DANIEL IN THE CRITICS DEN
Chapter 5
THE POSITIVE EVIDENCE IN FAVOUR
OF DANIEL
THE critics claim a competency to judge
whether this portion or that of the canon of Scripture be divinely inspired,
and in the exercise of this faculty they have decided that certain passages of
Daniel give proof that the book could not have a divine sanction. Their dicta
on this subject will have weight with us just in proportion to our ignorance of
Scripture. The opening chapters of the book which follows Daniel in the canon
present far greater difficulties in this respect, and yet the prophetic
character of Hosea is unquestionable. Other Scriptures also might be cited to
point the same moral; but as these pretensions of the critics are not accepted
by Christians generally, the matter need not be further discussed.
Still more summarily we may dismiss Dean Farrar's argument from the absence of
references to Daniel in the apocryphal literature of the Jews. Indeed, he
himself supplies the answer to it, for when he approaches the subject from
another standpoint he emphasises the influence which the book exercised upon
that very literature. And as for the silence of Jesus the son of Sirach, the
argument only serves to indicate the dearth of weightier proofs. The reader can
turn to the passage referred to and decide the matter for himself. If an
omission from this panegyric of "famous men" proves anything, Ezra
and the book which bears his name must also be rejected.
The next point claims fuller notice. Daniel was admittedly received into the
canon; but, we are told, "it is relegated to the Kethuvim, side by side
with such a book as Esther." The answer to this is complete. In the Jewish
canon the Old Testament Scriptures were reckoned as twenty-four books. These
were classified as the Torak, the Neveeim, and the Kethuvim - the Law, the
Prophets, and the Other Writings. Now, the objection implies that the Neveeim
embraced all that was regarded as prophecy, and nothing else; and that the
contents of the Kethuvim were deemed inferior to the rest of the canon. Both
these implications are false. In the former class are placed the books of
Joshua, Judges, Samuel, and Kings. And the latter included two books at least,
than which no part of the Scriptures was more highly esteemed,- the Psalms,
associated so inseparably with the name of King David; and Esther, which, pace
the sneer of the critic, was held in exceptional honour. Dr. Driver avers that
it came to be "ranked by the Jews as superior both to the writings of the
prophets and to all other parts of the Hagiographa." The Psalms headed the
list. Then came Proverbs, connected with the name of Solomon. Then Job, one of
the oldest of the books. Then followed the five Megilloth (Song of Songs, Ruth,
Lamentations, Ecciesiastes, and Esther). And finally Daniel, Ezra and Nehemiah,
and Chronicles. To have placed Daniel before the Megilloth would have separated
it from the books with which it was so immediately associated. In a word, its
place in the list is normal and natural.
The Book of Psalms, as already mentioned, stood first in the Keihuvim, and in
later times gave it its name; for when our Lord spoke of "the Law of
Moses, the Prophets, and the Psalms," he thereby meant "all the
Scriptures." Many of the Psalms were rightly deemed prophetic; but though
David was a prophet in the highest sense, it was not as prophet but as king
that his name was enshrined in the memory of the people, and the book thus
naturally found its place in the third division of the canon. For the books
were grouped rather by authorship than by the character of their contents.
Precisely the same reason existed for placing Daniel where it stood; for it was
not till the end of a long life spent in statecraft that the visions were
accorded to the Exile.
But this is not all. As Dr. Farrar urges, though he is obviously blind to its
significance, Daniel had no claim to the prophet's mantle. The prophets
"spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost:" he merely recorded the
words addressed to him by the angel, and described the visions he witnessed.
And the question here, be it remembered, is not what weight would be given to
this distinction by our modern critics, but how it would influence the minds of
the men who settled the canon. I am here assuming that the place which the Book
of Daniel now holds in the Hebrew Bible is that which was originally assigned
to it. But this is by no means certain. There are definite reasons to suspect
that it was the Talmudists who removed it from the position it occupies in the
LXX. version and in our English Bible, and relegated it to the third division
of the canon.
And now it is high time to raise a question which the critic systematically
ignores, a question which possibly he is incompetent to deal with. For the
Higher Criticism claims an entirely false position in this controversy. The
critic is a specialist; and specialists, though often necessary witnesses, are
proverbially bad judges. To some men, moreover, every year that passes brings
more experience in the art of weighing evidence than the theologian or the
pundit would be likely to acquire in a lifetime. And such men are familiar with
cases where a mass of seemingly invincible proof seems to point one way, and
yet fuller inquiry establishes that the truth lies in a wholly opposite
direction. But the caution which such experience begets is not to be looked for
in the critic. And as for Dr. Farrar, his book reminds us of a private
prosecution conducted by that type of lawyer whose remuneration is
proportionate to the vehemence with which he presses every point against the
defendant. It never seems to have crossed his mind that there may possibly be
two sides to the question. Here, then, we have everything which can possibly be
urged againsi the Book of Daniel: the inquiry remains, What further can be said
in its defence? Let us call a few of the witnesses.
