without a pedestal. But, were none of these hypotheses correct, the absence of proportion is only what is observed in numerous Etruscan and other figures. Gesenius observes of the remains of the tower of Bel, that “the ruins are imposing only from their colossal size, not from their beauty; all the ornaments and sculptures are rude * H. N. xxxiv. 18. + Hengst. Dan. transl. by Pratten, 79, 80. t Dan. iii. 19. AND DANIEL’S' ABSENCE AT ITS DEDICATION. 79 and barbaric*.” “ From all accounts the Babylonians had great preference for every thing colossal, huge, irregular, and grotesque; and hence whatever agrees with this taste is far more likely to be genuine Baby- lonian than any thing which meets the requirements of a sense of the beautiful. In the Babylonian archi- tecture giant forms are every where to be seen 7.” These objections, therefore, are without the slightest weight; and leave the conclusion to be drawn from the admirable agreements of the prophet’s narratives with other accounts, both sacred and profane, to tell with all the force which belongs to artless and un- designed coincidences. The absence of Daniel at the dedication of the golden image, instead of being an objection, as urged by some, is a further testimony to the truth of the narrative. There were summoned to this grand cere- monial, at the command of the king, “the princes, the governors, and the captains, the judges, the trea- surers, the counsellors, the sheriffs, and the rulers of the provinces 7. But it is to be inferred that this summons did not include the Jews, since it is clear that Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego formed no part of the assembled multitude, when their enemies brought the accusation against them. A messenger had to be despatched specially to command their at- tendance, ere they appeared before the incensed monarch. Daniel himself was the last person likely to have been summoned, and that not merely from the grateful recollection of him preserved by the king. Nebuchadnezzar had publicly acknowledged his God to be “a God of gods, and a Lord of kings §;” * Encycl. von Ersch und Gruber, Art. Babylon, Th. vii. p. 24. + Comp. Minter, 1]. c. p. 58. Hengst. Dan. transl. by Pratten, 79 n. Ὁ Dan. im. 2. § Dan. ii. 47. 80 INSANITY OF NEBUCHADNEZZAR. and it is only in accordance with the ordinary experi- ence of human nature, that, having made such an acknowledgment as this, he should not desire the pre- sence of the individual to whom, and in connexion with whom it was made, when he was about to do an act, and assume a character, in direct contravention of it. Even monarchs entertain a repugnance to an exhibition of weakness and inconsistency before a subject, whom they are constrained to admire, more particularly on the very point which touches their own conduct. Moreover, it is not to be supposed that the command extended to every individual in autho- rity. Some would no doubt remain, particularly in the capital, to preserve order, and transact the ordi. nary business of the country. And as “ Daniel sat in the gate of the king,” he would in the monarch’s absence be likely to be left behind. Above all, it is apparent that the accusation proceeded from a section only of the Chaldeans, and was directed not against the Jews in general, but against the three individuals who, having been set over the affairs of the province of Babylon, either held offices which their accusers desired to obtain, or had by the rigid uprightness of their administration excited feelings of revenge in those, whose cupidity they had disappointed, and whose evil practices they had restrained. CHAPTER IX. INSANITY OF NEBUCHADNEZZAR. Tue insanity of Nebuchadnezzar furnishes a. still closer parallel and agreement between the writings of this prophet and profane history. Daniel thus simply and beautifully describes the occurrence of Nebu- INSANITY OF NEBUCHADNEZZAR. 81 chadnezzar’s malady. ‘ At the end of twelve months he walked in the palace of the kingdom of Babylon. The king spake and said, Is not this great Babylon, that I have built for the house of the kingdom by the might of my power, and for the honor of my majesty ? . The same hour was the thing fulfilled upon Nebu- chadnezzar *.” What befell the monarch as he was thus walking in his palace the prophet then proceeds to relate. He describes the disease as a mental one. This is corroborated in a remarkable manner by profane writers. Berosus, as quoted by Josephus, says of Nebuchadnezzar, < ἐμπεσὼν εἰς ἀῤῥωστίαν Ἷ, which may be rendered, just as well, that he fell into a state of mental dna as into a state of bodily sickness: the word appworia and the adjective ἄῤῥωστος, signi- fying deficiency or loss of strength, either of mind, or body. It is in the former sense that the word appworia is used in Thucydides 7, and elsewhere. That this malady of Nebuchadnezzar is really to be understood to be a mental, and not a corporeal disease, appears from another Chaldean historian, of whom a few fragments have been preserved to us. Eusebius has extracted from the history of the Assyrians by Aby- denus, the following passage from Megasthenes, an historian of earlier date, and a cotemporary with Be- rosus:—‘“‘ That Nabuchodosorus (Nebuchadnezzar), having become more powerful than Hercules, invaded Libya and Iberia (the Asiatic country of this name, not Spain), and when he had rendered them tributary, extended his conquests over the inhabitants upon the right of the sea§.” Here allusion is evidently made to the conquest of the Tyrians. The history then proceeds,—“ It is moreover related by the Chaldeans, * Dan. iv. 30. 33. + Joseph. ὁ. Ap. 1. 20. t vin. 49. § Joseph. ec. Ap. i. 20. G 82 INSANITY OF NEBUCHADNEZZAR,. that as he went up to, or ascended the roof of his palace, he was possessed by some god.” After this follows the story of the king’s predictien of the Persian mule, who should impose slavery upon the Babylo- nians, and of the author of this being a Mede, when the historian goes on to describe the distress, felt by Nebuchadnezzar at the bare prospect of this event, in these terms,—‘ Before he should thus betray my sub- jects, oh, that some sea or whirlpool might receive him, and his memory be blotted out for ever; or that he might be cast out to wander through some desert, where there are neither cities nor the trace of men, a solitary exile among rocks and caverns, where beasts and birds alone abide *.” Even Bertholdt is obliged to confess that ‘ this rare legend is in its chief points identical with our account f.” Hengstenberg, after noticing this admission, indi- cates four points of agreement between the Chaldean historians and the prophet Daniel :— 61, The madness of Nebuchadnezzar is not indis- tinctly referred to in the words of Abydenus. Mad- ness and prophecy stood, according to the notions of antiquity, in the closest connexion, which is marked in the language itself; in order to attain the latter, they tried in an artificial manner to produce the former 7. Eusrsius has very appositely remarked this§. ‘In Daniel’s history we are informed under what circumstances Nebuchadnezzar lost his reason: we must not, however, be surprised if the Greek historians, or the Chaldeans conceal the disease, and relate that he was inspired, and call his madness, or * Euseb. Prop. Evan. lib. 10. Euseb. Chron. 49. ΤΡ. 296. 1 Comp. e.g. V. Daun de oraculis ethnicorum, p. 172. § Chron. Arm. lat. p. 61. INSANITY OF NEBUCHADNEZZAR. 89 the demon by which he was possessed, a god. For it is their custom to attribute such things to a god, and to call demons gods.’ . . . The circumstance, more- over, that Abydenus puts into the mouth of Nebuchad- nezzar a prophecy respecting the future fate of his kingdom, is easily explained from a confusion and intermixture in the Chaldee tradition (which the very late Abydenus received in a very disfigured state) of two distinct occurrences, namely, the mad- ness, and the disclosures respecting the future that were made by Nebuchadnezzar, partly by prophetic dreams, partly by the prophecies of Daniel, to both of which the things here put into his mouth may be referred. The passage in Abydenus serves, therefore, in another respect also, to confirm the credibility and genuineness of Daniel.” “2. The notation of time and place corresponds in an astonishing manner. According to Abydenus, Nebuchadnezzar was attacked by the extasis after the completion of all his conquests: and, indeed, which is peculiarly worthy of notice, it manifested itself for the first time on the roof of his palace (ἀναβὰς ἐπὶ τὰ βασιληϊα), just as in our book. “3. It must not be left out of sight, that Abydenus describes the condition of Nebuchadnezzar as brought about by a certain god (the reading ὅτεω δι), assumed by Scaliger instead of the meaningless ὅτε ὥδη, has since been confirmed by the testimony of the Armenian version, which has ‘dits quibusdam, in mentem ejus penetrantibus eamque occupantibus’). Hence it fol- lows distinctly that the Chaldee tradition derived the ailment of Nebuchadnezzar, not from one of the native gods, but from a foreign divinity.” “4. That which is uttered at the close by Nebu- chadnezzar_as a curse on the Median king (‘may he wander in the wilderness where no cities are, no foot- G 2 84 DANIEL’S ACQUAINTANCE WITH COTEMPORARY step of man, where wild beasts feed, and fowls roam, amid rocks and precipices, roving about alone’), cor- responds so surprisingly with what is historically recorded of Nebuchadnezzar in our book, that one feels tempted to suppose either confusion, or inten- tional modifications in the Chaldee tradition, or that Abydenus misunderstood it. This supposition is the easier, as we have just pointed out another inter- mixture of two different occurrences *.” An objec- tion, founded on the assumption that Nebuchadnezzar roamed at large without any custody or supervision, is then refuted by the learned German, by showing the assumption to be incorrect f. CHAPTER X. DANIEL’S ACQUAINTANCE WITH COTEMPORARY HISTORY, MANNERS, AND CUSTOMS. Amone the internal proofs of the authenticity of the Book of Daniel, none are more striking than the exact knowledge which it displays of the history and manners of the times, when it professes to have been written, and the general cast of the entire work. These evidences have been admirably brought out by Herder, Minter, Hengstenberg, and others of the orthodox German School. Its broader historical features are, if possible, surpassed in importance by niceties of expression, and peculiar touches of his- tory, the delicacy of which is beyond the power of an imitator, and exhibits the unerring hand of a master. * Hengst. by Pratt., p. 88—90. t Ib. 91, 92. HISTORY, MANNERS, AND CUSTOMS. 85 MENTION OF THE MEDES AND PERSIANS. Thus Daniel both under Belshazzar and Darius speaks of the Medes and Persians; where, contrary to the arrangement adopted in 1 Maccabees xiv. 2, and to be generally met with in later writers, when speaking of more recent times, the Medes are placed first. Now, this is in the strictest accordance with history, Media being the leading kingdom until the reign of Cyrus, in the course of whose reign the change occurred, though it probably did so later in Babylonia; inasmuch as Darius, who governed that country under or in conjunction with Cyrus, was himself a Mede. The order, therefore, of naming the two countries must have been reversed in the narrow interval, which separated Daniel from Esther. It is, however, just such a nicety as would be likely to be unheeded, and was in fact not attended to, nor probably noticed even by accurate writers. The Book of Esther is an exception, for although both orders of arrangement are adopted, yet they are in either case equally appropriate. In allusion to occurrences subsequent to the time of Daniel, the people are spoken of as the Persians and Medes, where the Persians are put first; while, with refer- ence to the historical records of the two countries, the original order is preserved; the events referred to being said to be “written in the book of the Chronicles of Media and Persia*.” This strict at- tention to the relative priority of these kingdoms, either in point of antiquity or of eminence, is not adhered to by subsequent writers. Thus in the Book of Esdras no rule is observed, but either form is used indifferently, showing that the writer had met with * Esth. i, 3. 14. 19; x. 2. 86 DANIEL’S ACQUAINTANCE WITH COTEMPORARY both, but was unacquainted with the reason why they had thus been variously employed. Josephus too, speaking of times anterior to this transposition of names, as well as those of later date, makes no distinction between them, but in both equally places Persia in the van. Thus, he says that Shalmaneser, king of Assyria, who reigned a century and more before the time of Daniel, brought the Cutheans out of Persia and Media and planted them in Samaria*; while in the long subsequent reign of the Persian Darius, the son of Hystaspes, he observes the same order, in mentioning “ the toparchs of Persia and Media.” Just previously he uses the expression “the rulers of the Medes and princes of the Persians;” but this has no apparent reference to the relative eminence or preponderance of the two countries; if indeed, from the omission of the article before the word “princes,” the same individuals are not referred to under both titles 7. If not, then, since Media was a province, governed under the king, its rulers or viceroys may have been, during office, of higher authority than the princes of Persia, whose rank may have been more of birth than of station. The distinction, however, was even greater than that which arises out of the mere transposition just no- ticed; since the two people were very generally min- gled under a common appellation, the one being merged or lost in the name of the other; with this difference, that while before the age of Daniel, they most frequently went by the general name of Medes 7, they afterwards passed under the common designation of Persians. This may be traced in most writers of history; and an instance of it occurs even in Jose- * Antiq. xi. 2,8, 1. T xi. 3, 8. 