DANIELE

DANIEL. - Prophet who gave his name to a sacred book of the Old Testament.

SUMMARY:

I. The Prophet

II. The Book

III. Critical Problems

IV. Origin of the Book

V. The Deuterocanonical Parts

VI. Prophecy and Apocalypse

VII. Iconography

VIII. Apocryphon of D.

I. THE PROPHET

D. belonged to the tribe of Judah (Dan. 1:6) and, during the deportation of 605 B.C., was taken to Babylon (1:1), where he was chosen along with other young men to serve the Neo-Babylonian king under the name of Belteshazzar, after a suitable preparation. The story of Susanna (ch. 13 in the Vulgate) refers to the period of his youth. It is not known when he left the court, with which he appears sporadically in relation due to his fame as a prophet. Episodes of his life and prophecies are known to date from the reign of Nebuchadnezzar II (605-562 B.C.) to the third year of Cyrus (539-529 B.C.). Unverifiable traditions point to his tomb in Susa.

II. THE BOOK

It contains the narration of six events (chs. 1-6), more or less miraculous, and four prophetic visions (chs. 7-12). Narratives stylistically similar to those in chs. 1-6 are found in the stories of Susanna and Bel and the Dragon, numbered in the Vulgate as chs. 13 and 14.

Chs. 1-12 are written partly in Hebrew (1:1-2:4a; 8:1-12:13) and partly in Aramaic (2:4b-7:28) and constitute the "protocanonical" book; chs. 13 and 14, along with a body of narrative and lyrical-religious elements connected with the story in ch. 3 (inserted there as vv. 24-90), are preserved only in Greek and are called "deuterocanonical" parts.

Analysis of the book provides the first means of examining the questions that cluster around this narrative and prophetic material.

The narratives (chs. 1-6) aim to show how the power and superiority of the God of Israel manifested itself before the pagan deities during the exile. The special wisdom enjoyed by D. and demonstrated in the subsequent stories was granted to the prophet and his companions for their faithful observance of the law of Jahweh (ch. 1). The five following episodes (chs. 2-6) end with the solemn recognition of the God of Israel by the Babylonian kings: D. explains Nebuchadnezzar’s dream of the statue of different metals, shattered by a stone that falls from a mountain, as a symbol of four world empires yielding to the advent of the messianic kingdom (ch. 2); he and his companions emerge unharmed from the fire into which they were cast for refusing to worship an idol (ch. 3); Nebuchadnezzar is healed of a mental illness that afflicted him, in accordance with D.’s prediction, derived from an interpretation of a dream of the same king (ch. 4); D. interprets for King Belshazzar (v.) the words written by a mysterious hand on a wall during a banquet, as a prediction of the imminent end of the kingdom and the king’s death (ch. 5); D. emerges unharmed from the "den" of lions, into which he was cast for praying to his God despite the prohibition (ch. 6).

III. CRITICAL PROBLEMS

This outline already shows the firm unity binding the various parts of the book, by virtue of the thought that pervades and sustains it all: the establishment of the universal kingdom of God, which in some way has a historical precedent in the recognition of Jahweh by the pagans of the ancient East (chs. 1-6), but which in the visions (chs. 7-12) is minutely prophesied and placed in close relation to the history just past or still unfolding. More precise observations of stylistic and ideological details confirm this impression of the strongly unitary character of the book, which is also the first indication of the unity of authorship.

Yet the ten episodes of which the book consists appear individually as self-contained units, due to their general completed form (note the introductory and closing formulas), the slight internal inconsistencies, and the minute particularities of each, both in the narratives and in the prophecies (e.g., the visionary schema of the universal kingdoms). A further complication is introduced by the fact, noted above, of the alternation of Hebrew and Aramaic languages.

It is now generally admitted that the individual episodes were originally written as independent units, later gathered into smaller collections, from which the book was eventually assembled. The manner in which this occurred is connected with the problems of the book’s origin and its vicissitudes, which also explain the linguistic alternation.

IV. ORIGIN OF THE BOOK

This problem has been addressed by critics of various tendencies with differing solutions.

At one time not only was the authenticity of the prophecies unconditionally accepted (cf. already Matt. 24:15), but the entire book was willingly attributed to D. himself, who was thought to have written it in his old age (late 6th century B.C.). Confirmation was found in the accuracy of the information about persons (regarding the problems of the kings Belshazzar and Darius the Mede [v.] and Babylonian matters).

Today such a rigid concept of the book’s authenticity is no longer held: attention is drawn to the considerable differentiation of Hebrew elocution from that of Ezekiel (Babylonian exile) and to the use of Greek words in the Aramaic of ch. 3, a usage inconceivable in Semitic territory before the invasion of Alexander the Great.

