Commentary on Daniel 1 part 6/11

'And King Nebuchadnezzar your father,' she says, 'appointed him ruler of the enchanters, magicians, Chaldeans, and Gazarenes.' Then she adds the reason as well:

'Because an abundant spirit was in him.' That is to say, He possesses a surpassing grace of the Spirit.

Then she enumerates the kinds of his spiritual operation.

For, having learned by experience the power of the prophet, they prefer his Hebrew designation to the Chaldean one;

wherefore, being at once stricken with fear, he summons the magicians and the Chaldeans, but cast out even the memory of the prophet from his mind.

For he would not, had he been ignorant of him, have made mention of his race and brought forward into the midst the captivity of Judea.

Nevertheless he inquires, and says:

'I have heard,' he says, 'concerning you, that the Holy Spirit is in you, and wakefulness and understanding and surpassing wisdom were found in you.' It is fitting to say concerning this man also what the Prophet said concerning Israel:

To name as God—instead of the things which are not gods—the true God, and to hymn the grace of the Holy Spirit, and to accuse indeed the wise men of Babylon as being unable to know the divine Scripture, but to entreat the prophet of God to make plain the things unknown.

And he promises to give him the purple robe, and the collar, and the third rank of the kingdom.

'Let your gifts be to yourself, and give the reward of your house to another;

but I will read the writing to the king, and make known to you its interpretation, O king.' Truly apostolic is the voice of the prophets.

For indeed the Lord, sending forth those men as heralds to all men, gave them this charge, saying:

'Let your gifts be to yourself, and give the reward of your house to another;

but I will read the writing to the king, and make known to you its interpretation, O king.' For I have not learned to sell divine things, nor to receive human wages in return for the divine mysteries;

receive therefore freely the knowledge of the things unknown.

'God,' he says, 'the Most High, gave the kingdom and the greatness and the honour and the glory to Nebuchadnezzar your father.'

'And from the greatness which He gave him, all peoples and tribes and tongues were trembling before him and fearing at his presence.' Do not suppose, he says, that it was by his own might that your father subdued the whole world, and brought under a single kingdom the countless races of the nations that use diverse tongues.

'And whom he wished he himself exalted, and whom he wished he himself humbled.' So great, he says, was the authority he received from God, that he was able both to render lowly those who were in exaltation, and to make conspicuous those who were utterly obscure and mean.

'And when his heart was lifted up, and his spirit was strengthened to become proud, he was cast down from the throne of his kingdom.' For just as, he says, he himself exalted whom he wished and humbled whom he wished—not always doing this by a righteous verdict;

And not only did He strip him of the kingdom, but He also drove him out from the common assemblies, and, delivering him over to madness and frenzy, caused him to dwell together with wild asses and beasts.

For whose wildness he imitated, of those also he received the manner of life.

He reminds him that he also ate grass like oxen, and, wandering about naked and suffering hardship under the open sky, he cast off the former colour of his body and took on another, which the frost and the burning heat produced.

'And all these things,' he says, 'he endured, until he knew that the Most High rules over the kingdom of men, and gives it to whomsoever it seems good to Him.' But he indeed learned by experience what was needful, and was taught by the very events, that of human things nothing is secure, but that the God of all, possessing eternal dominion, governs human affairs as He wills, and extends the gift of the kingdom to whomever He wishes.

'But you,' he says, 'his son Belshazzar, have not humbled your heart before God; did you not know all these things?' For you were not brought to your senses by your father's calamities, nor were you willing to learn from what he suffered the strength of God.

...pride, and he teaches that the mightiest heaven has as its Creator the invisible God.

'But you,' he says, 'set your heart higher'—not than the heaven, but than the God of heaven, the Lord of all creation.

For you would not, had you not been sick with so great a pride, have commanded the vessels of His house to be brought.

'And you and your nobles and your consorts and your concubines were drinking wine from them'; that is, you misused for drunkenness and revelry the vessels dedicated to God.

Then, lamenting as in tragedy the excess of his impiety: 'And the gods,' he says, 'the golden and silver and bronze and iron and wooden and stone, you praised.' And continuing in the same comic vein:

'Which see not, and hear not, and know not.' And yet you were able to perceive their impotence, both from their material, and from the craftsmanship laid upon it, and besides these from the insensibility of their parts;

for they are deprived of knowledge and of sight and of hearing, and possessed not a single one of the operations of the senses, but are merely bare images.

But not even this persuaded you to perceive what was fitting; rather you continue praising gods that are unable to help.