2. t Isa. xiii. 17. Herod. Clio, 130. 4. HISTORY, MANNERS, AND CUSTOMS. 87 phus, when referring to them apparently as nations coming in succession, though, as we have seen, he does not usually attend to this order. Speaking of those who earliest became known to the Greeks, he says, “The Medes also and the Persians, when they were lords of Asia, became well known to them; and this was especially true of the Persians, who led their armies as far as the other continent,” 1. 6. Europe *. But with the many historical errors to be found in the Books of the Maccabees, it would be a highly impro- bable supposition that a Jew of Palestine of their age, attempting to pass off his writing as that of the pro- phet Daniel, should have noted such an historical nicety, as that involved in the order of Media and Persia, in comparison with that of Persia and Media, separated as the use of these expressions was by so short an interval of time. Daniel lived only just before the reflux of that tide, which at the date of the events narrated in the Book of Esther had completely set in, and which continuing thenceforward to flow in the same direction, gradually submerged the sister country of Media in the common designation of Persia. IMPOSITION OF NAMES. The imposition of other names which took place in the case of Daniel and his companions, appears to have been a practice with the Babylonians, as well as with the kindred nation of the Egyptians, both people being derived from an Assyrian source. Joseph had given to him by Pharaoh the name of Zaphnath- paaneah, signifying a revealer of secretst. So too, Nebuchadnezzar, when he carried away captive Je- hoiachin, king of Judah, and “made Mattaniah, his = Cont Ap: 1 12. + Gen. xli. 45. 88 DANIEL’S ACQUAINTANCE WITH COTEMPORARY father’s brother, king in his stead, changed his name to Zedekiah*.” It was on this very occasion, that the monarch is represented to have given Babylonian names to the royal youths, Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah. It is but the simple fact, however, which is mentioned, and thus the Book of Daniel exhibits the same characteristic mark as the rest of the sacred volume,—that of simple narrative, with- out any attempt at coloring or explanation. CAPITAL PUNISHMENTS. The author’s intimate acquaintance with the Baby- lonian manners and habits, is another remarkable feature in the Book of Daniel; and the artless and unobtrusive form in which this presents itself is equally striking. The capital punishments, which he mentions, are in unison with the cruel character of the Babylonians, and are shown by other testimony to have been practised among this people. The threat of Nebuchadnezzar to the Chaldean astrologers was, that they should be “cut to pieces;” and during his reign a still more fearful infliction was that of being burnt alive, or cast into a heated oven or furnace of fire}. Jeremiah, with reference to the very same monarch, mentions the latter as a mode of punishing with death practised in Babyloniaf. David also apparently makes allusion to it, as a figure to express the fierceness of God’s anger ᾧ. When, however, the Babylonian empire was over- thrown, a very different kind of capital punishment is related by Daniel to have prevailed among the Medes and Persians; the offender being thrown, not into a fiery oven, which would have been opposed to the M2 Wings ΧΙ 17. t+ Dan. ii. 5; iii. 29, and ni. 6. 15. 20. t Jer. xxix. 22. ΦΎΕΙ xxi, 9. HISTORY, MANNERS, AND CUSTOMS. 89 Zend or Zoroastrian system of religion, but into a den of lions. This was a punishment peculiar to the Persians, until some centuries later, when the barba- rities of both the Babylonians and Persians were, under the emperors, adopted by the Roman people. In each of these instances, therefore, the writer dis- plays all the accuracy of a cotemporary living at the time of the events which he relates. Of the two Babylonian punishments referred to, “he describes the latter so fully and exactly, that Bertholdt main- tains *, that we must suppose he had himself seen such an oven, and been present at an execution. In saying this, he at the same time allows that the author must have lived under the reign of the Chal- deans; since under the Persians, according to their system of religion, this mode of punishment could not continue Ff.” The appropriateness of the several punishments thus referred to, with the character and customs of the various people by whom they were inflicted, is to be traced throughout the sacred volume. In Judea the means of death spoken of are either the sword {, or else stoning with stones §. In Gibeon, and apparently other countries in and about Canaan, one kind of death was that of hanging upon trees ||. In Babylonia the axe wielded so as to hew the offender in pieces, or the fiery oven, are the instru- ments of destruction represented as employed. In Persia the modes of death are changed to hang- ing upon a gibbet, or being shut in with wild beasts 4. * p. 69. t Hengst. by Pratt., 272, 278. 1 Jer. xxvi. 23. § 2 Chron. x. 18. || 2 Sam. xxi. 9. “| Esth. v.14, &. Dan. vi. 7. 12. 19. 23,24. 90 DANIEL’S ACQUAINTANCE WITH COTEMPORARY In the Roman territories the punishments are de- scribed to be those of impaling, or nailing to a cross, and by combats with wild beasts on the public arena. Turn to which page we may, each separate incident or allusion is found to be in keeping with the external circumstances of the period, as well as in perfect har- mony with other portions of Scripture. CUSTOMS OF THE BABYLONIANS. Various subordinate circumstances are more or less casually noticed in the Book of Daniel, which show that the writer was familiar with the habits of the people, and the nature of the country of which he speaks, and point to the hand of a cotemporary. Thus the statement of Daniel, that he and his com- panions were by command of the king to be fed from the royal table, accords with the customs of the Babylonians *. Among the Persians, who adopted many of the habits of the Babylonians whom they had conquered, the number thus maintained at the royal expense amounted at one time to the enormous num- ber of 15,000 persons f. DESCRIPTION OF DRESS. Again, the dress of Daniel’s companions corresponds with the description given by Herodotus, who says that their costumes consist of a linen tunic reaching to the feet, then another tunic composed of wool, over which was worn a small cloak or mantle{. This threefold clothing is found depicted on Babylonian cylinders §, and is exactly that which Daniel describes as their coats or (marginal reading) mantles, their * Jer. 111, 88, 34. + Brisson, 97. Heeren, i. 493. t Clio, 195. § Minter, Rel. d. Babyl. 96. HISTORY, MANNERS, AND CUSTOMS. 91 hosen or woollen tunics, and their (under) garments or linen tunics *. MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS. From the number of musical instruments which are mentioned in connexion with the dedication of the golden image, it is evident that music was a favorite amusement with the Babylonians. Accordingly this appears to have been the case from Isa. xiv. 11, and from a heathen writer, Curtius, v. 3. ‘DECAY OF THE BABYLONIAN BUILDINGS. The following is a remarkable instance of the author’s acquaintance with the nature of the country. Professor Hengstenberg, to whom I am indebted for the last three observations, thus forcibly states it. “In chap. 11. 5 the king threatens the wise men, that on their failing to satisfy his requirements their houses shall be turned into dung-heaps +. Bertholdt himself allows 7 that the most accurate acquaintance is here shown with the mode of building practised in Babylon, and that the piece must therefore have been written in Babylonia. The houses in Babylon were built of earth, burnt or simply dried in the sun. ‘When a building is totally demolished or converted into a confused heap of rubbish, the entire mass of earth in rainy weather is gradually decomposed, and the place of such a house becomes like a dunghill .’” The prophet Jeremiah, in predicting the destruction of this great city, contents himself with saying that “Babylon shall become heaps ||.” He does not so distinctly as Daniel refer to this process of decompo- sition, which reduces the once separate materials into one undistinguishable mass. * Dan. iii. 21. + Comp. iii. 29. Priced: OS. 225- § Hengst. by Pratten, 272. || Jer. 11. 37. See also 1. 26. BOOK II. CHAPTER I. EASTERN IMAGERY AND SYMBOLISM. No less striking and significant, in the Book of Daniel, is the use of symbols and imagery, emi- nently distinctive of, and prevalent among the Baby- lonians. The writings of all Eastern nations being more or less figurative, the character of the figures employed furnishes, beyond the mere language, an important clue to the age in which, and the people among whom, any particular work may have originated. The figures and symbols to be met with have usually a close correspondence with the external objects, by which the writers have been surrounded. Pastoral images are not common with those, who have all their lives been confined to cities. Still less are the products and embellishments of art and science employed by those, who have had their constant dwelling amid the scenes of nature. The tastes and pursuits of one nation are generally distinct from those of another; while those of the same people vary at different epochs of their history. Locality and the state of civilization, then, are circumstances which give a complexion to the cha- racter of literary productions. Judging by this rule, EASTERN IMAGERY AND SYMBOLISM. 93 we should expect that the hills and valleys of Judea would furnish a set of figures and images of quite an opposite character to those of the sculptured walls of Babylon; while the emblems, drawn from these, would likewise differ from the figures suggested by other parts of Babylonia, where nature still prevailed over art. So in Egypt, and elsewhere, peculiarities of imagery would naturally prevail; although, as Assyria, Baby- lonia, and Egypt were countries intimately connected in origin and history, a general resemblance might be expected to ensue ἢ. Figurative language may be classified under five heads: 1. Pastoral images drawn from nature, and interwoven with the narrative or description given.— 2. That species of allegory in which the figures or objects selected partake, more or less, of a pastoral or rural character.—3. Simple illustrations of unknown or future occurrences, indicated by means of known operations or effects, whether of nature or of art.— 4. Scenic, or highly significant representations of real or hypothetical actions or objects, expressive of past or future events; a mode of conveying an intimation of important circumstances, often resorted to by the sacred writers, and common throughout the East.— 5. Animal symbolism, consisting of actions or events, expressed through the medium of animal forms or representations. The differences may often be slight; but the two leading divisions, the one composed of pastoral images, and the other of animal symbols, are marked and distinct. The distinction, however, does not consist in the entire recourse to inanimate objects in the one case, and to animate objects in the other. Animals * See int. al. Gosse’s Assyria, p. 49. 94 EASTERN IMAGERY AND SYMBOLISM. may enter into pastoral images; as where they are in- troduced merely to heighten an effect or description, whether for illustrating that which on a smaller scale might be produced by them in a state of nature, or else as denoting some particular quality in an indivi- dual or a nation, in which latter case, however, they border on the symbolical. Pastoral images, thus understood, are the mere accessories or embellishments of a narrative; and, where descriptive of characters or people, are so only in the way of comparison or illustration. Animal symbolism, on the contrary, is a peculiar form of allegory; and, though it may be used in con- nexion with known characters or objects, usually serves as an independent sketch or delineation of persons or events not previously indicated, and forms a perfect picture in itself. The different forms employed by the sacred writers are very remarkable; and if no other evidence existed to show that the scenes and objects, by which some of these were affected, bore little or no resemblance to those which influenced the minds of others, would of themselves afford sufficient indicia that such was the fact. IMAGERY OF THE EARLIER PROPHETS. The earlier prophets abound with pastoral images, and none but such are to be met with. There is then a gradual approach to the symbolical style of writing, until symbolism assumes the ascendant. The later prophets recede from this form of allegory, and again have recourse to figures and imagery of a pastoral or more simple character. There are thus three classes, severally pointing to the three grand epochs in Jewish history: 1, that which preceded the Babylonian captivity; 2, the pe- EASTERN IMAGERY AND SYMBOLISM. 