Commentary on Daniel 1 part 11/11

'And the Kittim who come in shall come against him, and he shall be brought low.' For having taken with him many Cypriots and other islanders (for Kition is to this day a town of Cyprus), he shall set out against Egypt, but being defeated and brought low he shall return.

'And he shall return,' he says, 'and shall be enraged against the holy covenant.' For all the wrath, he says, that accrued to him because of his defeat, he shall vomit forth against the holy covenant.

And showing the deed, 'And he shall act,' he says.

For at the second coming he shall both work much slaughter and enslave those who had escaped.

'And he shall return, and shall have understanding concerning those who forsook the holy covenant.' He shall take, he says, all thought for those who transgressed the law, and who denied Judaism but embraced Hellenism.

'And arms shall arise from him, and shall profane the sanctuary of dominion, and shall remove the perpetual sacrifice, and shall set up therein the abomination that maketh desolate.' By 'arms,' as we have already said before, he means the generals who serve him, inasmuch as, like arms, they carry out the king's commands.

'He shall therefore send,' he says, 'certain ones to profane the sanctuary of dominion,' that is, the temple dedicated to Almighty God;

and to set up within it an idolatrous altar;

for this he calls 'the abomination that maketh desolate.'

About this time Antiochus dispatched his second expedition into Egypt. Then, in between, the historian, having said certain things concerning the rivalry of the illegitimate high priests, went on to add:

'And when these things came before the king, he supposed that Judaea was in revolt;'

'wherefore, returning from Egypt with his soul made savage, he took the city by storm, and commanded the soldiers to cut down without mercy those who fell in their way.' Then, having related how the slaughter proceeded against every age, and eighty thousand corpses were counted, again after a little he says:

'And Antiochus, having a hostile disposition toward the Jews, sent the abominable commander Apollonius with an army of two-and-twenty thousand, ordering him to slaughter all of every age.' And after a little he says again:

'And arms shall arise from him, and shall profane the sanctuary of dominion, and shall remove the perpetual sacrifice;' that is, the worship offered daily to God.

And those who transgress the law, he says, they shall lead away into the covenant by means of slippery deceptions. For by employing beguiling words they will contrive that those who live in lawlessness should become manifestly impious.

And the people, they who know their God, shall prevail and take action. Here he alludes to those around the blessed Mattathias, who first stood against the decrees of Antiochus, and together with his sons took refuge in the wilderness, and campaigning with a few men overcame that ruler's generals.

And the wise among the people, he says, shall have understanding in many things. For those who use the knowledge bestowed by God according to their duty will utterly despise that man's laws, and will prefer death for the sake of the divine law above a life spent in impiety.

And signifying this, he added:

He foretells the things that are to come concerning his sons:

And when they are made weak, they shall be helped with a little help. For they will enjoy the divine grace, and for a time will prevail over those who make war on them;

yet they shall not enjoy peace and release from wars in these their days.

And there shall be joined to them, he says, many in slippery ways. For seeing this brave conduct, he says, many even of those who had slipped and denied true religion, using repentance, will run to them.

And of those who have understanding, he says, many shall be made weak. And some of those who seem to be pious will turn to the opposite.

In order to try them by fire, he says, among them, and to choose out, and to make white until the time of the end;

for there is yet a time appointed. Neither will these things, he says, harm the men who are to come;

for from this they will be taught not to be confident in their former achievements, but ever to fear and tremble, according to the exhortation of the blessed Paul:

For he who thinks he stands, he says, let him take heed lest he fall. For the changes of the seasons, as it were, try by fire and prove and separate the counterfeit from the genuine;

and moreover they also make white as it were wool, and test whether it has a natural or an acquired hue, and whether the color is wholly innate throughout, or lies only on the surface.

These things, he says, come to pass in part according to the present life;

but in the time to come there shall be the universal examination of all mankind.

Having said these things concerning Antiochus Epiphanes, he now passes over from the image to the archetype;

and the archetype of Antiochus is the Antichrist, and the image of the Antichrist is Antiochus.

For as that man compelled the Jews to be impious and to live as citizens in a lawless manner,

so the man of sin, the son of perdition, who exalts himself and lifts himself above every so-called god or object of worship, as the blessed Paul says, so that he even enters into the temple of God and sits there, showing himself forth that he is God, with all signs and lying wonders;

even so this one will do all things for the deceiving of the pious, at one time attempting to deceive and beguile by fraudulent wonder-working, at another time employing power, and bringing every kind of torment upon the nurslings of true religion.