'But God, in whose hand is your breath, and all your ways—Him you did not glorify.' Well and most wisely did he set side by side the idols and the God of all, for the benefit of his hearers; and having shown that those neither see nor hear, he did not add concerning the God of all that He sees and hears and knows, but he set down what is greater than all, that 'Your life and your ways are in His hand'; for greater than living is to bestow life on others also, and again to take it away whenever He wishes.

He therefore showed that the idols are deprived of life and of all sense;

'But nevertheless,' he says, 'this One, such and so great, who holds authority over life and death, who appoints and deposes kings—this One you have not only failed to hymn, but rather you continue in your drunken insolence, reveling in the vessels set apart for Him.'

'Learn then,' he says, 'both the writing itself, and the interpretation of the writing.'

'Now the writing is this:'

'and the interpretation of the saying is this.' He calls the interpretation 'sygkrima' (rendering).

'God has measured your kingdom, and has finished it'; that is, He saw you to be unworthy of the kingdom, and judged fit to declare you stripped of it.

'It has been placed in the balance, and found wanting.' Through these things the prophet taught not him alone but us also, that nothing is unweighed before God, but that even mercy and long-suffering are dispensed to men by a certain measure and weight.

'Since therefore,' he says, 'you have overstepped the bounds of loving-kindness, receive the divine sentence:'

'Your kingdom has been divided, and given to the Medes and Persians.' It is necessary to inquire why on earth the God of all, having chastised Nebuchadnezzar, restored him again to the kingdom, but deprived this man at once both of the kingdom and of life.

Considering this, then, we find, first, that Nebuchadnezzar had not seen another paying the penalties for impiety, wherefore the righteous verdict of God deemed him worthy of pardon;

but this man, having beheld the very great punishment of his father, profited nothing therefrom.

With good reason, therefore, the righteous Judge in the case of that one limited the punishment to a fixed time, but deemed this one worthy of no pardon;

foreknowing his impiety continuing to the end, He puts a stop by death to the growth of his impiety.

Then, having arrayed this very man in that manner, using the voice of the herald he instructed his subjects, in that he declared him third ruler of the kingdom.

But none of these things annulled the divine sentence.

'For in that very night,' he says, 'Belshazzar the king of the Chaldeans was slain.' He here called him a Chaldean, in order to show henceforth the end of the Chaldean kingdom.

Truly it is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God, according to the divine Apostle;

fearful it is to despise the riches of His kindness and forbearance and long-suffering, and not rather to worship and serve Him according to one's ability.

'Today, if you hear His voice, harden not your hearts, as in the provocation.' And interpreting this, the blessed Paul exhorts:

'Take heed, brethren, lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief, in departing from the living God;

but exhort one another daily, while it is called Today, lest any of you be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin.' For sin often knows how, enchanting us with pleasures—as it did that senseless king through drunkenness—thus to harden our heart and render it obdurate, so that it readily admits even the disease of impiety.

Nebuchadnezzar; Evil-Merodach his son; Belshazzar his brother;

the Greeks call him Cyaxares.

and to the Medes the sovereignty of the world had passed over.

For those men have named him Cyaxares.

But if there had been one single campaign of theirs against Babylon, then there was also but one kingdom;

yet now he says that this is one kingdom and that another.

The things said by Josephus agree with the Greek histories;

so that the account of Josephus is altogether improbable.

But I, being persuaded by the divine Scripture, find this man to be the grandson (through a daughter) of Nebuchadnezzar;

for when God commanded Jeremiah to put bonds upon himself, and to send these to the neighbouring kings—to the king of the Idumaeans, and of the Moabites, and of the Ammonites, and of the Tyrians and Sidonians—He charged him to say these things to them:

'Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel:

Thus shall you say to your masters:'

'I made the earth by my great strength and by my uplifted arm, and I will give it to whomever it seems good in my eyes.'

For indeed Cyrus, being the grandson (through a daughter) of Astyages, who was a Mede and reigned over the Medes, is nevertheless named a Persian;

for men are accustomed to assign their national appellations from their paternal lineage.

But if this is not so, let those who wish demonstrate that a descendant of Nebuchadnezzar inherited the ancestral kingdom, and we shall not contend at all about this.

For that the prediction of the great Jeremiah is wholly true, everyone who thinks rightly would confess.

For though accustomed to reckon genealogy through the males, yet wishing to speak of the descendant, she called him son of the son.