95 riod of the captivity itself; and 3, that which followed it. The internal evidence, to be gathered from the mere figurative style of their several writings, is thus found to be in perfect keeping with actual history, both sacred and profane. These lines of demarcation extended even to the language of the Jewish people; the pure Hebrew representing the pre-Babylonian, the double or mixed language that of the Babylonian, and the later Aramean that of the post-Babylonian eras. JOEL. Taking Joel, the oldest of the prophets (since the writing of Jonah is mere narrative or exhorta- tion), we find that this prophet employs none but pastoral images. In a highly poetic strain he depicts the alternate depression and prosperity of a people, whose land at one period has been laid waste by visi- tations of Providence, or the ruthless destruction of invading armies, and at another is made to overflow with a superabundant plenty. The natural or but slightly artificial products of the earth, as corn, wine, oil, and milk, serve to represent the outpourings of God’s bounty; whilst His displeasure is portrayed in the withering of the vine and other fruitful trees, the wasting of the field, and the perishing of the harvest. Where animals are introduced into the scene, it is simply to give increased tone and color to the pic- ture; as where an invading host is described as having the appearance of horses, or running as horsemen, or having teeth like the teeth of a lion; the prophet thus predicting in a more striking manner the rapid movements of a force, which was mainly to be com- posed of cavalry, and the extent of destruction which was to be inflicted by them. 90 EASTERN IMAGERY AND SYMBOLISM. AMOS. The prophecies of Amos haye the same charac- teristic features. They also are in a high degree poetical; but the whole of the imagery employed 15 merely designed to give additional effect to that which already is otherwise disclosed, and does not constitute the sole, or even the principal object in the picture. HOSEA, MICAH, AND NAHUM. It is the same with Hosea, Micah, and Nahum. They, as well as Amos, occasionally combine animal with other delineations; but it is merely in order to describe effects in connexion with a futurity, which is primarily predicted without the veil of metaphor or allegory, and not with a view to symbolize at once the persons and actions of the drama. There is one peculiarity in the prophecies of Nahum which ought not to be passed over. Directed as these are against Nineveh, the prophet works up into his description the substance and manufacture of those materials, which both in Assyria and Babylonia entered so extensively into the construction of their buildings and strongholds*. This is well worthy of notice, as one out of many instances, which evince, with reference to the particular subject referred to, the appropriateness of expression and allusion, which is to be traced throughout the sacred volume. ISATAH, Pre-eminent as the Book of Isaiah is for sublimity of thought and expression, this prophet indulges in little which is really emblematic or symbolical. As with the earlier prophets, the introduction of animals * Nah. in. 14. EASTERN IMAGERY AND SYMBOLISM. 97 usually serves to heighten a description, which is pri- marily given in plain and natural terms. An instance of this occurs in chap. v. 29, 30, where the roaring of the lions, when they lay hold of their prey, is a simple poetic description of the fierceness and destruction of those enemies whose invasion of Israel is previously foretold. The succeeding chapter opens with a magnifi- cent vision, revealing the Lord sitting upon a lofty throne, with the Seraphims standing above. This, however, is no symbolical representation, but was bor- rowed from the scenery of the Temple. The prophet afterwards returns to the pastoral, when, in his pre- diction, he turns into “a possession for the bittern and pools of water *,” the then well-cultivated plains of Babylon. The figure would not be altered, if, by the word here rendered “ bittern,” 42) (kippod), we were to understand, as some have suggested, the por- cupine, which is common in waste and ruined places f. An approach to the symbolical occurs in the 29th verse of the same chapter, where one, supposed to be Hezekiah, is personified as springing from the ser- pent’s root, and becoming a fiery, flying serpent. The country, however, which was to be the scene of his military enterprises, is itself distinctly named, and the entire delineation is in reality little more than one of those images, bordering indeed on the symbolical, but in which animals, already known in Scripture, are introduced for the purpose of giving force to a de- scription, the principal features of which are conveyed without any attempt at disguise. An emblematic figure of a somewhat different de- scription occurs in the 21st chap. 7—9, where the fall of Babylon is portrayed by a vision of chariots, of horses, of asses, and of camels, with attendant horse- * Tsa. xiv. 23. + See Gosse’s Assyria, p. 14. H 98 EASTERN IMAGERY AND SYMBOLISM. men, fleeing as it were from the destruction behind them. This would have been directly symbolical, were it not that it forms only part of a description, which in other respects has not the same character. A more general instance is to be found in the opening of the 27th chapter, where under the representation of “leviathan the piercing serpent, even leviathan that crooked serpent,” and “the dragon that is in the sea,” a delineation is given of those upon whom the judgments of the Almighty were to fall, but who are not otherwise indicated. ‘The Serpent and the Dra- gon, however, were the ancient Scriptural types of the author or perpetrator of sin and wickedness. Drawn, as they appear to be, from these sources, without any individual or distinctive character, there would be nothing in their introduction here, while the allusions are too indefinite to amount to real symbolism. Some few other passages might be referred to of an analogous character ; but, although the approach to the symbolical is greater than in the earlier prophets, the imagery of Isaiah is poetical rather than symbolic. This is particularly the case in an instance of pure allegory occurring in the 5th chapter, where the Jewish people are represented under the type or figure of a vineyard, so well known for its touching beauty. No animal symbolism here appears; and, although allegorical, the whole of the picture bears a rural aspect. ZEPHANIAH AND HABAKKUK. The imagery of Zephaniah is of the same pastoral character as the older prophets *, while in Habakkuk animals are introduced by way of comparison only; and this, as usual, in connexion with the Chaldeans f. * Zeph. 11, 14. + Hab. i. 8. EASTERN IMAGERY AND SYMBOLISM. 99 JEREMIAH. The most marked feature in the prophecies of Jeremiah, is the scenic or representative symbolism which he employs. In the potter’s bottle or vessel, which he is to see made, and is commanded after- wards to break, he describes first the original consti- tution, and then the destruction and scattering of the Jewish people, by the dispensation or permission of their Maker*. An emblem this of national favors and visitations, familiarized from its adoption by St. Paul; whose allusions have by a large religious body been grievously misapprehended, and by a numerous political party been wholly repudiated. A similar form of emblematic action is enjoined upon the prophet, to signify the extension of Nebu- chadnezzar’s kingdom, and the many nations whom he was to bring under subjection. ‘ Make thee bonds and yokes, and put them upon thy neck, and send them” to the nations there specified f. Sometimes a single object, either real, or beheld only as a vision, is made the type of events which were thereafter to happen, as in chap. i. 11. 13. An instance of a different kind occurs in the 24th chapter, where, under the representation of two baskets of figs, the one good, the other bad, are denoted two classes during the captivity of Judah, —those, who in the general depravity, still main- tained their hold of true religion, and were taken “into the land of the Chaldeans” for their good, and whom the Lord would continue to acknowledge as His;—and those, who were to be removed “for their hurt,’ and were to be a reproach and a taunt among the people to whom they were delivered over 1. Si Jer xvi, 2. 6» xix. 1. 10:11: Τ xxvil, 2, 9. {oxy H 2 100 EASTERN IMAGERY AND SYMBOLISM. When the Babylonian supremacy had become com- plete, and Jerusalem had received a governor from Babylon, the change is indicated, no less in the lan- guage of Jeremiah, than in the substance of his de- scriptions. The images selected are of a Chaldean cast, the originals of which had probably been intro- duced into the residences of the governor and chief officers. The Lord was to “send unto Babylon fan- ners, that should fan her, and should empty her land :” while Babylon itself is described, as “ἃ golden cup in the hand of the Lord*.” ‘These may, at first sight, appear to be independent ideas, with no sort of connexion between the figures employed; but the Babylonian Sculptures present both in close combina- tion. On state occasions, particularly such as were of a religious character, the cupbearer is to be seen presenting to the monarch a cup of gold; and then preserving his position, still im front of the throne, waving a fan or whisk over the head of his sovereign. Behind, or on the other side of the king, stand the armour-bearer and other attendants, engaged in the same office of fanning the air above and around the monarch, and so driving away the swarms of winged creatures, whose rapid movements, like those of the Babylonian horsemen, were a source of constant dread and annoyance to those, who were exposed to their attacks. ‘The pertinacity of minute flies, and the torment they incessantly cause by their venomous punctures in hot climates, is well known. Whena person is in rapid motion, as on horseback, or in a carriage, he can manage to evade their assaults tole- rably well; but the instant he pauses, they throng around in humming swarms, and soon cover every exposed part of his person with their painful bites f.” * Jer. li. 2. 7. + Gosse’s Assyria, pp. 143—146. 157. EASTERN IMAGERY AND SYMBOLISM. 101 This insect scourge was strikingly exemplified in the late defence of the British Residency at Lucknow, previously to the advance of Sir Henry Havelock. A narrative written by Mr. L. E. Runtz Rees has the following forcible description :—“ To one nuisance, ‘the flies,’ I have already alluded; but they daily in- creased to such an extent, that we at last began to feel life to be irksome, more on their account, than Srom any other of our numerous troubles. In the day, flies; at night, mosquitoes. But the latter were bearable, the former intolerable. Lucknow had always been noted for its flies; but at no time had they been known to be so troublesome. The mass of putrid matter that was allowed to accumulate, the rains, the commissariat stores, the hospital, had attracted these insects in incredible numbers. The Egyptians could not possibly have been more molested than we were by this pest. They swarmed in millions, and though we blew daily some hundreds of thousands into the air, this seemed to make no diminution in their num- bers. The ground was still black with them, and the tables were literally covered with these cursed flies. We could not sleep in the day on account of them: we could scarcely eat *.” When the tabies of the Assyrians were spread, fans had to be used to protect the viands and delicacies, which were provided, trom these offensive and inju- rious insects. These were dispersed and driven away by the operation of the fan: as the Babylonians were to be by those fanners, who, representing an- other and a dominant race, were to fan, or clear the land of its then rulers and principal inhabitants. The fan, indeed, was an important instrument with the Assyrians, and the nations who succeeded them. * Siege of Lucknow, pp. 166, 167. + Layard, pl. 30. 109 EASTERN IMAGERY AND SYMBOLISM. It was employed, not only for the purposes just men- tioned, but likewise for raising a flame and increasing the intensity of the glowing coals or embers; and was in constant requisition for some object or other. Their practices in this respect were afterwards adopted by other nations, particularly by the Greeks and Romans *. In the figures employed by Jeremiah, there is thus a marked approximation to the imagery prevalent in Chaldea; although as yet no direct instance of animal symbolism is to be met with. In proportion as the Babylonians spread themselves more and more over the land, so this approximation may be seen to be- come closer and closer; but it required a residence in Chaldea itself, for this style of writing to expand into a complete form of symbolism. COMPARISON OF EZEKIEL AND DANIEL. When, however, we come to Ezekiel and Daniel, we find that both these prophets were actually trans- ported into Babylonia, and there became spectators of scenes and objects, suggesting ideas foreign to those of the Jews, which gave a new direction to their thoughts and contemplations. The symbolism they employ assumes a decided character. ‘Their fortunes, however, were different. Daniel was carried to the capital of the empire, and lived in the midst of its splendid court, where, or at the almost equally po- lished city of Susa, he was surrounded by all the objects which Babylonian art could devise. His intercourse too was chiefly with the native inha- bitants, and not with his own countrymen. Lzekiel, on the contrary, though not unacquainted with the productions of Babylonian art, as displayed in their * Smith’s Antiq. 539. EASTERN IMAGERY AND SYMBOLISM. 103 cities, was more familiar with the rural parts of Babylonia. His residence was in the province of Mesopotamia, where he was “in the midst of the cap- tivity;” his own people being here located in consi- derable numbers. It would be a curious coincidence therefore, though not surprising, if it were found that their respective ideas corresponded with their relative outward posi- tions; and that these exercised such a distinctive in- fluence upon them, as to be observable in their several written compositions. Yet this is precisely the case. Both have allegories of a perfect kind, the delinea- tions being complete in themselves; but Ezekiel draws chiefly from pastoral, and Daniel more from animal life. In some instances, however, there is a marked approximation in their writings. Thus Kze- kiel’s description of the Assyrian and Egyptian mo- narchs, under the figures of a cedar, and a lofty tree, may be seen renewed, as it were, in Daniel’s relation of the vision of Nebuchadnezzar *. In point of origin and history, as already remarked, Assyria, Egypt, and Babylonia were closely allied. This connexion is shown in Scripture by the similarity of the emblem- atic figures employed to describe them; although this is done in so unobtrusive a manner, as to escape the notice of an ordinary observer. Intimately, however, as these countries are associated together in history, they were scarcely less so with Judea: and it is from the cedars of Lebanon that the emblems just referred to are derived, and generally in immediate or in- direct association with Judea itself. EZEKIEL. It is under a similar figure, heightened by the * Ezek. xxxi. 3.14. Dan. iv. 1O—15. 