But if anyone, seeking the sequence of the prophecy, does not believe that these things are so, let him take into his mind the teaching of the Gospel;

for there too the Lord in like manner foretells at once the things concerning the common consummation and the things concerning the destruction of Jerusalem;

Pray that your flight be not in winter, nor on the Sabbath (this suits only the Jews);

For there shall be great tribulation, such as has not been from the beginning of the world until now, nor ever shall be;

and unless those days had been shortened, no flesh would have been saved;

but for the sake of the elect those days shall be shortened. And showing that none of these things pertains to the Jews, he added:

Behold, here is the Christ, or there, do not believe it. And having foretold a little concerning the false christs, he adds:

For as the lightning comes out from the east and shines even to the west, so also shall be the coming of the Son of Man. And all the rest likewise, that I may not speak of each thing one by one.

Being guided from this point, then, we shall also understand the prophecy as having passed over from Antiochus to the Antichrist, as from an image to an archetype, and as clearly teaching us beforehand the things concerning that one.

For the king, he says, shall do according to his own will, and shall be exalted and magnified above every god, and above the God of gods, and shall speak monstrous things, and shall prosper. That is, he shall be successful, but not unto the end.

For only until the wrath is accomplished. Until, he says, he has thoroughly kindled the divine wrath and drawn it upon himself.

And by wrath he calls the punishment;

he will use diligence, calling forth all men to impiety, and desiring to take many as sharers in the punishment.

But the things that follow more clearly refute the folly of those who suppose that these things were said concerning Antiochus.

How then shall he who was so superstitious, so much an idolater, not regard the gods of his fathers? For Antiochus continued to do the very opposite in everything;

for while worshipping his ancestral gods, he denied the God who was worshipped by the Jews.

In no way, then, do these things suit Antiochus;

but they suit the very archetype of Antiochus, of whom Antiochus became an image and a type, who strove eagerly to surpass in impiety all the kings who came before him.

Concerning the Antichrist, then, it says: He shall not regard the gods of his fathers.

And the desire of women, and every god he shall not regard. And this too is directly contrary to the practices of Antiochus.

For this man was not even content with those alone who were joined to him by the law of marriage, from whom he begot Antiochus Eupator and Alexander, but he also consorted with lewd concubines.

And the second book of Maccabees makes mention of one of these, and the historian speaks thus:

Now it came to pass that the people of Tarsus and Mallus rose up in sedition, because they had been given as a gift to Antiochis, the king's concubine. He, therefore, who was enslaved to such licentiousness that he bestowed cities so great and so important upon a harlot woman, how shall he not regard the desire of women? Therefore from this also those who attempt to take these things as referring to Antiochus are clearly convicted of erring.

But let us return to the place from which we departed.

And the desire of women, he says, and every god he shall not regard, for he shall magnify himself above all. That is, he shall suppose himself to be the greatest of all.

And the god Maozeim he shall glorify in his place, and a god whom his fathers knew not shall he glorify with silver and gold and with precious stones and with costly things. For whereas all his fathers had known their own nature, and had not dared to name themselves the God who is over all, this one names himself a strong and mighty god (for this is what Maozeim means).

For the phrase in his place he has set down instead of himself.

And he shall act toward the strongholds of refuge with a strange god, whom he has made known; and he shall multiply glory, and shall subject many to them, and shall divide the land for gifts. For he shall raise up, he says, temples for himself, and shall adorn them with silver and gold and precious stones, and shall subject many to them, namely those who are deceived by the wonders, or made feeble by the punishments.

But also he shall divide the land for gifts; for to those who are subject to him and who choose to be impious, he shall bestow very much land.

And at the time of the end, he says, the king of the South shall lock horns with him, and the king of the North shall come against him with chariots and with horsemen and with many ships, and shall enter into the land with floods, and shall crush. We have often said that the ten horns of the fourth beast which appeared upon it signify ten kings who shall reign together at the end of the Roman empire.

From among these, then, in turn, the king of the South shall make war upon this one, who is called the king of the North.

For from the north, he says, shall the evils be kindled upon all who dwell on the earth. And Antiochus too, who happened to be a type of this one, was named king of the North.

When, therefore, the king of the South engages with him, this one shall make war upon him with a multitude and with strongholds both on land and on sea, and shall win the victory.

And these enemies the Lord foretold also in the sacred Gospels;

And he shall enter into the land of Sabir. Again by Sabir he indicated Jerusalem.