First comes the mention of Daniel, three times repeated, in the prophecies of
Ezekiel (xiv. 14, 20, and xxviii. 3). The critics urge that a man so famous as
the Daniel of the Exile is represented to have been in the book which bears his
name, would have filled a large place in the literature of the nation, and they
appeal to the silence of that literature in proof that no such personage in
fact existed. And yet when the testimony of Ezekiel is cited, they declare that
there must have been another Daniel of equal if not greater fame, who
flourished at some earlier epoch of their history, albeit not even the vaguest
tradition of his existence has survived! Such casuistry is hard to deal with.
But here Dr. Farrar is rash enough to leave the path so well worn by the feet
of those he follows, and to venture upon a piece of independent criticism. He
fixes B.C. 6o6 as the date of Daniel's captivity, and twelve years as his age
when carried to Babylon; and he adds :- "If Ezekiel's prophecy was uttered
B.C. 584, Daniel at that time could only have been twenty-two: if it was
uttered as late as B.C. 572, Daniel would still have been only thirty-four, and
therefore little more than a youth in Jewish eyes. It is undoubtedly surprising
that among Orientals, who regard age as the chief passport to wisdom, a living
youth should be thus canonised between the Patriarch of the Deluge and the
Prince of Uz."
The author's words have been given verbatim, lest some one should charitably
suppose they have been misrepresented. For the reader will perceive that this
pretentious argument has no better foundation than a transparent blunder in
simple arithmetic. According to his own showing, Daniel was upwards of thirty-four,
and he may have been forty-six, when Ezekiel's prophecy was uttered. And
setting aside the absurd figment that Daniel was but a child of twelve when
deported to Babylon, his age at the date of the prophecy must, as a matter of
fact, have been forty at the least, or "if it was uttered as late as B.C.
572," he must have already reached middle age. In either case he had
already attained the prime of his powers and the zenith of his fame.
What, then, are the facts? We have Daniel in a position of dazzling splendour
and influence at the Court of Nebuchadnezzar, second only to that of the great
king himself. His power and fame, great though they were, cannot fail to have
loomed greater still in the estimate of the humbler exiles by the river Chebar,
among whom Ezekiel lived and prophesied. Neither "the Patriarch of the
Deluge" nor "the Prince of Uz" would have held as large a place
in the heart or in the imagination of the people. The name of their great
patron must have been on every lip. His power was their security against
oppression. His influence doubtless fired their hopes of a return to the land
of their fathers.
Nor was this all. The college of the Chaldean Magi was famous the wide world
over; and for more than twenty years Daniel had been "chief of the wise
men," and thus, in wisdom as well as in statecraft, the foremost figure of
the Court of Babylon. Among Orientals, and especially among his own people, the
record of the event which gained him that position, and of his triumphs of
administration as Grand Vizier, would have lost nothing in the telling. And
though his piety was intense and wholly phenomenal, his reputation in this
respect also could not fail to be exaggerated. Such, then, was the time and
such the circumstances of Ezekiel's prophecy - words of scorn addressed to one
of the great enemies of their race: "Behold thou art wiser than Daniel,
there is no secret that they can hide from thee;" or words of denunciation
of the wickedness which brought such judgments upon Jerusalem: "Though
these three men, Noah, Daniel, and Job, were in it, they should deliver but
their own souls by their righteousness."
The refusal therefore to accept the testimony of Ezekiel as evidence to
accredit the Book of Daniel is proof that neither honesty nor fairness may be
looked for from the sceptics. In the judgment of all reasonable men, this
single testimony will go far to decide the issue.'
The First Book of Maccabees is a work of the highest excellence. It has an
authority and value which no other part of the Apocrypha possesses, and even
Luther dedared it not unworthy to be reckoned among the sacred books of
Scripture. The author was indeed "a holy and gifted Jew," and though
the suggestion that he was no other than John Hyrcanus is now discredited, it
gives proof of his eminence both for piety and learning. And one of the most
striking and solemn passages of this book, the record of the dying words of the
venerable Mattathias, refers to the Daniel of the Exile and the book which
bears his name.