20—26. 104 EASTERN IMAGERY AND SYMBOLISM. introduction of living objects, that Ezekiel depicts the Babylonian captivity; but the Chaldean complexion is far stronger in this than in the former instances. The Jewish people are here successively represented under the emblems of a cedar, a willow, and a vine, according to their varying conditions; while Nebu- chadnezzar and Pharaoh, to whom they in turns be- came subject, are both described under the figure of the royal eagle. “A great eagle with great wings, longwinged, full of feathers, which had divers colors*, came unto Lebanon, and took the highest branch of the cedar: he cropped off the top of his young twigs, and carried it into a land of traffic; he set it in a city of merchants. He took also of the seed of the land, and planted it in a fruitful field; he placed it by great waters, and set it as a willow tree. And it grew, and became a spreading vine of low stature, whose branches turned toward him, and the roots thereof were under him: so it became a vine, and brought forth branches, and shot forth sprigs. There was also another great eagle, with great wings, and many feathers: and, behold, this vine did bend her roots toward him, and shot forth her branches to- ward him, that he might water it by the furrows of her plantation. It was planted in a good soil by ereat waters, that it might bring forth branches, and that it might bear fruit, that it might be a goodly vine f.” The symbolic action is here not only complete; but the entire description is decidedly Chaldean. The eagles are depicted with all the minuteness which is © observable in Assyrian sculpture; and moreover are represented as being colored. This corresponds with the practice of the Assyrians and Babylonians, who * Layard’s Nineveh, ii. 306. 9. + Ezek. xvii. 3—8. EASTERN IMAGERY AND SYMBOLISM. 105 were in the habit of coloring over their sculptures; and in doing so aimed at hues appropriate to the objects delineated. Not only were their bas-reliefs thus painted; but above these another range of objects was sometimes represented by the aid of color alone. Some relief of this kind was required; since their buildings were composed chiefly of brick, covered over internally with a thin coat of plaster, except where slabs of stone or alabaster were introduced into the walls. Upon the upper portions of this plaster, de- signs appear to have been drawn in brilliant colors. This fragile material has been the first to perish; but sufficient fragments remain to reveal the nature of the decoration; though not enough to form an estimate of its merits *. ‘“ The borders and cornices were also painted, as were probably the columns that supported the roof, and the roof itself, with various fanciful devices and patterns in bright and highly contrasted colors; a style of decoration which, though somewhat startling to our taste, accustomed to abjure color in architecture, had no doubt a very rich and gorgeous effect beneath the intense sunlight of that fervid clime. We must not forget that the liberal employ- ment of color, as an auxiliary to form, both in archi- tecture and sculpture, prevailed in Greece, even in the days of Pericles and Phidias +.” In an allegory of a different kind, Ezekiel elsewhere describes the same events, which he had_ before. “What is thy mother? A lioness: she lay down among lions, she nourished her whelps among young lions. And she brought up one of her whelps: it became a young lion{, and it learned to catch the * Layard’s Nineveh, ii. 12. 307. 9. + See “ Painted Bricks” and “ Cornice,” with figures, in Gosse’s Assyria, p. 576. ft See Gen. xlix. 9. 106 EASTERN IMAGERY AND SYMBOLISM. prey; it devoured men. The nations also heard of him; he was taken in their pit, and they brought him with chains unto the land of Egypt. Now when she saw that she had waited, and her hope was lost, then she took another of her whelps, and made him a young lion. And he went up and down among the lions, he became a young lion, and learned to catch the prey, and devoured men. And he knew their desolate palaces, and he laid waste their cities; and the land was desolate, and the fulness thereof, by the noise of his roaring. ‘Then the nations set against him on every side from the provinces, and spread their net over him: he was taken in their pit. And they put him in ward in chains, and brought him to the king of Babylon: they brought him into holds, that his voice should no more be heard upon the mountains of Israel *.” Here the animal allusions are carefully preserved throughout. Yet both this and the preceding being representations of past and well-known occurrences, viz. the deportation first of Jehoahaz by Pharaoh- nechoh, and then, after various nations had come up against him, of Jehoiachin by Nebuchadnezzar Ff; their real character is poetical, since symbolism usually indicates something which either has not transpired, or else is yet future. Very different is the scene depicted in the opening chapter, where a vision is described in which out of a whirlwind and clouds of fire are seen to emerge four living creatures, attended by wheels, likewise endowed with life, their movements being rapid as lightning; with the accompaniments of a firmament, and a throne whose occupant had the appearance of a man, but * Fzek. xix. 2—9. Τ 2 Kings xxiii. 33; xxiv. 1, 2. 12. 15. EASTERN IMAGERY AND SYMBOLISM. 107 with the glory and majesty of Jehovah*. “In his strains a Chaldean and Babylonian style are so con- spicuous, that it strongly expresses the character of the times in which he lived. ‘This symbolic manner, this thunder-car, these dreadful thunder-steeds yoked to it, this sapphire throne, this arched canopy glowing with the hues of the rainbow, belong to Babylonian temples, to the Babylonian court; and the symbolism is just as much more conspicuous in Ezekiel than in Isaiah, as his poetry is weaker than that of others +.” Yet there is a considerable analogy, if not resem- blance, between the scene thus depicted by the pro- phet Ezekiel. and that which occurs in the sixth chapter of Isaiah, to which reference has already been made. Ezekiel also furnishes two or three instances of emblematic action, real or imaginary, significant of events which were to follow. One is the well-known parable wherein the destruction of Jerusalem is inti- mated by the act of Ezekiel setting upon the fire a pot or caldron, in which the very bones should be burned, and the filthiness and scum of it should be molten and consumed}. The same figure of a cal- dron with the inhabitants of Jerusalem for its con- tents, the typical instrument of their punishment, is previously to be found in chap. xi. 3. 7. The prophet Micah has an allusion of a similar kind, iii. 3; and mention is also made of similar vessels in 1 Sam. ii. 13,14. Among the spoils to be seen exhibited in the Assyrian sculptures “the articles most frequently in- troduced of all are caldrons, which hence, and from the apparent eagerness with which they are carried off, we may suppose to have been greatly valued. * Ezek. i. 4--28. See also i. 18; x. 1. 22. + Schlosser, 1. 1, p. 240, quoted in Hengst. Dan. p. 286. t Ezek. xxiv. 3—12. 108 EASTERN IMAGERY AND SYMBOLISM. They are of various sizes, mostly large, circular, flattish at the bottom, without feet, furnished at the rim with ears or rings to receive an arched handle or a hooked chain. We have thus a curious illustration of Homeric manners, in which caldrons (strangely ac- cording to our notions) figure conspicuously among the things most highly prized by warriors *.” We may, indeed, be unable to determine with cer- tainty, that the originals from which the idea was taken by Ezekiel were actually beheld by him in Babylonia, since similar vessels were in use in Judea; but attending to the history of the prophet, and the estimation in which these utensils were held in Chaldea, the conjecture that it was so has a high degree of probability. So with respect to the line of flax and the measur- ing reed, spoken of in the third verse of the fortieth chapter, it is probable, as building in Judea must almost have ceased in the prophet’s days, while it must have been active in Babylonia, that the ori- ginals of these objects were seen by him in the latter country. In another instance this was unquestionably the case. Among the objects manufactured in Assyria and Babylonia, none were more common than the bricks and tiles, composed of burnt or dried clay, which served (amongst other purposes) as materials for inscriptions, and which from that circumstance have become of the greatest historical interest. Nu- merous other objects of the same material, such as balls and cakes of clay, and pottery of various kinds, have likewise been discovered. These were impressed, while the clay was soft, with cuneiform characters, or representations of some kind or other, by means of * Gosse’s Assyria, 365, 366. EASTERN IMAGERY AND SYMBOLISM. 109 a mould or die, or else were graven or scratched in with a stylus. They were used for different purposes. The bricks and tiles were employed in building, or served for tablets. The balls of clay are supposed to have been used as seals, to secure the fastenings of doors from being broken or undone without detection. The clay soon hardened; and the surface was stamped or engraved with letters or with some emblem, the most usual being that of a man stabbing a rampant lion, which he grasps by the upper part of its mane. This em- blem was common to these balls as well as to cylinders, which, being composed of valuable stones, were sus- ceptible of finer engraving; and being covered with devices of various kinds, from which impressions could readily be made, answered the purpose of sig- nets and heraldic distinctions*. Ezekiel’s position was not such as to give him the possession of one of these precious stones; and even had such been within his reach, he would not have been able to avail himself of it, since the art of finished engraving must have been far more difficult of attainment in those days than it is in modern times. But in the country of the pro- phet’s forced sojourn tiles abounded, and he could have no difficulty in obeying the divine mandate, “Thou also, son of man, take thee a tile, and lay it before thee, and portray upon it the city, even Jerusalem 7.᾽ Materials for the work lay, as it were, strewed around him. ‘They were the ordinary manufacture of the country, and the act he was to perform was one which was there commonly practised. Not so in Judea, where engraving, having the remotest con- nexion with religion, was prohibited by the Mosaic * See “Cylinders,” and “Clay Currency,” with figures in Gosse’s Assyria, pp. 587 and 610. + Ezek. iy. 1. 110 EASTERN IMAGERY AND SYMBOLISM. law, and was consequently but little known. There is thus suggested to the mind by these few words of Ezekiel a vivid representation of the place of his habitation, the scenes and objects with which he was familiar, and even the people among whom his lot was cast. So in the many pastoral images, to be found scat- tered throughout his writings, his residence in a country abounding, like Mesopotamia, in water is strikingly manifest. In his frequent reference to rivers and waters, he here and there shows that these were not the streams and narrow waters of Judea, but the more important rivers of the well-watered Baby- lonia. Those he describes were in truth majestic rivers, ‘‘ great waters,” which he associates with the willow tree, so well known as a characteristic of “the waters of Babylon *.” In the very first of the allegories referred to, as showing the greatest amount of animal representation, the utmost prominence is given to these mighty streams; and the general character of the description is even more pastoral than many others, in which no such animal representations are introduced. Throughout these prophecies there is, in fact, a peculiar appropriateness or adaptation of the figures employed to the subject in hand. As observed by an acute writer, “ With Ezekiel the king of Babylon is an eagle who fetches a twig from Lebanon7, the Egyptian king a crocodile in the Nile {, each of which figures he amplifies §.” The writings of Ezekiel thus furnish numerous in- ternal proofs both of the age in which he lived, and of the country in which he sojourned. * Ezek. xvii. 5; xxxi. 8; xxxii. 2; xlvii., &c. + Ch. xix. t Ch. xxix. xxxii. § Herder, cited by Hengst. Dan. by Pratt., 285, 286. SYMBOLISM OF DANIEL. 