And these shall be delivered out of his hand: Edom and Moab, and the chief of the children of Ammon. Nor do these things suit Antiochus;

for having subdued these too, he set commanders over them, one of whom was Timothy, ruler of the Ammonites.

But under this impious one it is likely that these shall escape, inasmuch as they are not zealous in true religion;

for the impious one wages war altogether upon the zealous.

But if these names must also be understood figuratively: Edom is interpreted as the red one;

for this reason Esau too was called Edom, since he desired the pottage of lentils which was red; and blood too has a red appearance.

And Moab is named the one begotten of his father.

For thus the elder daughter of Lot, having conceived by her father and then given birth, so named the child that was born.

Those, then, who are called sons of God, who were begotten not of blood, nor of the will of man, nor of the will of the flesh, but of God, are fittingly named Moab.

And Ammon signifies the son of the race;

for this the divine Scripture teaches.

For the blessed Paul says, declaiming among the Athenians:

Being then the offspring of God, we ought not to think that the Divine is like gold or silver or stone, graven by the art and device of man. And God Himself called the saints His own race;

For, He says, that they may give drink to My race, My chosen, which I have obtained for Myself, to declare My excellencies. It is therefore in no way improbable that those who have been deemed worthy of divine kinship through divine grace should also be named Ammon.

If, then, you wish to understand the names figuratively, you will understand them in this way.

But if you wish to understand them historically, as we have already said before, then it means that he will hold these people in contempt, since the greater part of them live in impiety, while even the few among them who are pious are not fervently disposed toward the things of God.

'And he will stretch out his hand,' it says, 'against the land of Egypt, and the land of Egypt shall not be for deliverance.'

'And he will gain mastery over the hidden stores of gold and of silver, and over all the precious things of Egypt, and of the Libyans, and of the Ethiopians, and over their strongholds.' And these things too by no means fit Antiochus;

for he ruled over neither Libya nor Ethiopia, nor even over Egypt itself.

For, being commanded by the Romans, he turned back.

So that from this are signified the three horns which the little horn overthrew.

For here also three very great nations—Egypt, and Ethiopia, and Libya—held, as is likely, by three kings, this one will overthrow and bring under his own power.

'And rumors and alarms shall trouble him out of the east and out of the north, and he will come in great fury, to devote many to destruction and to make away with them.' Neither does this fit Antiochus;

for it was not rumors that troubled him and drew him back from Egypt, but the decree of the Romans, sent from the West, not from the East.

But concerning this one it says that, having taken Egypt, and Libya, and Ethiopia, and having brought them under his own power, he will be troubled by some rumor and will turn back, and will come in great fury, to devote many to destruction and to make away with them. And by both expressions he says the same thing;

for to 'make away with' is to strip off piety, and to 'devote to destruction' is to declare a person estranged from it.

'And he will pitch his tent,' it says, 'in Apadano, between'—it says—'the seas, upon the holy mountain of Sabir.' Neither do we find this having been done by Antiochus.

For let them tell us: what is this place in which Antiochus pitched his tent, lying between the two seas? But they will not be able to point it out.

all things done by the common tormentor of mankind.

And by 'Sabir' again he calls the land dedicated to God;

and 'Apadano' is a certain place so named, lying not far from Jerusalem;

for there he will receive his destruction.

'For he will come,' it says, 'to his very end, and there is none that delivers him.' For that man who has dared such and so great things, and has employed so great an arrogance, will suddenly receive his punishment, with none able to free him from it.

This too the blessed Paul plainly says:

'Whom the Lord,' he says, 'will consume with the word of his mouth.' And:

'With the Spirit, through his lips, he will slay the impious one.' CHAPTER.

'And at that time,' it says, 'Michael shall arise, the great prince, who stands over the sons of your people.' For the archangel who has been entrusted with your guardianship, it says, will arise for the aid of those who at that time are being warred against.

And this too will become clear to those who are ignorant through another interpretation;

for through the prophet Malachi God says to the Jews:

for this is what the saying means, 'He will turn the heart of the father to the son'—that is, of the Jews to those who have believed from among the Gentiles;

for these he called fathers, as being elder in respect of knowledge.

'He will turn the heart of the son to the father';

but rather, 'The heart of the father to the son'; for the Jew who has believed he will join to the Church;

and since, in respect of knowledge, the Jew is the elder, yet the nature of both these and those is one, he fittingly added:

'And the heart of a man to his neighbor,' teaching that the nature of both these and those is one, though the knowledge of God was given to the Jews first.

