The Pulpit Commentary — Daniel — Section 259

Again, "·hen D1uius rublisl1cs the decree in extent of territory, this affords no sli~dow thnt oondemns DAniel to the lions' den, he of proof thnt there WAS a llfodio.n Empiro is moved to establish the decree "acrord- between the Dnbyloninn and the Pcrsirm. ing to the lRw of the Medas e.nd Persians, We may, then, assume this theory ae dis- "·hich nltcrcth not." When Darius would proved. rescind the decree, he is met by this i.m- A third set of critics divide the Greok mutA bilitv of the laws of the Mcdee and monarchy. They assume that the third the Per~ane. If the empire wns Median, monarchy is that of Alexnnder the Grent, why was the name PerBian appended thus? end that the fourth is tlmt of tho Dio.dochi. H il be objected that Medes is ple.oed before It is perfectly true that the four wings on I'ersiam, Dr. Pusey rightly remarks that the back of the leopard signify rapidity of tbis is in all likelihood due to the oourt movement, and this wae the pre-ominent politeness of those about e. Median satrap, cb_arneteristic of Alexander's conq nest. Cer- or king. Boys in Scotland often play at e. tamly, also, there we.a gree.t division among g-e.me which they invariably oa.ll "Scotch the successors of Alexander which might be ,.nd English," new,r "English e.nd Scotch," symbolized by the ten horns, though the yet the dispnrity in population, extent, and separate kingdoms nernr approached that influence is greater between England e.nd number. But no one could so.y of the Scotland the.n the.t between Persia and empire of the Diadocbi that it was utterly Media.. If one had no end to serve by diverse from what had preceded. The denying it, it would seem impossible to varions dynasties that succeeded Alexander deny t.ho.t the Persian Empire was regarded really continued his influence. No one 88 a dual empire by the author of the Book could se.y that e.e iron bree.keth in pieces, of Daniel ; e.nd tho.t, in his view, in this and subduetb all things, so the feeble king- empire "the Mede bad. almost an equal dom of the Dia.dochi subdned e.ll kingdoms. place with the Persian; that, in short, in If it is restricted to the 8elencids in Syria, the Persian Empire the Medes occupied it is still less true. Po.rthie. broke away much the same position e.s the Seotch do in from them, and Be.ctria formed a separate ihc English. kingdom. If, latterly, they secured Cmle- A subsidiary argument for making the Syria from the Lagids, it we.a only towards seeond empire the Median e.e distinct from the end of the reign of Antiochus the the Pen,"ie.n, is the fact that the second Great. Before that they had been bee.ten empire is declared to be inferior to the first. ha.ck a.gain e.nd age.in. Further, this scheme It is gratuitonsly e.ssumed that this means lacks symmetry ; the first and second e.e also inferiority in extent of dominion, and thus the fourth bea.sts, symbolize empires; the it is alleged that this independent Median third, only the reign of one individual Empire which succeeded the Babylonian monarch. We must, then, declare this wo.s inferior m extent to it. One can assert third hypothesis e.s untenable. anything of an empire that never existed_ We may neglect the interpretation quoted Mr. Bevan seems to lay stress on the fact by Mr. Beve.n, which me.de the fourth mon- that the word tt;r,~ "inferior," is only used archy Islam, and reduced the monarchies of the silver kingdom, e.nd holds that the to four, either by combining the Bo.bylo- idea of mferiority is not carried forward. nia.n and Persil;.n monarchies, or the Greek Had Mr. Bevan not determmed beforehand and the Roman. Ialam did not disposseee to make the division in question between the empire of Rome. Roman imperialism Medes e.nd Persians, e.nd seen that, to main- exists yet. The Emperors of Austria and tain this, he had to e.ssu.me the inferiority os Germany claim to be successors of the only applicable to the first, he wonld have Emperors of the West, and the Czar of recognized that the word m qnestion is Russia asserts himself the successor of the merely explanatory of the relative inferiority Emperors of the East. We may e.lso neg- of the metal used to symbolize the second lect Dr. Bonnar'a hypothesis, that makes kingdom, and its lower position m the figure. the four beasts symbolize-the first, the That being so, he would not have failed to Holy Roman Empire; the second, Napoleon see thB.t if silver is inferior to gold. then the Great; the third, the hegemony of the bro.BI! is inferior to silver, and iron to braee, Anglo-Saxon re.cc in Brito.in and America; and clay to iron. In fact, there is e. pro- the fourth, the anarchists. gressive degradation in the metals, which Let us look at the despised traditional harmonizes with the lower and lower posi- view. It starts, like e.11 the others, with tion m the figure e.ssigned to each. No the Babylonio.n. We are told that Daniel one could regard the Persian Empire e.s informed N ebucbe.dnezzar that he was the inferior m extent to the Babylonian. Still head of gold. The winged lion with human lees could any one regard the Greek as heart was a meet symbol of that Assyrian inferior in extent to the Persian. Ail the power wbich1 alike in. Nineveh and Baby- ipforiority of the successive eIP,rircs is 11ot lon, rcjoicea in winged, huumn-headed CU, \'II, 1-28.] THE BOOK OF DANIEL. 225