111 CHAPTER II. SYMBOLISM OF DANIEL. How, then, stands the case with the Book of Daniel? Are the like internal evidences to be found in the pages which bear his name, as in those of Ezekiel? This inquiry is peculiarly interesting, since it brings to a still more delicate test than even the historical investigations we shall have to pursue, the justness or futility of the observation, that “ criticism proves the non-authenticity of great part of Daniel.” As already noticed, the remark applies principally to those portions of the Book of Daniel which relate to the overthrow of Persia, and to the contests which, subsequently to the division of Alexander’s kingdom, took place between the Aigypto-Macedonian and the Syro- Macedonian dynasties. It also refers to the vi- sion of the four great empires,—the Babylonian, the Persian, the Macedonian, and the Roman. Now it is precisely these very portions of the Book of Daniel, which defy the most hostile investigation, and yield to “criticism” the most convincing proofs of the authenticity of a work, thus recklessly impugned. That species of symbolism which we have seen to have been growing, as it were, on the prophets of Israel and Judah, as these countries were overrun or swallowed up by the Babylonians, is to be found in its utmost fulness in the Book of Daniel. Gradually fading away, as it does, after the age of this prophet, until in the time of the Maccabees it is almost lost, here it takes its greatest expansion. ‘The Chaldee complexion which distinguishes Ezekiel and Zecha- riah, so that we could be in no doubt about the age 112 SYMBOLISM OF DANIEL. in which they flourished, even if we had no other arguments (rather tests) at command for determining it, is found in Daniel in a still higher degree. Parti- cularly remarkable is the extended use of animal symbols, the common ones in the symbolic language of these regions, to designate hostile powers *.” The emblems employed are just those which might have been expected from one in Daniel’s position. ‘They are drawn from the very objects which were most conspicuously delineated on the walls and clay pro- ductions of Nineveh, of Babylon, and no doubt of Susa also; and which must therefore have been con- tinually present, not merely to the external vision, but also to the dreams and mental contemplations of the prophet. “If,” as Herder elegantly remarks, ‘Daniel sees a vision in which animal forms denote kingdoms, symbolic shapes of that kind must have been no strangers to the waking world; for we dream only of forms which we see when awake, and in our dreams give them new and various combinations fF.” So true is this, that we have preserved to this day, if not the actual forms and figures beheld by Daniel with his own eyes, and which acted as the promptings of his mind, (a circumstance highly probable,) yet the still earlier originals, of which there can be little doubt facsimiles or close imitations were seen by him, if the originals were not. The sculptures and draw- ings of the Assyrians were repeated by the Baby- lonians, and afterwards by the Persians. As observed by a German writer, ‘ What must most surely strike us is, that we find all the animal symbols of our book on the Babylonian cylinders, with wedge-shaped in- * Comp. Herder, i. 57. Miinter, i. 89. 98, and seq. 112. 139. Hengst. Dan. by Pratt., 286. + Herder, i. 57. SYMBOLISM OF DANIEL. 119 scriptions, on Babylonian tapestries, and on the walls of Persepolis *.” Thus the ram and the he-goat, which are two of the objects employed to indicate the kings of Media and Persia, and of Macedonia, have been preserved amid the wreck of these vast empires; one of them especially being found depicted in the exact attitude represented by Daniel. ‘‘ Under the star of Bel, the row of altars is interrupted by a mythic animal, which reminds us of the history of Daniel. It has the shape of a he-goat, but is covered with a mail of scales, and has two small wings. The horns are large and twisted. The animal is kneeling on the right fore- foot, but is in the act of rising with the left. By the latter word full light is shed on the often mis- understood words, chap. vil. 5, nmopn snow. We find the same he-goat, likewise before an altar and reclining in the same posture, on the Babylonian stone 7. Now the goat was the emblem or armorial distinction of Macedonia {, as the ram was the royal ensign of the Persians, the latter being emblazoned as such on the pillars of Persepolis§. Bertholdt endeavours to weaken the impression naturally resulting from these resemblances, by suggesting that similar repre- sentations occur in the Apocalypse ||; but this only strengthens the argument derived from hence in favor of the authenticity of Daniel. * Comp. Herd. i.57. Minter, 1. c. pp. 89. 98, seq., 112. 139. Hengst. Dan. by Pratt., 286. + Fundgruben des Orient., iii. 3, pl. 2, fig. 3. Minter, |. ς. p- 112, cited with the parenthetical addition in Hengst. Dan. by Pratt., 286, in notes. + Justin, Hist. viii. Mede iii. 654. 712. Joseph. Archeol. x. 10. Fundgruben des Orient., ii. 3, pl. 2, fig. 3. § Amm. Mare. xix. Sir J. Chardin’s Trayels, &c. || Berth. i. p. 19. ‘ I 114 SYMBOLISM OF DANIEL. The several portions of Holy Writ have a mutual relation to, and dependence upon each other; and when from a similarity of idea or expression two books in the sacred canon are found to cohere, an inference arises that the latter has been indebted to the former, just as thoughts or figures in this may have been derived from a still earlier source. Thus dealing first with one, and then with another of the sacred books, all are found to be component parts of a majestic whole, alike falling in with one uniform and comprehensive plan. § I. DANIEL’S FIRST EMPIRE. For the present we pass to the earlier vision of the four beasts. This description occurs at the outset, “The first was like a lion, and had eagle’s wings: I beheld till the wings thereof were plucked, and . [marg. read. wherewith] it was lifted up from the earth, and made stand upon the feet as a man, and a man’s heart was given to it*.” Here is a figure delineated under a twofold aspect; the first being its primary form, and the second that of its partial meta- morphosis. The recent excavations at Khorsabad and Nimroud have revealed both, and show that this verbal description corresponds in a wonderful manner with some of the compound animal forms, which, be- yond all doubt, were in existence in the days of Daniel. Among the sculptured monuments of As- syria, adopted by the Babylonians, none are more remarkable than the winged human-headed lion and bull discovered by Mr. Layard, and which now adorn the British Museum}. Standing out in bold relief, their strongly developed muscular frames, their gigan- tic proportions reaching far above the stature of man, * Dan. vii. 4. t See also Layard’s Nineveh, i. 66. 70. 127. SYMBOLISM OF DANIEL. 1715 their expanded eagle pinions, and the majesty of their human countenances, viewed from their imposing ele- vation, were calculated to strike the mind with awe. These objects were designed to signify the combina- tion in the highest degree of mind, strength, and swiftness*. Yet in several delineations of embroidered work the winged human-headed lion is represented as exposed to or flying from the attacks of a vulture- headed being, supposed to be a priest, who figures with a mace or formidable weapon of a flexible nature in the act of assault or hot pursuit. The gigantic monster vainly endeavours to escape; and in the fear de- picted in his aspect and by his actions, exhibits a strong contrast to the determination and fury ex- pressed in those of his assailant. These embroideries occur in connexion with the king, and either form part of the ornaments of the royal robe, or are mixed up with scenes in which the monarch is personally en- gaged 7. Hence the inference appears to be that this compound animal form, as well alone, as in combina- tion with the other figure, was symbolical of some- thing in the religion or mythology of the nation. Whatever may have been its exact import, it stood out so conspicuously among the sculptured forms and embroideries of Chaldea, and was so associated with its sovereignty, that, abstractedly taken, no object could better typify the country in which it was found. Accordingly Daniel appears to have employed it with this view, and it is remarkable how strikingly it an- swered his purpose. His object was to give a graphic sketch of the Babylonian kingdom when it had reached * The Assyrians “could find no better type of intellect and knowledge than the head of the man; of strength, than the body of the lion; of rapidity of motion, than the wings of the bird.” Layard’s Nineveh, i. 70. + See Layard’s Nineveh, ii, 460. Gosse’s Assyria, p. 107. 12 110 SYMBOLISM OF DANIEL. the zenith of its power, and was about to fall under the combined attack of the Medes and Persians. To this end no emblem could in his hands have been so appropriate as this animal form, which was associated in the mind with terror and defeat; and that from the vulture-headed priest, which was ad- mirably adapted as a type of the Persian monarchy, the head of which claimed to be a visible representa- tion of the Deity. Yet it required discoveries, made with infinite labor after a lapse of more than twenty- four centuries, before the force and beauty of the re- semblance could be perceived. That the figure of Daniel was really taken from this source is manifest upon looking closely at his description, ‘‘ I beheld till the wings thereof were plucked ;” where the very cir- cumstance of its being exposed to violence is promi- nently noticed. ‘Thus from amid the buried ruins of Khorsabad and Nimroud has the prophet’s entire delineation been brought ocularly before us, so that we are constrained to acknowledge the force of the Psalmist’s declaration, “ Truth shall spring out of the earth *.” Similar gigantic winged animals with human heads have been discovered among the ruined monuments of Persepolis 7. It is satisfactory to find that those who had not the aids afforded by these wonderful revelations of modern times, should still have correctly interpreted this part of the vision. Most commentators have taken a similar view from St. Jerome downwards. Bishop Newton gives this explanation of it: “The eagle’s wings denote its swiftness and rapidity; and the con- quests of Babylon were very rapid, that empire being * Ps, Ιχχχυ. 21. See figures in Gosse’s Assyria, p. 105, and Vaux’s Nineveh, pp. 235 and 220. + Layard’s Nineveh, ii. 289. SYMBOLISM OF DANIEL. Τ᾽ advanced to the height within a few years by a single person by the conduct and arms of Nebuchadnezzar. It is farther said, the wings thereof were pluckt, and it was lifted up from the earth, that is, it was taken away from the earth, as it is commonly understood, and as it is translated in almost all the ancient ver- sions *: or it may be rendered thus, the wings thereof were pluckt wherewith it was lifted up from the earth, as Grotius} explains it, and as we read it in the margin of our Bibles, the conjunction copulative some- times supplying the place of a relative. Its wings were beginning to be pluckt at the time of the de- livery of this prophecy, for at this time the Medes and Persians were encroaching upon it; Belshazzar, the king now reigning, was the last of his race; and in the seventeenth year { of his reign Babylon was taken, and the kingdom was transferred to the Medes and Persians.” And then of the remainder of the figure,—And it was made to stand upon the feet as a man, and a man’s heart was given to it. The Bishop continues: “It is not easy to say what is the precise meaning of this passage, unless it be an allusion to the case of Nebuchadnezzar when in his madness § a beast’s heart was given unto him, and after he was restored to his senses, a man’s heart was given to him again. What appears most probable is, that after the Babylonian empire was subverted, the people became more humane and gentle; their minds were humbled with their fortune; and they who vaunted as * Ht sublata est inquit de terrd; subverso videlicet impio [imperio] Chaldzorum. Hieron. Comm. in loc. iii. 1099. Kat ἐξήρθη ἀπὸ τῆς γῆς, Sept. Videbam evulsas esse alas ejus, et ab humo sublatam, Syriac. Et egressa est de terra, Arab. + Et sublata est de terrd. Verte: per quas efferebatur supra terram. Spe enim Chaldzis, ut et Hebrais, copula vim habet relativi. Grot. in loc. 1 Joseph. Antiq. X. xi. 4. Usher, Prideaux, and other chrono- logers. § Dan. iv. 6. 118 SYMBOLISM OF DANIEL. if they had been gods, now felt themselves to be but men. They were brought to such a sense as the Psalmist wisheth such persons to have, * Put them in Sear, O Lord; that the nations may know themselves to be but men Ff.” One or other of these may, ἘΠΕ not incorrectly convey the hidden meaning of the words; but the learned prelate was ignorant of the ᾿ πε since brought to light, or he would have perceived that this portion of the emblem was suggested to the pro- phet by the human-headed figure actually beheld by him, and by the apparent identity of the head and neck in the winged human-headed lion, and the winged human figure, the latter of which was to be seen then, as now, literally “standing upon the feet as a man.” N II. DANIEL’S SECOND EMPIRE. Had Daniel personified the next succeeding king- dom under the figure of the vulture-headed priest, it would, as already intimated, have been a suitable emblem. But this figure was not in reality designed to represent Persia; and although its adoption as such would have been justified by the circumstance of its being the determined foe of the winged human- headed lion, so aptly selected to signify the Baby- lonian Binipiel and likewise by its priestly character ; yet as these two figures were found in conjunction = Chaldean sculptures, the vulture-headed priest could not have been made to typify Persia, without creating confusion. With consummate skill therefore, had it proceeded from mere human impulse, Daniel selects another and still more appropriate emblem to designate the nation, by which the empire of the Babylonians was over- thrown. The animal form, chosen for this purpose, is * Ps, ix. 20, + Bp. Newton, Proph. i. 256. SYMBOLISM OF DANIEL. 119 that of a bear; “ And behold another beast, a second, like to a bear, and it raised up itself on one side, and it had three ribs in the mouth of it, between the teeth of it: and they said thus unto it, Arise, devour much flesh *.” If we look,—Ist, at the nature of the country :— 2ndly, at the character of the people :—and 3rdly, at the history of the nation, here depicted, the force and beauty of the analogy become strikingly apparent. The original seat of the Persians, whence they derived their most hardy warriors, was sterile and rugged; and that which in the first instance may have been the result of accident, or have arisen from the necessity of find- ing a secure habitation, was afterwards prolonged from the dictates of a deeper policy. It is related, that Cyrus dissuaded his countrymen from adopting a proposal of Artembares, to quit their mountainous tracts, with a view to settle in the lower and more fertile regions of Asia. This was expressly on the ground, that they would thereby be rendered effeminate, and lose their supremacy, which they had acquired by their hardihood and valor. Should they determine to do so, ‘he warned them to be prepared no longer to rule, but to be ruled: since men attached to a rich and luxuriant soil became enervated (φιλέειν yap ἐκ τών μαλακών χώρων μαλακοὺς ἄνδρας γίνεσθαι): for it was not in the capacity of any country to pro- duce the fruits of the earth in abundance and also men eminent for martial qualities. So,” continues the his- torian, ‘the Persians, acknowledging the force of his address, and yielding to the judgment of Cyrus, re- turned to their homes, dissuaded from their purpose, preferring rather to dwell in an unproductive land, and retain their dominion, than to give themselves up * Dan. vii. 5. 