From each of the two prophecies, then, it is possible to find the truth:

from that of Jeremiah, that even the descendant of Nebuchadnezzar would hold fast to the kingdom;

Considering the matter from this, and knowing the truthfulness of the prophets, we find that this man was a Mede on his father's side, a Chaldean on his mother's side, and a descendant of Nebuchadnezzar.

These things, then, we have found by seeking the truth of each of the two prophecies;

but let each man think about this as is dear to him, for no harm will arise from the uncertainty concerning the lineage.

Come then, let us take up the interpretation part by part.

And the successions of kings wrought no change in his honour;

but while they were quenched by death, he possessed the same brightness under all of them.

And indeed those who are entrusted with a kingdom or some other rule are wont least of all to trust the closest associates of their predecessors;

but this man possessed the same freedom of speech before them all, obtained equal honour, and was entrusted with the same authority.

I suppose that those now called prefects were addressed as 'tacticians' (marshals), and the governors of the nations as 'satraps';

'He surpassed,' it says, 'both the marshals and the satraps, the governors of the nations,' being set 'over against' them, that is, side by side, being compared and examined in comparison.

Then it states the cause of the victory.

'Because,' it says, 'an excellent spirit was in him'; that is, he received from God a far greater and more abundant grace.

We learn from this that even to those who are entrusted with secular authorities, though they be without any share of piety, some grace of wisdom is given from God for the sake of the administration of those they rule.

'Because an excellent spirit was in him'—that is, he had received grace corresponding to his piety.

'And beholding this,' it says, 'the king set him over the whole of his kingdom.' For understanding that the man was beloved of God and enjoyed help from above, he entrusted to him the administration of the entire kingdom;

but the greatness of the honour provoked envy;

that is, wishing to weave against him what is now called an accusation of treason.

But they failed of their aim.

For while keeping his piety toward God, he also treated the kings with much goodwill.

And when, having contrived countless schemes, they did not find him transgressing the laws of the kingdom— [verse] 5

'The marshals said,' it states;

And both the marshals and the satraps approach the king and say to him:

'All the commanders in your kingdom, and the provincial governors, the consuls and the satraps, have taken counsel together to establish a royal statute and to enforce a decree, that whoever shall ask a petition of any god or man for thirty days, save of you, O king, shall be cast into the den of lions.'

'Now therefore, O king, establish the decree and publish the writing, that the ordinance of the Medes and Persians be not altered, so that it may not be changed against this.'

This man both compelled these to act impiously and caused an ungodly decree to be set forth, one that barred those who wished to offer prayers to God.

For not only do they forbid themselves to do this, but also all the others who are under the kingdom.

And in order that the villainy might not become plain, they add that no one should ask anything even of a man and receive it within the thirty days;

but that in all these days one should declare his need to the king alone.

And those who had surrendered the seeing power of their mind to envy did not perceive that the king cannot furnish all things to those who ask;

but having lost their sense, they ascribe to the king what belongs to God, and they persuade the senseless king also to concur and ratify what was impiously requested.

Then it sets down yet another thing, which clearly indicates his manly courage;

'For the windows,' it says, 'were opened.' For he did not, it says, make his prayers in secret, but openly and with all beholding, not out of vainglory, but despising the impiety of the law.

And another thing is added, revealing this same courage of his;

'For in his upper chambers.' For not on the level ground, but as in some high place, he offered his prayers to God, being manifest to all both by standing on high and by having the windows opened.

'And he prayed,' it says, 'toward Jerusalem'; this he did not only to provoke his accusers, but also to fulfil an ancient law.

For Solomon, when he had built that temple and was celebrating the festival of the dedication, prayed, calling upon the divine grace, and beseeching that the temple might be filled with it.

And besides very many other things, he also added this:

'And it shall be,' it says, 'if you deliver up your people before their enemies, and those who take them captive carry them away captive into a land far or near, and they turn their hearts in the land whither they were removed, and make supplication to you in the land of their captivity, saying:'

and he continued to do this not once a day, but even three times.

And the posture too shows the contrition of his mind.

For bending upon his knees he continued offering his confession to God.

For this the scripture hinted at, saying:

'Know, O king, that the ordinance of the Medes and Persians is that no decree or statute which the king establishes may be altered.' You are not, they say, lord to overturn what you have decreed; for the laws of the Medes and Persians command that the laws laid down be fulfilled first by the king himself.

And he prays for his deliverance, saying:

'The God whom you serve continually, he himself will deliver you.' A pious utterance, and at variance with the former words.

For he would not, while governing a kingdom, instead of leading, have been led by those he ruled;

'For the God,' he says, 'whom you serve continually'—on whose account, he says, you also despised my laws and offer him unceasing worship—'will reward you for your piety and may deliver you from the terrors that beset you.'