Notwithstanding the extraordinary erudition which has been brought to bear upon
this controversy, so far as I am aware the full significance of this fact has
hitherto escaped notice. There is internal evidence that I Maccabees was
written before the death of John Hyrcanus (B.c. 106). Allowing, then, for the
sake of argument, the utterly improbable hypothesis that the canon was not
closed till after the time of Antiochus, the book affords conclusive proof that
among the learned of that day Daniel was regarded as the work of the great
prophet-prince of the Captivity. It was as such, therefore, that it must have
been admitted to the canon. The theory is thus exploded that it was as a
"pseudepigraph" that the Sanhedrim received it; and the fact of its
reception becomes evidence of its genuineness which would outweigh the whole
mass of the objections and difficulties which have been heaped together upon
the other side.
If space were of no account, numerous points might thus be turned against the
argument in support of which the critic adduces them. But these may be safely
ignored in presence of other proofs of principal importance.
It was Sir Isaac Newton's opinion that "to reject Daniel's prophecies
would be to undermine the Christian religion." Bishop Westcott declares
that no other book of the Old Testament had so great a share in the development
of Christianity. To cite a hostile witness, Professor Bevan admits that
"the influence of the book is apparent almost everywhere." In this
connection he adds: "The more we realise how vast and how profound was the
influence of Daniel in post-Maccabean times, the more difficult it is to
believe that the book existed previously for well-nigh four centuries without
exercising any perceptible influence whatsoever." On this it may be remarked,
first, that it is far more difficult to believe that a
"pseudepigraph" could possibly have had an influence so vast and so
profound on the development of Christianity. The suggestion indeed, if
accepted, might well discredit Christianity altogether. And secondly, it is
extraordinary how any person can fail to see that the influence of the Book of
Daniel in post-Maccabean times was due to the fulfilment of its predictions
relating to those times.
Dr. Farrar quotes, though with special reprobation, the dictum of Hengstenberg,
that "there are few books whose divine authoritl is so fully established
by the testimony of the New Testament, and in particular by the Lord
Himself." And yet the truth of all this no thoughtful Christian can
question. St. Paul's predictions of the Antichrist point back to the visions of
Daniel. And with those visions the visions of St. John - the Daniel of the New
Testament - are so inseparably interwoven, that if the former be attributed to
imagination, the latter must be attributed to lunacy. The Book of Daniel and
the Apocalypse stand or fall together.
But the matter becomes far more serious and solemn when we realise how
definitely the visions of Daniel have been adopted in the teaching of Christ.
Dr. Farrar imagines that he has disposed of the matter by the figment that in
the twenty-fourth chapter of Matthew the reference to "Daniel the
prophet" was added by the evangelist as an explanatory note. But even if
such a wild suggestion could be allowed, every intelligent reader of the passage
can see that any such interpolation must have been based upon the obvious and
unmistakable connection between the words of our Lord and the visions of the
prophet of the Exile.
Here is a dilemma from which escape is impossible. If the Gospels be authentic
and true, our Lord has adopted, and identified Himself with, the visions of
this now discredited book. If the Gospels be unreliable and fictitious, the
foundations of our faith are destroyed, and belief in Christianity is sheer
superstition. "To the last degree dangerous, irreverent, and unwise"
this may seem in the Dean of Canterbury's judgment, but its truth is none the
less obvious and clear.
It cannot be asserted too plainly that Christianity is a Divine revelation. Nor
need the admission be withheld that, apart from revelation in the strictest
sense, the Christian's faith would be without adequate foundation. It is easy,
indeed, to formulate a religious system based on the teaching of a traditional
"Jesus Christ." But this is no more than a Christianised Buddhism; it
is certainly not Clirislianily. The main fact on which Christianity as a system
rests is the incarnation; and the man who, apart from revelation, believes in
the incarnation is a credulous weak creature who would believe anything.
"The Nazarene was admittedly the son of Mary. The Jews declared that he
was the son of Joseph; the Christian worships Him as the Son of God. The
founder of Rome was said to be the divinely begotten child of a vestal virgin.
And in the old Babylonian mysteries a similar parentage was ascribed to the
martyred son of Semiramis gazetted Queen of Heaven. What grounds have we, then,
for distinguishing the miraculous birth at Bethlehem from these and other
kindred legends of the ancient world? To point to the resurrection is a
transparent begging of the question. To appeal to human testimony is utter
folly. At this point we are face to face with that to which no consensus of
mere human testimony could lend even an a priori probability."