190 SYMBOLISM OF DANIEL. to an easy cultivation of level plains, and be in sub- jection to others *.” Arrian and Plato give a somewhat similar account ; and Hippocrates, as well as the common experience of mankind, confirm the truth of the sentiment here attributed to Cyrus. A forcible illustration of this, in immediate con- nexion with Cyrus himself, is exhibited in the final conquests, and then the fall of the Lydian monarchy. Roused by the successes of Cyrus from the state of grief into which he had been plunged by the loss of his son, Creesus determined to oppose the growing power of the Persians. Having consulted the most celebrated oracles of antiquity, he took the field with a numerous army, and crossing the river Halys, entered the fertile province of Cappadocia, and the ad- jacent districts. Here was enacted that, which might then have been the fate of the Persians themselves, had they followed the advice of Artembares, and which did in fact ultimately overtake them, after the advice of Cyrus had been forgotten, both by himself and his successors. ‘The country was laid waste; and the in- habitants, who had become enervated by the very process which Cyrus had so forcibly described, were either dragged into captivity, or put to the sword. Encouraged by this timidity and effeminacy of the people, the μαλακοὶ ἄνδρες ἐκ τοῦ μαλακοῦ χώρου of Cyrus, the Lydian monarch determined to push on to the mountainous regions of Persia. This dangerous resolution was in vain opposed by one of those, who do honor to human nature by the honest integrity, and manly fortitude of their charac- ters. . . . Availing himself of the freedom, which, amidst the pride and caprices of despotic power, was * Herod. ix. 122. SYMBOLISM OF DANIEL. 191 yet by the princes of the East allowed to men, distin- guished by their abilities or position, the faithful Sandanis addressed the Lydian king in language, memorable no less for its intrinsic wisdom, than for its showing in reverse the sentiments once delivered by the formidable antagonist of his sovereign :—‘‘ You are preparing, O king, to march against a people who lead a laborious life; whose daily sustenance is often denied to them, and is always precarious and scanty, who drink nothing but water, and are clothed with the skins of wild beasts. What can the Lydians gain by the conquest of Persia, they who enjoy all the advantages of which the Persians are destitute? For my part, 1 deem it a blessing of the gods, that they have not excited the warlike poverty of these misera- ble barbarians to invade and plunder the luxurious wealth of Lydia.” With the rejection of advice so judicious, this blessing was lost to the Lydian empire. But until they themselves were thus menaced and attacked, the Persians clung to their mountain for- tresses, and continued to range over those steppes, the air and unrestrained freedom of which invigorated their frames, and maintained their hardy and inde- pendent spirit. The lion which abounded in the warmer and more luxuriant districts of Babylonia here gave way to the bear, than which no animal could so aptly typify the country or its inhabitants. Rough and shaggy in its appearance, as well as fierce and voracious in its dis- position, it was the fit emblem of what Persia was, when the Babylonians and Lydians met them in the shock of battle, or were assailed by them in strong- holds until then deemed impregnable. The learned Bochart * recounts several instances in * Hierozoic. Pars prior ii. ix. col. 816. 122 SYMBOLISM OF DANIEL. which the Medes and Persians resembled animals: and Grotius, in allusion to Aristotle’s remark that a bear is an all-devouring animal, subjoins, “So the Medo-Persians were great robbers and spoilers,” re- ferring to Jer. li. 48. 56*. Their institutions were in many respects worthy of admiration ; but all writers concur in representing them as ane practised the most atrocious and revolting enormities. Bishop Newton makes this comment, “‘ Cambyses Ochus, and others of their princes were indeed more like bears than men. Instances of their cruelty abound in almost all the historians, who have written of their affairs, from Herodotus down to Ammianus Mar- cellinus 7. The latter author describes them as “haughty, cruel, and in the exercise of the power of life and death, wantonly and barbarously subjecting slaves and obscure plebeians to torture and death. They are accustomed to flay men alive, tearing off their skin in strips, or in masses. The laws existing among them are detestable, by which, for the offence of a single ee θαι a whole neighbourhood is made to perish 1." Dr. Prideaux asserts, that the kings of Persia were “the worst race of men that ever governed an em- pire,” a sentiment which Bishop Newton concurs in and approves §. As observed by Calmet in his com- mentaries on Daniel,—“ Les Perses ont exercé la do- mination la plus sévére, et la plus cruelle que l’on connoisse. Les supplices usitez parmi eux font hor- reur a ceux qui les lisent.” * See also Isa. xii. 18. + Bp. Newton, Proph. i. 257, 258. { Superbi, crudeles, vite necisque potestatem in servos et plebeios vindicantes obscuros. Cutes vivis hominibus detrahunt particu- latim vel solidas. Leges apud eos abominande—per quas ob noxam unius omnis propinquitas perit. Amm. Marcell. xxiii. 6. § 1. 236. SYMBOLISM OF DANIEL. 199 It is at the turning-point of their history; when, though still lingering in the frigid regions inhabited by the bear, (whose skins even served them for cloth- ing,) the Persians were preparing for a descent upon the opulent cities of Central and Western Asia,— that Daniel’s first prophecy concerning them purports to have been written. With admirable propriety, he at this time represents them under the symbolic form of a bear; but it is that of a bear raising itself on one side; or, according to the marginal reading, raising up one dominion, and having three ribs in the mouth of it between the teeth of it. The nation consisted of two people, the Medes and the Persians, of whom the former once had the supre- macy. In Daniel’s days, however, they were nearly in a state of equilibrium; while shortly afterwards the Persians were to elevate themselves above their fellows, and assume a decided superiority over the Medes. ‘The nation as a whole was to “raise up one dominion ” as the bear of Daniel “raised up itself on one side.” Concerning the “three ribs in the mouth of it between the teeth of it” there has been a diversity of opinion; St. Jerome, Vatablus, and Grotius under- standing these as indicating the three kingdoms of the Babylonians, Medes, and Persians, which were reduced into one kingdom; while “Sir Isaac Newton and Bishop Chandler, with greater propriety, explain them to signify the kingdoms of Babylon, Lydia, and Egypt, which were conquered by it (i.e. the Medo- Persian nation); but were not properly parts or members of its body. They might be called ribs, as the conquest of them much strengthened the Persian Empire; and they might be said to be between the teeth of the bear, as they were much grinded and op- pressed by the Persians *.” * Bp. Newton’s Proph. i. 257, 194 SYMBOLISM OF DANIEL. Others consider that the word “ribs” is an incor- rect translation, and conveys an erroneous impression of what was intended by the original. Of this num- ber is Houbigant, who ridicules the notion of such being its meaning, though himself very infelicitously rendering it “jaws,” a sense which is wholly inadmis- sible. Wintle is more happy in his conjecture, sub- stituting the word tusks, which he justifies in the fol- lowing observations:—‘‘ The original word seems to denote something prominent or penetrating, either from mby in altum tendere, or bby intrare; the bear is called by Aristotle ζώον παμφάγον, a most voracious animal: and the command given to it in the subse- quent part of the verse indicates its rapacious nature. From these considerations, I have rather supposed the idea of tusks more natural and agreeable to the sense of the original than the term ribs, which seems far- fetched and rather inapplicable. . . . The three tusks may refer to the three different points to which the Persians pushed their conquests. Coming from the East they invaded the western, southern, and north- ern territories; and thus we read in the next chapter, ver. 4, that the ram pushed westward, and northward, and southward. And that great havoc among the human race was made by the Persians may be learnt from Jer. li. 56, and also from the revolt of the Hyr- canians, and of Gobryas in the fourth book, and from other parts of the Cyropeedia, as well as from most of the historians *.” There appear to be scarcely sufficient grounds for the animadversions here cast on the common read- ing; though were we thus to understand the disputed word, the general signification of the passage would not be materially altered. The translation of Wintle would equally fall in with either of the two interpre- * Wint., notes on Dan. 96, 97. SYMBOLISM OF DANIEL. 125 tations, which have been suggested respecting the nations intended to be pointed at, whether as being actually in the jaws of Persia, or else as being in the direction of the Persian attack. Substantially, how- ever, he coincides with the latter of these interpreta- tions, viz. that maintained by the two Newtons and Bishop Chandler. This difference of opinion, confined though it be to a minor point, among men so learned and so competent to form a correct judgment, sufficiently disproves the assertion that the Book of Daniel was a very late work, the production of the Maccabean or a subse- quent age, and that you can trace distinctly the date when it was written, because the events up to that date are given with historical minuteness. There can be no historical minuteness, where events on a grand scale, occupying a large space in history, are deli- neated as it were with a touch. The single stroke, in a sketch like this, exhibits at once the hand of a master, which no forger could imitate. It is so slight, as not to be recognizable, without concentrat- ing upon it lines of thought, as we are accustomed to do rays of light upen the sketches of a Rembrandt or a Turner, in order to bring out, through a contracted pupil, the objects which a consummate art alone has dimmed. Viewed with the aid of this, the picture gradually developes itself, until from its dark recesses, or seem- ingly undistinguishable surface, one object after an- other stands out in bold and beautiful relief; and it is seen to possess all the varieties of light and shade. We may rely upon the interpretation given with greater certainty; since the description was inappli- cable to Persia at the time of the alleged forgery. In the age of the Maccabees, she could no longer be de- scribed under the form of a bear. With her con- 126 SYMBOLISM OF DANIEL. quests, she had thrown aside the shaggy mantle of this once fit emblem of her state; and clad herself in robes of the greatest luxury and splendor. Not merely their cities, but the very camps of Xerxes and Darius, were celebrated for their voluptuous magnificence; and since their descent upon Babylonia, and its ab- sorption into their own empire, the Persians had _be- come the μαλακοὶ ἄνδρες ἐκ τοῦ μαλακοῦ χώρου, so truly predicted by the most celebrated of their heroes, Cyrus the Great. From the time of Xerxes, “ symp- toms of decay and corruption were manifest in the empire: the national character gradually degenerated ; the citizens were corrupted and enfeebled by luxury, and confided more in mercenary troops than in native valor and fidelity. The kings submitted to the con- trol of their wives, or the creatures whom they raised to, posts of distinction; and the satraps from being civil functionaries began to usurp military autho- rity*.” ‘With the ancient simplicity of manners, all that was noble and good was irrecoverably lost +.” § I. DANIEL’S THIRD EMPIRE. A third kingdom now presents itself; ‘‘ After this I beheld, and lo another, like a leopard, which had upon the back of it four wings of a fowl; the beast had also four heads; and dominion was given to it 7." Here, again, is a compound animal form, wholly of a Chaldean character. The objects selected are not, as before, an animal and a man; but a wild beast and a bird. Τὸ the eye of sense, this combination of two animals of such diversity of appearance and habit, presents a heterogeneous and ill-assorted emblem. But such a judgment, however applicable it might be * Lynam’s Hist. Chart. + Schlosser, i. 288. 1 Dan. vii. 6. SYMBOLISM OF DANIEL. 137 to the Maccabean era, when the prophecy ‘“ Babylon shall become heaps *” had been fulfilled, and the trea- sures of Assyrian and Babylonian art were over- whelmed, would be very erroneous in relation to the age of Daniel. This compound animal form has all the grotesqueness, and other marks of Babylonian device; while in its figurative bearing it has an his- toric faithfulness and delicacy, which are incompatible with the literary errors and feebleness of the age sought to be ascribed to it. The combination of gro- tesqueness with historic accuracy is a sure mark of authenticity. A later age may have improved in taste, as respects sensible objects; but would, at least among the Jews, have lost in fidelity of narrative. What is most remarkable is, that this depth, and shading, as it were, of the picture, are not obvious; and, as in the case of the last preceding emblem, re- quire the rays of light and knowledge to be concen- trated upon it, in order to be detected and brought out. If, however, the bear were a suitable type of Persia, the Macedonian empire was no less appropriately re- presented under the figure of a winged leopard. Looking at this empire as established in Asia, the most prominent object is undoubtedly its founder. The next striking feature is the rapidity and extent of his conquests. The third, is the division of sove- reignty, which took place after his death. The intrinsic importance of these to indicate the nation was heightened by the circumstance, that there was nothing in the arts and sciences of the Macedonians, to distinguish them from the other nations of the earth. The taste of the Babylonians was exhibited in the gigantic and grotesque. This, and the bent of their genius, are felicitously deli- * Jer. li. 37. 