The king went away to his house and slept without supper, and no food was brought to him, and his sleep departed from him. Each of these things bears witness to him of both compassion and cowardice.

and of cowardice, that being thus disposed he did not withstand the accusers, and, using the royal authority and power, save the one being wronged.

And having thus passed the night— [verse] 19

for the phrase 'in the light' hints at this.

For first he addresses him as a servant not of himself, but of God;

then, praising his piety, 'Whom you,' he says, 'serve continually'—that is, the one who was not hindered from this worship even by the necessity of the law.

And the phrase, 'Was he able to deliver you from the mouth of the lions?' signifies:

'Was he willing to render you mightier than the lions?' For he would not have called God powerless, whom he addressed as living.

'O king, live for ever.' He places the customary salutation before his own words, as if to say, 'May it be granted you to live very long.'

For indeed even in the present time, as we have already said before, some are wont to address kings as 'eternal' in the documents of contracts.

having become [glad], and filled with delight, inasmuch as he had come to know the power of God and had learned of the salvation of the one he loved, immediately commanded that he be brought up out of the den.

'And they had not reached the bottom of the den,' it says, 'before the lions overpowered them and crushed all their bones to pieces.' For this too was a work of the divine righteousness and wisdom.

For lest they should say that the lions had abstained through satiety and fullness,

for the lions seized them as they were falling, and while they were being let down and had not yet reached the ground, took them out of the very air and made them their food.

'Peace be multiplied to you'—that is, 'May it be granted you to enjoy peace continually.'

This resembles the form of address customary among us; for we too, when writing letters, are accustomed to inscribe at the head this greeting.

For we too, when we send letters, are accustomed to write at the head the words that follow.

Then he recounts the profitable and gainful narrative.

And he adds the reason, and says:

'And his kingdom shall not be destroyed, and his dominion shall endure unto the end.'

(27.) 'He takes hold, and delivers.' He abides forever, he says, possessing a kingdom that cannot perish and a lordship that admits no end, one that rescues and redeems those who have believed in him.

'And he works signs in heaven and upon the earth.' It is possible to behold his wonder-workings, both those that take place in heaven and those upon the earth, through which he displays his own power.

This power he has shown us also in the present instance.

The letter, then, taught these things to the whole inhabited world.

That is to say, he continued to shine brightly under each kingdom, and was distinguished among all.

It befits us, then, having learned the power of piety, to choose it, to set it before all things, and to yield it up to no circumstance whatever;

but even if all men together should wage war against us on its account, we should receive the assault eagerly, taking courage in its power.

For thus also the choir of the blessed apostles, though besieged, so to speak, by the whole inhabited world, remained unconquered, and made their enemies subject to them;

and at the very time when their adversaries supposed they had conquered, then it was that they suffered utter destruction.

Having, therefore, such examples, let us guard our goodwill toward God pure and sincere, that we may enjoy his support continually;

and may it come to pass that we all attain it, by the grace and loving-kindness of our Lord Jesus Christ, with whom to the Father be glory, together with the Holy Spirit, unto the ages of ages.

For first of all, beginning at once, he taught the things that had befallen them when they had been made captives of war;

and he added also how great a providential care from the God of all they enjoyed.

Then he related how great a penalty Nebuchadnezzar paid for his cruelty and arrogance;

and after this, what punishment Belshazzar suffered for despising the sacred vessels.

Having recounted these things, as it were, in the manner of a historian, he begins now to teach the predictions which he was taught through the revelations.

And first he sets forth the revelation of the four beasts, which very closely resembles Nebuchadnezzar's dream.

For that man beheld four materials in one image, and this one saw four beasts coming up out of one sea.

But that we may not be compelled to say the same things twice, let us begin the interpretation part by part;

for from that source this will be shown more clearly.

For since he is about to write down also the things he saw by day, he fittingly teaches us which things he saw in a dream, and which while awake.

'And he wrote down the dream,' he says. For he did not endure to conceal the things shown him from God, but recorded them for the benefit of all.

'And he answered and said.' That is, he began the narrative thus:

'And four great beasts came up out of the sea, differing from one another.' Now Nebuchadnezzar beholds an image, being taught the vanity of present affairs, and that they are figures rather, as the divine Apostle says, but not realities;

for nothing of them is stable or secure, but all flows away and perishes and withers.

For since he was compelled, having become a captive of war, to behold a foreign land, of necessity he is taught the surge and tempest of this life.