The editor of Lux Mundi and his allies would here seek to save their reputation
for intelligence by setting up the authority of "the Church" as an
adequate ground for faith. This theory, however, is a plant of foreign growth,
which, happily, has not taken root in England. But while on this point the Dean
of Canterbury would probably repudiate the teaching with which, in its
degenerate days, Pusey House identified itself, he would doubtless endorse the
words which follow. Here is the passage:- "The Christian creed asserts the
reality of certain historical facts. To these facts, in the Church's name, we
claim assent; but we do so on grounds which, so far, are quite independent of
the infiltration of the evangelical records. All that we claim to show at this
stage is that they are historical: not historical so as to be absolutely
without error, but historical in the general sense, so as to be trustworthy.
All that is necessary for faith in Christ is to be found in the moral
dispositions which predispose to belief, and make intelligible and credible the
thing to be believed: coupled with such acceptance of the generally historical
character of the Gospels, and of the trustworthiness of the other Apostolic
documents, as justifies belief that our Lord was actually born of the Virgin
Mary," etc.
This language is plain enough. The gospels are not even divinely accredited as
true. They are "historical in the general sense" indeed, and
therefore as trustworthy as history in general. They afford, therefore, ample
ground for belief in the public facts of the life and death of Christ. But who
denies or doubts these facts? They have their place in the Koran and the
writings of the Rabbis, as well as in our Christian literature. But on what
ground can we justify our faith in the transcendental facts to which these
public facts owe all their spiritual significance? "To these facts, in the
Church's name, we claim assent," is the only reply vouchsafed to us. Let a
man but yield up his judgment and bow before his priest, and he will soon
acquire "the moral dispositions which predispose to belief, and make
intelligible and credible the thing to be believed." And whether the
object of his worship be Buddha or Mahomet or Christ, the result will be the
same!'
"But," Dr. Farrar here exclaims, "Our belief in the Incarnation,
and in the miracles of Christ, rests on evidence which, after repeated
examination, is to us overwhelming. Apart from all questions of personal
verification, or the Inward Witness of the Spirit, we can show that this
evidence is supported, not only by the existing records, but by myriads of
external and independent testimonies."
Contempt is poured upon our belief that an angel messenger appeared to Daniel,
and we are not even permitted to believe that an angel ministered to our Divine
Lord in the Garden of Gethsemane. But if, as the natural outcome of this
teaching, we should be led to doubt the reality of the angelic apparition at
Bethlehem, the indignation of the teacher will find vent in a scream of
hysterical and unmeaning rhetoric.
For the question at issue here is the truth of the opening statement of the
Gospel narrative. I allude to Matthew i. 78-25, the last verse especially. To
the facts there recorded only two persons in the world could testify, and the
witness of Mary and Joseph reaches us only in the very records which, we are
told, are unreliable and marred by error. But Dean Farrar will assure us that,
while words attributed to our Lord Himself are not to be accepted as authentic
and true, the evidence here is "overwhelming." Of the reality of
Joseph's visions, and of the fact of Mary's faithfulness and purity, we are
supposed to have satisfied ourselves, first by "personal
verification," secondly by "the inward witness of the Spirit,"
thirdly by study of the "existing records "-the very records which he
disparages - and lastly by "tens of thousands of external
testimonies"! To discuss this is impossible, for here the writer passes
out of the region in which reason holds sway, and parts company even with
commonsense.
The position of the Christian is an intelligible one. Though he believes in the
unseen and the unprovable, his faith is strictly rational; for, assuming a
Divine revelation, belief is the highest act of reason. I cannot here discuss
the grounds on which he claims to possess such a revelation.' I merely note the
fact that the Christian maintains such a claim, and that, if it be assented to,
his position is unassailable. But if once the validity of that claim be
destroyed, every fearless thinker must fall back upon scepticism as "the
rational attitude of a thinking mind towards the supernatural." The story
of the Incarnation sinks at once to the level of a Galilean legend, and our
faith in Christianity is the merest superstition.
Not that the removal of spurious portions of the canon need necessarily lessen
faith in what remains. But, as already urged, if the Book of Daniel be expunged
the Revelation of John must share its fate, and in view of their exclusion
numerous passages in the Gospels and Epistles must be fearlessly re-edited.
Some may imagine that the process, if intrusted to reverent hands, would not
undermine the fabric of the Bible as a whole; but all will admit that it could
not fail to weaken it. Nor is this plea put forward as an excuse for clinging
to what is doubtful. It is designed only as a protest and a warning against the
recklessness and levity of the critics.
See Chapter 6