128 SYMBOLISM OF DANIEL. neated by Daniel in the winged human-headed figure, huge in its proportions. The Macedonians had no such characteristics. Wherever they established themselves art and science indeed prevailed; but these sprang from Greece, not from Macedonia*, and after Alexander’s death were rudely checked by wars and political convulsions, except under the fostering care of the Ptolemies in Egypt. That which thereafter was to become history therefore, and not art or science, had to supply the materials for the prophetical picture; and how true and masterly is the sketch, we shall presently see. The entire delineation occupies but three or four short lines, yet it is amazing how much is condensed into it. The emblem chosen is that of a leopard with four bird’s wings attached to its sides, or back: so Wintle renders it; or according to the Greek, and Vulgate, “upon it,” or “over it:’—Wintle remarking, “ The word 723 loses its Jod in very many MSS., as well as in the Masora, yet Syr. seems to retain the plural form, and renders ‘on its sides f.’” The leopard is peculiarly an animal of chase, spring- ing upon its prey, which sinks under its attack. It is distinguished by four characteristics,—the smallness of its size, in comparison with other animals of a similar class,—its courage,—its swiftness,—and_ its spots. All these marks are to be traced in the personal appearance, the individual qualities, and the public career of Alexander. Small in stature, nothing could be more indomitable than his courage, more impe- tuous than his assaults, more rapid than his progress, or more varied than his character and conduct. * See Grote’s H. Gr. xii. 2, 3. + Notes on Dan. 97. SYMBOLISM OF DANIEL. 129 These striking analogies have frequently been pointed out; although with some diversity of opinion respecting the last of them. The two first are noticed by Bochart in these terms, “‘ As the leopard is small in size, but excels in courage and strength to such a degree as not to be afraid of encountering the lion, and some of the largest wild beasts; so Alexander, scarcely more than a petty king, and with slender means at his disposal, ventured to attack the king of kings, that is, Darius, whose empire extended from the Aigean Sea even to India*.” The third of these analogies is thus referred to by Jerome: “Truly nothing was more rapid than the con- quests of Alexander, who from Illyricum and the Adriatic Sea, even to the Indian Ocean, and the river Ganges, ran over the various countries by a succes- sion, not so much of battles, as of victories: and in six (rather nine) years subjugated part of Europe, and the whole of Asiaf.” “He flew with victory swifter than others can travel, often with his horse pursuing his enemies upon the spur, whole days and nights, and sometimes making long marches for several days one after the other, as once he did in pursuit of Darius of near forty miles a day for eleven days together {.” * “Ut pardus, statura parvus est, sed animo et robore maxime prestans, ita ut cum leone et procerissimis quibusque feris con- gredi non vereatur: sic Alexander pené regulus, et cum exiguo apparatu, regem regum aggredi ausus est, id est, Darium, cujus regnum a mari Algzeo usque ad Indos extendebatur.’”’—Boch. in loe. + “Nihil enim Alexandri victoria velocius fuit, qui ab Illyrico et Adriatico mari usque ad Indicum oceanum, et Gangem fluvium, non tam preeliis, quam victoriis percurrit, et in sex annis partem Europe, et omnem sibi Asiam subjugavit.”—Hieron. Comm. iii. 1100. Ed. Bened. Ζ Prid. Connect. 1. viii. s. 1. 130 SYMBOLISM OF DANIEL. In his last campaign Colonel Chesney computes that his march extended to the enormous length of 19,000 miles. The spots in the leopard’s skin have suggested dif- ferent interpretations. Bochart considered that they denoted the various names of the several nations over whom Alexander ruled. Grotius more happily points the analogy to the king himself. ‘The leopard is a spotted and uncertain animal: so Alexander was affected by various tempers and passions; sometimes clement, at other times cruel; sometimes temperate, at other times drunken; sometimes continent, at other times abandoning himself to sensuality*.” Thus changeable in his mood, and exhibiting extremes of evil, with a mixture of much that was good and noble, what more fit than the spots upon the leopard’s skin to denote the excellencies and vices of his character ? The force of these several combinations cannot be removed by saying that the analogies are fanciful, or the resemblances casual; for although a solitary in- stance might give rise to a mistake, multiplied cases, similar in kind, cannot be attributed either to imagi- nation or chance. One quality may not admit of an inference, but repeated characteristics will; and when all the objects and events delineated are found closely to correspond with the emblems, under which they are described, there is no escape from the conclusion that this resemblance is the result, not of accident, but design. Such is the case throughout the sacred volume; but in no portion of it to a greater degree than in the Book of Daniel, of which the figure before us is at * “ Pardus varium animal, sie Alexander moribus variis; modo clemens, modo crudelis; modo victtis temperati, modo ebriosus; modo abstinens, modo indulgens amoribus.’’—Grot. in loc, SYMBOLISM OF DANIEL. 191 once an illustration and a proof. No doubt the com- parison may be pursued too far; and as Bishop New- ton has remarked of some labored commentaries, “with more subtlety than solidity*.” It is no less important in this than in other instances, to keep in view the caution of Tully: “In omnibus rebus viden- dum est quatenus,—In quo Apelles pictores quoque eos peccare dicebat, qui non sentirent quid esset satis 7." Where, however, the broader features are alone taken, there can be little risk of being led far astray ; and if, while keeping within these bounds, any mis- conception should arise, the interpretation oftener falls short of the real meaning, than exceeds it. This happens, I think, in the present instance. Bishop Newton, after observing that by the figure of the leopard with reference to Alexander he conceived “the principal point of likeness was designed between the swiftness and impetuosity of the one and the other,” proceeds to remark, “for the same reason the beast had upon the back of it the wings of a fowl {.” According to this view, which is the one taken more or less by all writers on the subject, the wings would indicate nothing more than the animal itself, or rather, than one only of its attributes, and would be a mere repetition of the same idea in another shape. This, however, would be a very poor construction of a remarkable addition to the animal’s form, and would make that to be purely ideal, which, judging from other parts of the emblem, might reasonably be ex- pected to have been suggested by a material original. In the fact, therefore, that the Babylonian empire is represented with ¢wo wings, while that of the Mace- donian is delineated with fowr, something beyond the #1, 259. t+ Orat. n. 78. t i. 259. K 2 19}. SYMBOLISM OF DANIEL. mere rapidity of Alexander’s victories may, I appre- hend, be looked for. Conjecture has not been want- ing on the subject. Thus Wintle remarks, that ‘“ by the four wings on its back or sides* seems to be meant the union of the four empires, the Assyrian, Median, Persian, and Grecian; or, as some think, Persia, Greece, Egypt, and India; and the rapidity with which they were united under Alexander, is fitly de- noted by the character of wings f.” Were this accepted as a correct interpretation, it would make the wings to signify both the olject ac- complished and the manner of its accomplishment; two things, if not inconsistent, at least not to be con- founded, if any other solution can be suggested. It would further tend to depress the position of Alex- ander with reference to these kingdoms, since the wings are depicted in the emblem as being above the body of the leopard. They therefore, rather than he, would in this view of it be uppermost or supreme; whereas, over the countries which he conquered, Alexander unquestionably raised himself to be abso- lute lord. For these reasons, I conceive, that this suggested explanation must also be rejected. ‘There is, however, another interpretation, which appears not to be liable to any similar objections. - It accords in a remarkable manner with the history of Alexander, and that on a point which it is highly probable would be noticed by a prophetical writer such as Daniel. From its having led to no ultimate results and left no traces behind, * The figure of Cyrus at Pasargade appears to have four wings, though they may be only two spread out at greater length. They do not appear to be attached to the body of Cyrus, and may have been added only for the sake of symmetry, and breadth of coloring. See Gosse’s Assyria, 445, + Wint. Dan. 97. SYMBOLISM OF DANIEL. 133 however, it would be most likely to be passed over by a writer in the Maccabean age, even if greater accu- racy could then be looked for than is really to be expected. In Assyria and Babylonia not only the figures already noticed, but many others are delineated with a pair of wings. This was especially the case with the vulture-headed priest and various representations of the Deity. So in the country of the Pharaohs such representations abounded. ‘ Amun-Ra or Kneph-Ra, the. god of Thebes, or Jupiter Ammon, as he was called by the Greeks, was the god under whose spreading wings Egypt had seen her proudest days *.” Now the policy of Alexander the Great was in nothing displayed more conspicuously than in his as- sumption of a divine character, or that of a divinely assisted personage. Lesides the general keeping of this character, to be seen throughout, it was espe- cially asserted by him on two notable occasions: once when he entered the temple of Belus, at Babylon, after which he claimed to have divine honors paid to him; and again when, after sacrificing in the temple of Pthah, at Memphis in Lower Egypt, he with a portion of his army undertook a long and arduous march through the Libyan desert to Thebes, the ancient capital of Upper Egypt, situate in the oasis of Ammon, for the express purpose of visiting its cele- brated temple. Here he left his gifts before the altar, and was hailed by the Egyptian priests as “the son of Amun-Raf.” Thenceforth he styled himself « Alexander King, son of Amun-Ra,” a title which he never afterwards laid aside, except when he used that of “ King of Asia,” or the still more inflated one of “Lord of all countries and of the world {.” He thus * Sharpe’s Egypt, 1. 168. er wet. +t Justin XII. xvi. 9. Arr. vi. 15. Diod. Sic. xvii. 19Ὲ SYMBOLISM OF DANIEL. flew, as it were, over a large portion of the earth, not merely with the rapidity of the leopard when bound- ing after its prey, but under the shadow and with the aid of the twofold pair of outstretched wings, which denoted the hovering divinities of Egypt, and of Baby- lonia, expanded as it was into Asia. As with the spots on the animal’s skin, so here with the four spreading wings attached, (or, taking the Greek and Vulgate versions, “‘ upon or over it,”’) are to be traced the closest analogies to the progress, and publicly assumed pretensions of Alexander. At the same time there is nothing to point the emblem, as a whole or in its parts, directly to the Macedonian conqueror. It requires an intimate acquaintance with his history and actions to render them obvious; just as in a picture objects, which fail to catch the eye at a glance, gradually emerge from the canvas when more intently looked upon, and, separating into groups or individual forms, assume a bold and lifelike reality. If, then, the interpretation of the four wings which I have ventured to offer be considered sound, the simple fact that it has never been suggested for twenty-four centuries, reckoning from the age of Daniel, or for 2000 years, even taking that of the Maccabees, would sufficiently attest the latent cha- racter of the emblem. That the interpretation is well founded is shown, I apprehend, by this circum- stance, that it falls in with the rest of the delineation in being of an historical character; historical in the sense, not of being aided by past, but of being justified by future history. ‘Thus harmonizing, it gives a peculiar point and force to that, which according to the generally received explanations would either be redundant and comparatively meaningless, or else would be inconsistent, or at the best confused. One other portion of the emblem remains to be SYMBOLISM OF DANIEL. 135 noticed. The beast is described as having four heads; and, it is added, “dominion was given to it.” Considering how brief in point of time was the career of Alexander after his entry upon the Persian war, it is extraordinary to find not merely that his dominion was of such vast extent, but still more, that the Mace- donian sovereignty was so firmly rooted after his death. This, however, may be accounted for not merely by the fact that the superior energy of the Greek. character at this period of their history had been seen and recognized in the mercenary troops, which had previously been engaged in the foreign services of Asia and of Egypt, but also by the circum- stance that Alexander had established such a well- ordered administration, that his removal was at first scarcely felt *. History has preserved the names of some twenty or thirty of his generals, who had the government of as many provinces immediately after his death; while other regions were presided over by generals whose names are not even known. ‘This disposition had probably been made by Alexander in his lifetime, in allusion to which Rollin remarks, “ And it is in this sense that most interpreters explain that passage in the Maccabées, which declares that Alexander having assembled the great men of his court, who had been bred up with him, divided his kingdom among them in his lifetime. And, indeed, it is very probable that this prince, when he saw his death approaching, and had no inclination to nominate a successor himself, was contented with confirming each of his officers in the governments he had formerly assigned them; which is sufficient to authorize the declaration in the Mac- * Rollin, Ane. Hist. vii. 147. 