Rationalism, in general, goes even further back in time, to the years of the oppression exercised by Antiochus Epiphanes (175-164 B.C.) against the civil and religious independence of the Jews, in which a pious Israelite, drawing on already widespread traditions about the life and visions of a "prophet" D., would have composed the (protocanonical) book to encourage the resistance of his persecuted countrymen and to console them, showing how imminent was the adversity foretold in ancient prophecies that had announced the persecution itself, its growing intensity, and its swift resolution with the end of the persecutor. It is noted that in all the visions, after a sometimes precise description of a state of distress (= persecution), there is also, more or less veiled, an announcement of the end of evil and the beginning of good, set at fixed numerical intervals (7:25; 8:14; 9:24-27; 12:7.11.12). In keeping with this, radical criticism profoundly alters the explicit or implicit data of tradition regarding the person of the prophet (whose historicity it does not consider fully demonstrable), the history of the book, and the religious meaning of the prophecies.

V. THE DEUTEROCANONICAL PARTS

Chs. 13 and 14, along with the additions to ch. 3 (vv. 24-90), are preserved only in Greek and are considered deuterocanonical. They include the stories of Susanna, Bel and the Dragon, and the Prayer of Azariah and the Song of the Three Young Men. These additions, while not part of the original Hebrew/Aramaic text, have been included in some Christian traditions and are recognized in the Septuagint and Vulgate.

VI. PROPHECY AND APOCALYPSE

The second part of the book (chs. 7-12) contains four major visions, the common theme of which is the announcement of a future time when a transition from evil to good is to occur, after the victory over a complex of hostile forces that will determine a final struggle. The negative moment, already depicted in the statue of ch. 2, is developed alongside the positive aspect of victory in the vision of the four sea monsters, which represent four world kingdoms, and the human figure ("one like a son of man"; 7:13), who establishes a new universal and eternal kingdom (ch. 7); particular aspects of the negative moment are then taken up again in the visions of the goat and the ram (ch. 8), in that of the angel Gabriel bringing the prophet the prophecy of the seventy weeks (ch. 9), and in that of the events that will unfold from the end of the Persian empire to the end of the persecution of the "people of the saints" and the death of the persecutor (chs. 10-12), with a final reference to the positive outcome (ch. 12).

VII. ICONOGRAPHY

D. is often depicted in Christian art as a young man in the lions’ den, symbolizing divine protection and deliverance. Other common scenes include his interpretation of Nebuchadnezzar’s dream, the fiery furnace, and the writing on the wall during Belshazzar’s feast.

VIII. APPOCRYPHON OF D

The Greek additions to the book of Daniel, including the stories of Susanna, Bel and the Dragon, and the Prayer of Azariah and the Song of the Three Young Men, are sometimes referred to as the "Apocryphon of Daniel." These texts, though not part of the Hebrew/Aramaic original, have been influential in Christian tradition.

The conservative critical-exegetical scholarship, with a far more thorough analysis of the book and external testimonies, rejects these conclusions as superficial. Studies by various Protestant (Hölscher, Haller, Noth) and Catholic (Junker) authors have meanwhile demonstrated the certain existence in the narratives and visions of archaic elements of varying scope, which the author "utilized" by reworking and incorporating them into an organic work that is the present book. If these elements derived from accounts of visions and prophecies, and perhaps also from firsthand memory in Hebrew dating from the exile, nothing prevents them from being recognized as the work of D. The "author" who followed would have done no more than disseminate in a new form the old narratives and visions.

The episodes were first collected in smaller compilations, still recognizable (commonly noted are that of the narratives, chaps. 1-6, and that of the visions, chaps. 7-12, actually arranged in independent chronological series), which then formed the book, chaps. 1-12. In these circumstances, an explanation can be found for the linguistic alternation: e.g., supposing that the redactor (or author) collected the narratives of chaps. 2-6 in Aramaic; subsequently enlarged the collection with the vision of chap. 7 (still using Aramaic), then with those of chaps. 8, 9, 10-12 (preserving the original Hebrew); and finally prefixed to the whole collection chap. 1 in Hebrew (also translating vv. 1-4 of chap. 2, so that the Aramaic would begin at 2:4, where the Chaldean magicians begin to speak).

The critical school that fixed the date of this work to the 2nd century B.C. was influenced especially by the consolatory purpose it believed it recognized in the book. But while this purpose may be admitted to some extent for chaps. 7-12, it is not at all applicable to chaps. 1-6, from which the others are inseparable: the kings Nebuchadnezzar (chaps. 1-4) and Belshazzar (courtesy of Prof. E. Jusi) of Nantele — D. among the lions. Mosaic of the 5th cent. — Sfax Museum.

(courtesy of Prof. E. Jusi)

DANIEL — D. among the lions. Mosaic of the 5th cent. — Sfax Museum.

(chap. 5) are not "anti-Semites"; they end by acknowledging Yahweh, honor D. and his companions; Darius the Mede (chap. 6) has an explicit attitude of sympathy toward D., who "prayed to his God."

