It would be doing the Book of Daniel serious injustice to deny it all claim to a truly religious tone, and to see in it merely an embodiment of rigid zeal for the Law. Even if the beautiful con- fession of sins contained in 9* should have to be regarded, with many moderns, as a later addition, yet in 8” and 11% there is the implication that the advent of the final age is still kept back by the continuance of God’s well-merited anger against Israel. But elsewhere, it cannot be denied, the strict observance of the outward demands of the Law, especially those relating to the cultus, occupies the forefront of interest. To our apocalyptist what appears to be the principal misfortune in the re- ligious persecution under Antiochus Epiphanes, is plainly the abolition of the regular morning and evening burnt-offering (8"- 18 11%! [coupled in the latter passage with the defilement of the sanctuary by a heathen image]), while its reintroduction is the subject of exact calculation (8% 12U#-),*
Considering the date of origin of the Book of Daniel, it is a matter of course that its conception of God should occupy the level reached by the writing prophets. It is remarkable, however, that here already there should be such striking traces of the effort, which afterwards reached a climax in the Rabbinical theology, to jealously guard the person of God from all direct contact with the visible world. This explains the great multiplying of comparatively independent intermediate beings, who hold converse with the apocalyptist, in order to give him information (716 §15f- 9218 where, for the first time, we meet with the name of an angel, Gabriel ; 104%-) ; or whom he beholds otherwise in his visions, such as the countless myriads of 7!° (cf. also 8! 125%, and the mention of guardian angels in 3% 68), In the story of the madness of Nebuchadrezzar (41°#-) it looks almost as if the rule of the world was left to the ‘determination of the watchers’ [certain superior angels] and the com- mand of the ‘holy ones’; it is not till v.22 that we hear of a ‘determination of the Highest.’ No less do the struggles of the nations appear to be decided simply by angelic princes (ony) as the guardians and champions of the various peoples ; + ef. 10", where. probably we should see Gabriel in the fantastically described figure of the champion of Israel, who, with the aid of Michael,t one of the chief princes (103+! ; in 12! he is called ‘the great prince who protects thy countrymen’), contends with the patron angels of the Persian empire and (v.2°) of Greece.
The above-described tendency to keep the per- son of God at a distance appears to be quite con- tradicted by the description in 79%, where the ‘ancient of days,’ who takes his seat upon the throne to execute judgment, can be understood only of God. But apart from the fact that here we have to do with a mere vision, and that on the occasion in question personal action on the part of God was indispensable, the description is confined wholly to externals (clothing, hair of the head, dazzling throne, and myriads of attendant spirits), God is not once introduced as speaking. On. the contrary, it appears as if the decision of the assessors of the court (v.!°>) were pronounced on the ground
*In 121f. there may be two later systems of reckoning, different from that of 814,
t Cf. what was said above (p. 709° f.) on Is 2421r.,
t Cf. the exhaustive monograph of W. Luecken, Michael, Gottingen, 1898.
RELIGION OF ISRAEL
of the ‘ books,’ in which, presumably, the actions of the parties to be judged had been written down.
This judgment evidently enters as a principal component into the eschatological expectations of the apocalyptist. And its result is not merely to cast down the heathen world-empire personified in the God-blaspheming Antiochus Epiphanes, but to bestow the world-dominion for ever on the ‘ saints of the Most High,’ ¢.c. on the people of Israel (7 21f 27; cf., by the way, even 24). In view of the express interpretation of the angel in 7°, the figure who, dike a man, comes with the clouds of heaven, can be understood only of Israel, and not of a personal Messiah, of whom, strangely enough, the book contains no hint. On the other hand, it is the Book of Daniel (12?) that contains the first undoubted * reference to the resurrection. Even here, however, what is looked for is not a general resurrection of adi the dead, but only a resurrection of many, including both the godly (to everlasting life) and the ungodly (to shame and everlasting abhorrence). The number of the first naturally includes Daniel himself (v.}8).
That this last offshoot of prophecy should now exhibit only faint traces of the true prophetic spirit, and should move rather on the lines of ‘legal’ religion, is only natural in view of the fact that the latter had held almost unlimited sway for nearly 300 years at the date when the Book of Daniel was composed.
In speaking of the Book of Daniel, and even in dealing with a not inconsiderable portion of post- exilic prophecy, we have been compelled to antici- pate the order of the stages of development of the religion of Israel. Our next task will be to seek to realize more fully the nature of the ‘ Priests’ Code.’