But having disbelieved, they were shown to be last;

yet having believed, through the preaching of the great Elijah, and having been joined to the Gentiles who seized the salvation sent to them, they will be brought together into one Church.

Then, describing the exceeding measure of the evils which that impious one will commit, it says:

'And there shall be a time of tribulation, such as has not been since the nation came to be upon the earth, even until that time.' This too the Lord said in the holy Gospels.

'For there will be,' he says, 'tribulation, such as has not been from the beginning of the world, nor ever shall be;

and unless those days had been shortened, no flesh would have been saved;

but for the sake of my elect I will shorten those days.' The prophetic words, then, are in agreement with the evangelical oracles.

'And at that time your people shall be saved, everyone who is found written in the book.' That is to say, those worthy of salvation, those who will hearken to the preaching of Elijah, whom from above and from the beginning he foreknows;

for he named the knowledge of God a 'book.'

'And many,' it says, 'of those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall be raised, these to eternal life, and these to reproach and to everlasting shame.' Let those who attempt to make these things fit Antiochus tell us who rose again in his time, and some of them obtained eternal life, while others reaped reproach and everlasting shame.

But if they should say that by these words the Maccabees are indicated, coming forth from the caves, they will incur even greater ridicule;

for the same men would be found to be both lovers of piety and workers of impiety;

should they take these things as referring to the Maccabees, they will be asserting either that the Maccabees themselves were both wicked and good, or that some of them were good and some evil.

But neither is this possible to find;

for their whole company was pious.

Nor does 'eternal life' fit them with respect to the present life;

for all of them, having been slain, departed from this life.

Therefore, leaving aside those old wives' tales, let us learn from this passage the common resurrection of the dead, and the discrimination which takes place after the resurrection;

for some of them will inherit eternal life, while others will become objects of derision and reproach forever.

And 'many' he used instead of 'all.'

For indeed the blessed Paul, instead of 'all,' put 'the many,' saying:

'For if by the trespass of the one the many died, much more did the grace of God and the gift by the grace of the one man Jesus Christ abound to the many.'

'And those who have understanding,' it says, 'shall shine as the brightness of the firmament.'

And the Lord also in the holy Gospels says: 'Then shall the righteous shine forth as the sun.'—'And of the many righteous, as the stars, unto the ages, and yet more.' For the most approved and choice ones will be likened both to the brightness of the firmament and to the very light of the sun;

while those inferior to these (for this is what he signified by 'of the many') will imitate the radiance of the stars, sending forth this splendor throughout the ages.

Thus indeed the blessed Paul also distinguished the ranks of the pious.

'For one is the glory of the sun,' he says, 'and another the glory of the moon, and another the glory of the stars.'

The grace of the divine Spirit, after the appearing of our Savior, having removed the seals of these things, made clear to those who believe the things that were obscure.

'And I said to the man clothed in the baddim, who was above the water of the river:'

'Until when shall be the end of the marvels of which you have spoken, and the purification of these things?' For I, he says, stood in silence and did not dare to ask; but two others, standing on either bank of the river, questioned the one clad in the fine linen garment, borne upon the surface of the water.

How long a time will these terrible things, so full of dread, continue? And when will there be release from them?

'As I live,' says the Lord. And the blessed Moses also shows him saying:

'I lift up my hand to heaven, and I swear by my right hand, and I will say:'

Yet we know the nature of the angels to be incorporeal;

but they shape their appearances according to what is useful for those who behold them;

and often they appear more gently, employing greater condescension, and often more terribly, making those who behold them more earnest.

He swore, then, by him who lives forever, that it would be 'for a time, and times, and half a time.' And this signifies three and a half years.

Concerning him who makes war against the saints, which will sprout up after the ten horns at the end of the Roman kingdom, the holy Gabriel spoke.

'He will humble three kings, and he will speak words against the Most High, and he will wear out the saints of the Most High'—he added.

'And it shall be given into his hand until a time, and times, and half a time.' Now these are three years and a half.

For by 'a time' he named a single year, and this we shall learn more clearly from what follows.

'For until a time,' he says, 'and times, and half a time.'

'When the scattering of the sanctified people shall be accomplished, they shall know the Holy One, and all these things shall be brought to completion.' For, he says, for three years and a half the scattering of the sanctified people shall prevail, and then all these things shall be brought to their end.

Here he alludes to the great Elijah.