Some Catholic scholars, both for the whole (Junker) and for individual parts (e.g., for chap. 9: Szydelski), favor a final redaction from older materials toward the time of Antiochus IV, but it is commonly thought that fixing the date to ca. 300 B.C., when the Book of Chronicles was being composed (whose Hebrew is quite comparable to that of D.), and Judaism was gathering its literary, historical, and prophetic heritage, would provide the most satisfactory explanation for all the problems concerning this book.

The precision of some prophecies, especially in chap. 11, is certainly singular: but it cannot be ruled out that the text assumed its present form through later touches (v. Darius the Mede), whereby even the prophecies were revised and expanded in light of their fulfillment.

V. THE DEUTEROCANONICAL PARTS

These are mostly judged to be later developments of writings around the name of the great prophet, occurring after the protocanonical book was already complete. Certain is both their Semitic origin and their inclusion from antiquity in the Jewish-Alexandrian canon and in the Catholic canon of inspired Scripture.

VI. PROPHECY AND APOCALYPSE

Notable peculiarities of literary and ideological structure distinguish Daniel from all other prophetic books and instead bring it close to a group of other non-canonical writings of the "apocalyptic" genre; among these peculiarities: a taste for complex visions, an interest in eschatological subjects, a wide use of expressions aimed at veiling thought and creating a mysterious atmosphere, symbols, numbers, etc. The application of this to Daniel is now admitted by many; but significant reservations are imposed by the fact that the "style" of this book lacks the exaggerations that are characteristic of the literary genre of the "Apocalypses."

The incomparable superiority of Daniel over the apocalyptic writers appears especially in the loftiness of his thought. Daniel predicts a future affirmation of allied forces of good as the fruit of victorious struggles against the forces of evil, which he also describes in their historical aspect as organized entities (kingdoms). The disparate elements that constitute the two aspects foretold in the future, evil and good, have led exegesis to recognize that three are the struggles and victories he foretells: the Maccabean liberation with the end of the oppressor Antiochus IV, the founding of the eternal and universal messianic kingdom, and the final victorious affirmation of the kingdom of God against the Antichrist, with the resurrection of the dead and the triumphant assignment of eternal punishment and reward.

VII. ICONOGRAPHY

The prophet Daniel appears from the earliest representations in funerary art naked among the two lions, according to the interpretation of Dan. 14:30-31. Sometimes he is depicted in the den, and more rarely while toppling the idol, with clear reference to the prophetic value of the gesture. In Danielic iconography, the hidden symbolic meaning of the juxtaposition of the prophet’s martyrdom with that of the Redeemer is indeed very evident.

The theme of Daniel among the lions enters the iconographic repertoire of the earliest Christian painters: it is found then in many frescoes of the catacombs, from the cemetery of Domitilla to the crypt of Lucina, to the vineyard of Cassia in Syracuse; in the sculptures of sarcophagi, in historiated glass, in small terracotta lamps, and in many other funerary furnishings, which are very numerous after the 3rd century. The same scene is repeated in a powerful Byzantine relief, assigned to the 6th century on the façade of the church of SS. Giovanni e Paolo in Venice, and in a fragment of a 9th-century marble ambo in the cloister of the cathedral of Novara.

The great ivory casket of the Christian Museum in Brescia, from the 4th century, which takes up motifs from the sarcophagi of Rome, instead presents the scene of Daniel in the den with Habakkuk bringing him food; the same connection of the two episodes, with allusion to the Eucharist, is found in a sculpture from the first half of the 12th century on the rear door of the church of S. Fedele in Como.

With the decline in the use of biblical representations, the stories of Daniel were rarely of interest to Renaissance and modern artists. But among the prophets, often depicted from the 16th century onward in the spandrels of domes, in the interspaces of windows, etc., for the purpose of decorating architectural elements, Daniel was never lacking, even if the treatment was limited to the single figure of the prophet in the act of reading or writing the sacred texts. A marvelous example is seen in Michelangelo’s work on the vault of the Sistine Chapel.

Giovanni Caramende

VIII. Apocryphal work of D

A book attributed to D. under various titles (prophecies, visions, interpretations of D.), attested from the 8th century A.D. In its various forms, it essentially recounts the dynastic series of the kings of Constantinople, imitating the sacred book of D.

Of the originals in Greek, an "apocalypse of D." by Methodius of Patara was published in the Monumenta SSP., I, Basel 1569, pp. 93-99. Various Bohairic manuscripts of the canonical D. preserve a Coptic version (G. Baldelli, Daniel coptoemphiticus, Pisa 1849, pp. 103-12); manuscripts of the Armenian version add it to the canonical text, under the title "seventh vision of D." (G. Kaltenklair, Die siebente Vision Daniels, in Wiener Zeitschrift für die Kunde des Morgenlandes, 6 [1892], pp. 109-36).

Another "apocalypse of D.", of a different form, was published by E. Klostermann, Die Apokalypse des Propheten Daniel, in Analecta zur Septuaginta, Leipzig 1895, pp. 113-20.