The Pulpit Commentary — Daniel — Section 67

dree.n" as mee.ns by whioh the fotnre was convict (co111n11r,an()." We do not see the revealed to men; bot in no nation waR there need of any such supposition. In their own so ole.bore.te o. system of interpretation as land they in all likelihood believed in the among tbe Babylonians. Lenormant ('La interpretation of dreams, not unlikely in Dlvlne.tion ') gives a long account, with omens too in some degree. When they me.ny pneSBges tre.nsle.ted from their books, ea.me to Babylon they came e.mong & people of their mode of interpreting dree.ms, who bad reduced e.11 this to e. form the.t hnd "Visions" may be rege.rded as o.ppee.re.nces e. delusive e.ppeare.nco of scientific accurBCy. of the no.tore of the e.lleged second eight They oonld not fail to believe in e.11 these among the Scottish Hlghle.nders. It may, things. Long e.fter tbe latest crilice.l de.ta however, refer to appearances which a.re of Daniel, the Jews believed in omens and regarded e.s omens of good or evil fortune. dreams. Josephus tells us of hie own skill We see in a.II the ale.borate distinctions of in these matters, e.nd is still more explicit omens preserved to us in Lenorme.nt only in respect to the wisdom of the Eesenes in the folly of superstition; but we may not regard to the future. Students of the Talmud e.ssume the.t Daniel e.nd his friends did not will not require to be told of the batlt-qol believe in them. It he.a been objected the.t and other means by which e. know ledge of the if Daniel e.nd his friends were so scrnpalons fntnre was derived. We must, we fee.r, as- in rege.rd to the de.inties a.ad the wines of sume that Daniel was not so fa.r a.head of the Be.bylonie.n monarch, because these his contemporaries e.s not to believe in the were connected with idol-worship, they science of Babylon, e.nd therefore to expect ought logice.lly to he.ve refused to learn him to protest against it and refuse to these superstitious formulm. Bot men are acquire it is absurd in the last degree. _ never completely logical ; life is wider the.n This fact of these four Hebrew youths not logic, e.nd hence there are e.lwe.ys elements objecting to bee.then learning is an indirect tbe.t a.re left out in our ce.lculations. The proof of the early date of Daniel. If this possession even of Divine inspiration would book had been written in the de.ye of the not suffer men to annul the two millennia Maccabees, then the learning of the Chai- and e. be.If tbe.t sepe.re.te us from the de.ye deans would be a. synonym for the learning of Daniel. They-De.niel e.nd his friends- of the Greeks. We know tbe.t, so fe.r from did not see in this so-ea.lied science of the Q"asideem-the party from whom, by oneirome.ncy mere superstition. Still leas hypothesis, "Daniel" ema.nated--looking did they recognize it as having e. necessary fe.voure.bly on Greek lea.ruing, they bated connection with the idolatries of Babylon. e.nd abhorred it. We see in the Second In the following chapter we see the theory Book of Maces.bees (iv. 14) the feelings with Daniel himself he.d of the matter, namely, which they regarded those who favoured tbe.t God used dreams e.s means to make Greek manners ; bow even the innocent known the future to men. No one ce.n se.y game of discus we.a foll of horror for them, be we.a mistaken in this, When Luther bece.use it we.a Greek (i. 14); and in the described bee.van to bis child, he filled it first book with wbe.t horror the pious looked with what would be most happy for the on the erection of a gymne.sium in Jeru- little boy; he takes the child e.t the stage salem. This hatred of everytliing Greek at which he is, 11nd tells him the truth, but we.a very natural, and certainly WllB very in limitations suited to his knowledge. much in evidence in their history. For Me.y we not ree.sone.bly argue the.t the business purposes they bad to know the greo.t Father deals so with his children ? Greek le.ngue.ge; but the learning, the When they a.re in the state of knowledge philosophy, e.nd literature of Greece would that makes them expect to be.ve his will have been to those engaged in the Macca- revealed to them in dreams e.nd omens, then bea.n struggle e.bomine.tion. Is it, then, to he will me.ke known his will by dreams. be imagined that a writer of the Me.cce.bean Daniel knew 1111 that Che.ldean science period, describing an ancient hero from could tell him, but he se.w the.t it we.a whoso exa.mple his contemporaries were to limited, thnt behind all the canons of draw encouragement and guidance, would interpretation there we.a the Eleme.l Mind, represent him a.a zealously addicting himself the Greo.t Thinker, whose thoughts a.re to the pursuit of Gentile learning, e.nd things. In other words, be did not recog- making such progres8 in it tbe.t he e:xcelled nize the so-called soience of Babylon, its all competitors? The attitude ascribed to astrology, its ince.nle.tions, its omens, its him would he.ve been more like that of the interpretations of dreo.ms e.s false so much Rabbi Akiba, who decla.red that "Greek o.s limited, It be.a been placed by Jerome learning could be studied in e.n hour that as o. pe.re.llel, the.t Moses woe learned in all we.a neither day nor night;" or like that the lenrning of the Egyptio.ne. Jerome other mbbi, who declared that "the tre.us- o.ssuwes "tliey le11rued not the.t they might lation of the Scripture into Greek WWI a follow, but tbe.t they might judge e.nd disaster to Jude.ism equal in horror to thci  26 'l'HE BOOK OF DANIEL. [on. 1. 1-21,