RELIGIOUS ENCYCLOPEDIA
Daniel
who do not believe that miracles ever occurred, the fiery furnace and the lion's den will seem incredible, but it is not incredible that a writer in the exile believed them. The " atmosphere " of the book betrays its place of origin. " The more I read Daniel," says Lenormant, " the more I am struck with the truth of the tableaux of the Babylonian court traced in the first six chapters." The tablets now undergoing decipherment show a people given over to superstition, magic, and talismans. The naivete of truth appears in the mention that the Chaldeans spoke in Aramaic. They were frightened. There was no time for the composition of a reply in the court language. The unconscious revelation of the emergence of Law as superior even to the will of kings, when the Persian power came in. " The law of the Medes and Persians, which altereth not," shows contemporaneity. The simplicity of truth appears through all. The book is " sealed " at its close. This means: it is ended, or, it is attested, or, it is such that, as in Isa. xxix. 10-14, some will pretend they can not understand. All these are true of Daniel.
Joseph D. Wilson.
Bibliography: The earlier commentaries are mostly worthless; few of the modern ones are much better. In English the best by far and of the highest intrinsic value is S. B,. Driver, in Cambridge Bible for Schools, 1900. Consult also the commentaries by A. Bevan, Cambridge, 1892; J. D. Prince, London, 1899; K. Marti, Tubingen, 1901; and C. H. H. Wright, Daniel and its Critics, London, 1906. Discussion of critical problems are in Driver, Introduction, chap, xi.; A. H. Sayce, " Higher Criticism " and . . the Monuments, pp. 495-537, London, 1893; G. Behrmann, Das Buck Daniel, Gottingen, 1894; DB, i. 551-557; EB, i. 1001-15; JE, iv. 430-432. Particular questions are treated in J. Meinhold, Die Composition des Buches Daniel, Greifswald, 1884; idem, Beitrdge zur Erkldrung des Daniel, Leipsic, 1888; A. Kamphausen, Das Buch Daniel und die neuere Geschichtsforschung, ib. 1892; H. Gunkel, Schopfung und Chaos, pp. 266-270, 323-335, Gottingen, 1895; C. Braston, Etudes sur Daniel, Paris, 1896. On the unity consult: A. von Gall, Die Einheitlichkeit des . Daniel, Giessen, 1895; G. A. Barton, in JBL, xvii (1898), 62-86. On the seventy weeks: F. Fraidl, Die Exegese der 70 Wochen in der alten und mittleren Zeit, Graz, 1883; Van Lennep, De 70 jaarweken van Daniel, Utrecht, 1888. For the text: Hebrew is by A. Kamphausen, in SBOT, New York, 1896; best LXX. text by Swete, Old Testament in Greek, vol. iii. , Cambridge, 1896. Consult: M. Lohr, in ZATW. xv (1895), 75 sqq., 193 sqq., xvi (1896), 14 sqq.; A. Bludau, Die alexandrinische XJ ebersetzung des Buches Daniel, Freiburg, 1897.
DANIEL, ELECTOR OF MAINZ, AND THE COUN- TERREFORMATION IN THE EICHSFELD.
His General Policy (§1).
Severe Measures in the Eichsfeld (§ 2).
The Results (§ 3).
Events After Daniel's Death (§ 4).
Daniel Brendel of Homburg (b. 1523; d. 1582) became elector of Mainz in 1555 — to the chagrin of the citizens — by a majority of one vote over the palgrave Reichardt, who had Protestant leanings. His ofiicial policy was determined openly and mainly by political, rather than by re- I. His ligious considerations. He sought to General maintain a good understanding with Policy. his powerful neighbor of the Palatinate, though at a later period he appears more reserved than at first; ho discreetly abstained from intermeddling in French and Neth-
erlandish affairs; and in imperial transactions he allied himself closely with Emperor Maximilian II. That this policy was not prompted by ecclesiastical indifference is witnessed by measures in other connections: in 1561 Daniel founded a Jesuit college at Mainz, and he furthermore expressed his regard for the Jesuits by presents, by admitting them to the cathedral pulpit, by founding a school, by patronizing a Jesuit confessor, and by the stimulus he gave to other spiritual princes toward founding Jesuit colleges. In only one part of his archbishopric — in the so-called Eichsfeld region, between Thuringia and the Harz country — did Daniel carry through the Counterreformation; in the electorate proper (Mainz and its vicinity), Protestant elements continued to be tolerated, even in the government and in the elector's official household. The Reformation had quite early penetrated the Eichsfeld, especially by way of Erfurt, and about the middle of the sixteenth century the entire district was fairly Protestant. At the outset Daniel, like his predecessors, tolerated this state of affairs; but afterward, albeit with a regard to the rights of sovereignty duly drawn up and subscribed for him by the Protestant nobility, he interfered with rigor.
To subdue a disobedient vassal, he betook himself to the Eichsfeld in June, 1574, with a considerable array of troops, and accompanied by two Jesuits. The nobleman in question was quickly overcome, and the Protestant preachers were driven out of the two towns, Duderstadt and Heiligenstadt. Since the elector proceeded only against the towns, and at the same time granted freedom of conscience to the territorial knighthood, any
2. Severe general resistance to these extraor-
Measures dinary measures was for the time in the being averted. A zealous convert,
Eichsfeld. Lippold of Stralendorf, was entrusted, as temporal chief officer, with the prosecution of the work thus begun; and the spiritual commissioner, Heinrich Bunthe, was of equally strict Catholic sentiments. At the beginning of 1575 they were joined by the Jesuit Elgard and other Jesuits despatched to the elector by the Curia. Elgard soon made himself indispensable, and measures animated by a spirit heretofore unknown in the Eichsfeld rapidly multiplied. At Duderstadt they sought to take the churches from the Protestants; visitations began alike in the towns and in the country, that is, within the sphere of the knightly patronages; the Protestant clergy were driven away, and ecclesiastical burial was refused to their adherents. Against this manner of procedure the knightly estate of the district now rose up, reenforced by the neighboring princes of Hesse and electoral Saxony, but without effectual results; still more energetic measures were prosecuted in favor of the Counterreformation. A fresh importation of Jesuits ensued; the dispersion of the Protestant clergy continued; the frequenting of outside Protestant churches and participation in the communion according to the Lutheran rite were forbidden; and even very secular methods were applied to render the population submissive, such as the prohibition of the export of Duderstadt beer.
Daniel Dante