190 SYMBOLISM OF DANIEL. cabees, that he divided his kingdom among them whilst he was living *.” But although this observation may be a just one, yet there is in this, as in other instances, a marked contrast between the extreme nicety of Daniel’s pro- phetical sketch, and the subsequent relation given by the writer of the Maccabees. The latter, immediately after the passage just referred to, subjoins, ‘“ And his servants bare rule every one in his place. And after his death they αὐ put crowns upon themselves: so did their sons after them many years f.” Now if, in the earlier passage cited by Rollin, the Maccabean writer were referring to the mere division of government or subordinate authority among the numerous generals of Alexander, it would not be true that they a// assumed the insignia of royalty, or that all or even the majority of them were succeeded, either as kings or governors, by their posterity. Nor did any one of them take the title of king until several years after the death of their chief. In the Maccabean account, therefore, taken as a whole, there is great looseness of description, and much which is positively inaccurate. This may be palliated by saying that it only professes to be a con- densed summary of what occurred shortly after the death of Alexander, and consequently that strict ac- curacy of detail or expression is not to be expected. Daniel’s, however, is likewise a mere sketch, and yet it has a delicacy of touch which surpasses any thing to be met with in actual history; and it is by eliciting this that I propose to furnish one more proof of its authenticity. I know nothing so well calculated for this purpose * Rollin, Anc. Hist. vii. ce. 1. 8s, 1. + 1 Mace. i. 8, 9. SYMBOLISM OF DANIEL. 137 as to compare it with narratives of an undoubted character, partly with a view to ascertain its general agreement or disagreement with these, but still more to note the different modes of treating the same sub- ject adopted by various writers, where the facts are not in dispute, and all are in the main correct. In doing so it will be found that Daniel, though indirectly supported by all, yet coincides with none of them. His description is altogether independent of theirs; and while they either generalize too much, or else take in detached parts only of the great historical landscape, he seizes upon the more prominent objects, just as amid the splendid ranges of the Alps the sun tips with its golden rays a few of their loftiest peaks. Polybius, who lived at no great distance of time from the events themselves, seems to point, though very indistinctly, to four kingdoms, which would cor- respond with the four heads of Daniel*. One of them, however, is rather to be implied than to be found actually mentioned; and to be perceived, the light of other histories is needed. Livy, one of the next earliest writers on the sub- ject, and whose account approaches the nearest to that of the Maccabean author, though with less of his faults, says this,—‘‘ Then was the sovereignty and name of the Macedonians greatest upon the earth, when being broken up into many kingdoms by reason of the death of Alexander, all in power were exhaust- ing their strength in the eager rapacity for extended dominion 7. Here the Roman historian does not profess to give the number of derivative kingdoms, which sprung from that of Alexander; but although = Polyps iyi. v. + “Tum maximum in terris Macedonum regnum nomenque, inde morte Alexandri distractum, in multa regna, dum ad se quis- que opes rapiunt lacerantes viribus.’”’—Liv. xlyv. 9. 198 SYMBOLISM OF DANIEL. his relation is indefinite, it is perfectly accurate as far as it goes. There is no approach to the erroneous representation of the Maccabean writer, that there were as many kings, as in Alexander’s lifetime there had been governors of districts or provinces. There is a passage nearly identical in Dionysius Halicarnassus, who says,— The Macedonian empire having overturned the force of the Persians, in great- ness indeed of dominion exceeded all the kingdoms which were before it: yet it did not flourish for any length of time, but after the death of Alexander began to decline. For being presently broken up into many governments by his successors, and none of them having strength to go on to the second or third generation, it was weakened of itself and ended in being destroyed by the Romans *.” Josephus, though he gives much the same account as Livy, has the appearance of greater particularity. After mentioning the death of Alexander, he pro- ceeds thus,—“‘ And as his government fell among many, Antigonus obtained Asia, Seleucus Babylon; and of the other nations which were there, Lysi- machus governed the Hellespont, and Cassander pos- sessed Macedonia; as did Ptolemy the son of Lagus seize upon Egypt. And as these princes ambitiously strove one against another, every one for his own principality, it came to pass that there were con- tinual wars, and those lasting wars too f.” The Jewish historian here mentions the jive gene- rals of Alexander, who played the most conspicuous parts after his death: but without as yet representing their governments or principalities as being converted into actual kingdoms; his allusions being applicable * Dion. Hal. Ann. Rom. i. 2, 3. + Joseph. Antiq. xii. 1. SYMBOLISM OF DANIEL. 139 to them as well before, as after their regal assump- tions. In the following chapter, however, Ptolemy is spoken of as having succeeded to the Egyptian throne immediately on the death of Alexander. “When Alexander had reigned twelve years, and after him Ptolemy Soter forty years, Philadelphus then took the kingdom of Egypt, and held it forty years within one*.” Thus confounding the periods during which the first Ptolemy governed Egypt, as lieutenant and as king, Josephus is not free from that inaccuracy of expression, which is occasionally to be met with even in the best historians, especially when referring to incidental circumstances, collateral to the main topic and end of their writings. So far as he enters into the subject, Josephus seems to indicate five heads, rather than four, as described in Daniel. Alluding to the wars which ensued, without inti- mating their results, he does not in reality go beyond the period immediately following the death of Alex- ander; nor can any thing definite be collected from the mere passing allusions, thus to be found in his works. Plutarch has a passage very similar to that cited from Livy. ‘As Empedocles observed that there was a continual hostility among the four elements which compose the universe, every one of them still combating with his neighbour, and all of them conti- nually striving to enlarge the boundaries of their empires; so did it happen among the potent succes- sors of the great Alexander, betwixt whom, especially those whose dominions lay contiguous, there was an eternal jealousy and almost perpetual wars f.” The contrast, which this passage offers to that in the Maccabees, is even more marked than the one in * Joseph. Antiq. xii. 2. + Plut. Vit. Demet. 140 SYMBOLISM OF DANIEL. Livy; since the writer is careful to distinguish such of Alexander’s generals, as attained to sovereign power, from the rest, by the epithet of “‘ potent.” But in Plutarch we have more than mere general remarks; for in tracing the life of Demetrius, he has occasion here and there to bring the successors of Alexander generally upon the scene. This he does in such a manner as to show the extraordinary accu- racy of Daniel. Like Josephus, he mentions, though at greater length, the five generals of Alexander, who acted the most prominent parts after his death. But before noticing his mode of doing this, it may be well to recall the reader’s recollection to some of the princi- pal events, which occurred at this period, attending to their chronological order. The dates commonly received are given below *. On a hasty glance at these dates and events, it might be thought that for a period of some four or five years, that is, between the years 306 and 301 before the Christian era, there were {five regal suc- cessors to Alexander, and consequently that the leopard of Daniel ought to have been represented with that number of heads, instead of four. Not only was the interval between the two periods B.C. * Alexander’s death ; P y : . 823 Extinction of Alexander’s family . 5 iy 2508 Naval victory of Demetrius, son of Ptolemy, near Cyprus; after which the victors were saluted as, and took the title of kings . 3807 Assumption by Ptolemy of the title of king, in which he was followed by Seleucus, and Lysimachus . . - : : . 9306 Battle of Ipsus, and death of Antigonus, when, and not before, Seleucus, Lysima- chus, and Cassander, were generally ac- knowledged as kings : : . 901 SYMBOLISM OF DANIEL. 141 too transient for a lasting impression; but the position in which these five powerful chiefs stood, relatively to each other, would have rendered the addition of a fifth head highly improper. There never were in the strict sense five separate kingdoms. As long as any son or brother of the late king survived, the Macedonians, in whatever part of the world they might be settled, “ pleased themselves with the thought, that the whole of the conquered countries were still governed by the bro- ther of Alexander: and no one of his generals, in his wildest thoughts of ambition, whether aiming like Ptolemy at founding a kingdom, or like Perdiccas at the government of the world, was unwise enough to throw off the title of lieutenant to Philip Arideeus, and to forfeit the love of the Macedonian soldier, and his surest hold on their loyalty *.” After the death of Arideus, and during the life- time of Alexander AZgus, who was styled the heir of his father’s extensive conquests, the same restraint continued to prevail, all abstaining from assuming the regal title, as long as there existed any rightful heir of Alexander +. So soon, however, as this impediment was removed, the towering ambition of Antigonus induced him to aim at universal dominion. He had early overcome the only true servant of his master’s house, the brave and faithful Kumenes, through the treachery of some of his own troops, and caused him to be put to death. He had compelled Seleucus to fly from Babylonia, and was preparing for further conquests, when he was opposed by the combined efforts of Ptolemy, Seleucus, Cassander, and Lysimachus. These generals, at the * Sharpe’s Egypt, i. 179. + “ Quoad Alexander justus heres fuit,” Justin xy. 2. 142 SYMBOLISM OF DANIEL. persuasion of Seleucus, entered into a general league against him; and the issue which had ultimately to be decided was, whether they should reign as four independent sovereigns, or he should be universal monarch. The principal object of his attack was Ptolemy, through whose assistance Seleucus had been enabled to recover Babylon; and it was in a contest with Ptolemy’s naval forces, that Antigonus and De- metrius gained the great naval victory, which led to their assumption of the title of kings. Three out of the confederate chiefs, determining not to be outdone, followed the example thus set them; although it was not until after the defeat and death of Antigonus, that their regal titles were gene- rally recognized. In his lifetime there was a striking difference: for while Antigonus assumed the title of king of all the provinces, Ptolemy called himself king of Egypt alone *. Cassander still retained his ancient style in all his letters and public documents, leaving others who ad- dressed themselves to him at liberty to give him the title of king, or to withhold ity. It was also to the dominions of this very Cassander, that Demetrius himself, after his own and his father’s overthrow, ultimately succeeded by a treacherous usurpation. But although these circumstances are not to be lost sight of, they are far outweighed in importance by others, which show that Antigonus could not be con- sidered as one of five kings; but that the claim he asserted was to a supreme, universal dominion. Not only could Cassander obtain no terms from Anti- gonus, without submitting himself entirely to the mercy of his adversary; but Demetrius would not * Diod. Sic. xx. 53. Sharpe’s Egypt, 1. 207. + Plut. Vit. Demet. SYMBOLISM OF DANIEL. 143 allow “the title of king to any of the successors of Alexander, except his father and himself;” ridiculing his opponents for assuming it, and branding them with opprobrious epithets *. Meanwhile preparations for the grand struggle for mastery continued. This resulted in the complete overthrow of Antigonus and his son, and the death of the former. After the memorable battle of Ipsus, which thus determined the fate of these presumptuous princes, the four confederate kings, whose regal titles then became assured, divided between them the domi- nions of Antigonus, and added them to those which they already possessed. Ptolemy had Egypt, Libya, Arabia, Ccelo-Syria, and Palestine. Cassander had Macedonia, Epirus, and such hold as he could obtain over Greece. Lysimachus had Thrace, Bithynia, and some other previnces beyond the Hellespont, with the Bosphorus: while Seleucus had Syria, and the rest of Asia, as far as to the Indus. Thus within little more than twenty years from Alexander’s death, and within only six or seven years from the extinction of his family, was the extensive empire of Alexander divided into four distinct and considerable kingdoms. The assumption of a regal title, even by