For toward the close of that one's dominion the great Elijah shall appear and proclaim beforehand the second manifestation of our Saviour.

'And I heard, but I understood not, and I said:'

'Lord, what shall be the end of these things?' Not understanding, he says, what had been spoken concerning the time, I was constrained to ask, longing to learn it more plainly.

And I desired also to be taught the things that should come to pass hereafter.

'Until many be chosen, and made white, and tried in fire; and the lawless shall do lawlessly, and none of the ungodly shall understand; but the wise shall understand.' Not in vain, he says, have I spoken these things rather obscurely, and set obscurity, as it were, as a seal upon the words.

For divine things ought not to be set forth simply before all men; rather, the wise, through the knowledge supplied to them from above, shall understand.

But those who live in lawlessness and impiety shall be able to understand nothing of what is contained herein.

But when the events come to pass, they shall clearly learn the prophecies concerning them.

Then also the workers of wickedness shall be separated from the righteous.

For the fire shall test all things.

This the blessed Paul also declared.

'For each man's work,' he says, 'shall be made manifest.'

'For the day shall declare it, because it is revealed in fire; and the fire shall test each man's work, of what sort it is.' And again, concerning the fact that divine things ought not to be set forth simply before all, the Lord says in the holy Gospels:

By 'the abomination of desolation' he calls the Antichrist himself.

And by 'the change of the perpetual sacrifice' he means the order of the Church's liturgy, scattered and brought to a halt by that one's madness and frenzy.

To these the divine angel adds:

And this the Lord also says in the holy Gospels:

'But he that endureth unto the end, the same shall be saved.' And from this too one may learn exactly that none of these things fits Antiochus.

For in his case he said two thousand three hundred days, but in the case of the Antichrist he said that the calamity should prevail a thousand two hundred and ninety;

so that the difference of time also bears witness to the difference of the persons and of the events.

'For there are yet days for the fulfilling of the consummation.' For, he says, no small time yet remains to the constitution of the present life.

And here too he plainly taught us the consummation, and that in it the things foretold shall come to pass.

'And thou shalt rest, and shalt rise again unto thy time' (but more correctly 'unto thy lot,' as is clear from what follows), 'at the consummation of days.' For now, he says, it is fitting that thou receive the common end;

'but thou shalt rise again'—and not simply rise again, but unto thy lot, that is, together with the company of those of like manner of life.

And showing when, he added:

Having thus completed the revelation, the prophet added:

Now Astyages was the maternal grandfather of Cyrus;

and when he had died, and Cyaxares his son was unable to administer the kingdom, Cyrus, having overthrown the kingdom of the Assyrians and Chaldeans, transferred the dominion of the Medes to the Persians.

For he was, he says, a table-companion of the king, and a member of his household, and set over all his familiar friends.

For having this freedom of access, he pointed out to him the things foretold concerning him by God through the prophet Isaiah, and prevailed upon him to grant the release of the people.

But it is right to lament the Jews, who dare to place this divine prophet outside the roll of the prophets, and that too when they have learned by experience the truth of his prophecy.

For it is evident that they now have added to their other impieties this blasphemy also, attempting by the denial of the prophecy to obscure the manifest testimony to the manifestation of our Saviour;

yet they shall gain nothing at all by denying this prophecy.

For the other prophets bear witness, and the very events themselves cry aloud, seizing hold of the predictions concerning him.

For to him, he says, all things were granted in marvellous fashion, as to one of the very greatest of the prophets, and in the course of his life honour and glory from the kings and from the multitude;

and having died, he possesses an everlasting remembrance.

For he did not continue merely prophesying the things to come, as did the other prophets also, but he even fixed the time in which these things should come about. And a little further on: 'And from the fulfilment of his predictions,' he says, 'he carries off among the multitudes the credit of truth and the glory of divinity.' And in what follows he says countless such things about him.

Likewise also in the twelfth book of the Antiquities he again speaks thus:

for he showed that the Macedonians should overthrow him. And these things Josephus testifies concerning the prophet.

But the Jews, sick with every shamelessness, are not even ashamed before their own teachers.

But let us, I beseech you, having received from a prophet of God the foreknowledge of things to come, make ourselves ready for that fearful day, that we may rise not unto everlasting shame, but unto everlasting life;

which may it be granted to us all to attain, by the grace and loving-kindness of our Lord

Jesus Christ, with whom to the Father be glory, together with the Holy Spirit, now and ever, and unto the ages of ages. Amen.