And the king, as one priding himself on gold and silver and bronze and iron, receives through these the riddles of the kingdoms, and learns the successions of kings, and is taught not to be high-minded over a kingdom that holds a swift-turning change.

But the prophet, inasmuch as he despised those materials, beholds four beasts, being taught that these fearful kingdoms, which terrify all men, shall themselves also come to an end, and that one alone remains, the kingdom without end, which the God of the saints has prepared for the saints.

By 'sea,' then, he calls this life, inasmuch as it has countless surging billows, and the winds that beat upon it are the changes of affairs.

For just as, when the south wind blows, the waves run toward the northern region, and when the north wind stirs the sea, again the surge is driven toward the southern region;

they drew all their subjects to themselves;

but when the kingdom passed over to the Persians, straightway the course of the subjects too passed over to them.

And again, when the Macedonians took up the scepters, all abandoned those whom they had formerly obeyed, and brought to these their customary tribute.

And when the Romans bound upon themselves the dominion over all, all run together to the west, making no account of the Macedonians;

for these too were numbered among the subjects.

Fittingly, therefore, he likened the changes of affairs to winds, which now drive the waves of the sea this way, now that.

And for this reason he made mention of the four winds also, since there came to be four successions of kingdoms.

'For the first,' he says, 'was like a lioness, and it had wings like an eagle's;

I looked until its wings were plucked out, and it was lifted up from the earth, and it stood upon the feet of a man, and a man's heart was given to it.' By the lioness he hinted at the kingdom of the Assyrians, or rather of the Chaldeans, for it was the first to rule over the greater part of the inhabited world;

for the animal is royal, and he says its wings resemble an eagle's;

for this creature too rules over all the winged ones.

Just as, therefore, in the case of that image also, Nebuchadnezzar said he beheld the head to be golden;

'The head of gold, you are, O king;' so here too he has placed the mightiest of the beasts over the first kingdom, not attesting to it greater strength, but declaring it, as first, to be more honorable.

But nevertheless he saw how its wings were plucked out; that is, it was stripped of all its subjects, and was deprived of its former power.

'And it was lifted up,' he says, 'from the earth;' which means, it ceased to reign.

'And upon the feet of a man,' he says, 'it stood.' It became equal, he says, to its subjects.

'And a man's heart was given to it.' It learned, he says, through experience to be humanly minded, and not to transgress by the imagination of its thinking the measures of its nature;

for since, when they held the rudders of the kingdom, they were sick with pride and immeasurable arrogance;

wherefore the blessed Isaiah also says:

'God shall bring upon the great mind, the ruler of the Assyrians.' Fittingly, therefore, having learned by experience both the change of affairs and the perilousness of prosperity, they become humanly minded, and know themselves, and have acquired a human heart.

In this manner, then, he recounted the things concerning the first beast.

'And behold, another beast, a second, like a bear, and it stood on one side, and three ribs were in its mouth between its teeth, and thus they said to it:

Arise, devour much flesh.' Here he hints at the Persian kingdom;

and he says it resembles a bear, on account of the cruelty and harshness of its punishments.

For the Persians were more cruel than all barbarians in their punishments, employing flayings, and by the piecemeal cutting off of the members contriving prolonged torments, and preparing a bitter death for those being punished.

'Arise, devour much flesh:' not commanding it to do this, but foretelling the things to come, and attesting its cruelty and savagery.

'Three ribs,' he says, 'were in its mouth.' For it ruled over the three parts of the inhabited world, the eastern, the northern, and the southern.

For Cyrus, the first to reign over the Persians, brought under himself the whole East as far as the Hellespont;

and Cambyses, his son, subdued Egypt also, and made the Ethiopians his subjects;

but being defeated in a sea-battle by the Athenians, he returned shamefully, and learned the harm that is begotten of insatiability.

'Three ribs in its mouth:' but some of the copies have 'sides;'

it reaps the harvest, and receives the tribute from every quarter.

And well did he add 'in its mouth,' that he might show the contribution supplied by all.

And since this kingdom was not utterly dissolved, but continued to hold a certain portion of its former rule, he did not say that it endured the very things which the one before it had suffered—being deprived of its wings, and standing upon the feet of a man, and receiving a man's heart—but he said that it stood to one side.

'And to one side,' he says, 'it stood:' that is, having ruled over the three parts of the inhabited world, it was deprived of the greater portion, but retained the rule over one part.

For though of old it held sway over all Asia and over Libya, it was stripped of Egypt and of Ethiopia;