DANIEL
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DANIEL
27. and undoubtedly so in xi, 21-45; xii, 6, 7, 10-12.
W liiiovpr bears this in mind, it is argued, is led by the
Miiiilngi,' of Scripture to admit that the book belongs to
til.' jieriod of /Vntiochus. The rule is that "even when
tin' prophets of the Old Testament deliver a Divine
iiHssage for far distant days, they have in view the
II. eds of the people of their own day. They rebuke
iiii-ir sins, they comfort their sorrows, they strengthen
Ihn'r hopes, they banish their fears. But of all this
I here is no trace in Daniel, if the book wa.s written in
till' time of Cyrus. Its message is avowedly for the
time of the end, for the period of Antiochus and the
Miichabees". And this inference is confirmed by the
fiict that the narratives told in the first part., when
st iniicd in reference to the events of .\ntiochus's reign,
- ue found to impart lessons especially suited to the
.I.'ws of that period. The question of eating meat I I>:\n., i. 8 sqq.) w!is at that time a test of faith (cf. I Mach., i, 65 sq.; II Mach., vi, 18 sqq.; vii). The 1. ssons of the fiery furnace and the lions' den I'.in., ill, vi) were mo.st appropriate in the time of • I. ilachabecs when the jews were ordered on the |. liii of death to worship foreign deities (cf. I Mach., i l-i-54). The accounts of the humbling of Nabu- ch.idonosor (Dan., iv) and the fate of Balt.a.sar (Dan., \ I were also particularly calculated to comfort the .!. \vs so cruelly oppressed by .-Vntiochus and his offi- r. rs. Such a view of the date of the Book of Daniel i- in harmony with the apocalyptic character of the lie work, and can be confirmed, it is said, by certain
's in the external history of the book, such for in-
I nee as it.s place among "the Writings "in the Pales- tinian Canon, the absence of all traces of Daniel's influence upon the post-exilic literature before the Machabean period, etc. Despite the fact that some of these arguments again.st the Danielle authorship have not yet l)een fully disiiroved, Catholic scholars generally abide by the traditional view, althougli they are not bound to it Ijy any decision of the Church.
(4) Prophcni oj IhrSercnli/ Wcc.kf:. — Several sections of the Book of Daniel contain Messianic predictions the general import of which has been sufficiently pointed out in setting forth the contents and object of that inspired writing. One of these predictions, however, claims a further notice, owing to the special interest connected with its contents. It is known as the prophecy of the seventy weeks, and is found in an obscure passage (ix, 24-27), of which the following is a literal rendering; "24. Seventy weeks (literally, heptads] have been decreed upon thy people and thy holy city, to close transgression and to make an end of sins, and to expiate iniquity, and to bring in ever- lasting righteousness, and to seal vision and prophet, and to anoint a mo,st holy [literally: holiness of holi- nesses]. 25. Ivnow then and discern: from the going forth of the word to build again Jerusalem until an anointed one, a prince, [there are) seven weeks, and for sixty-two weeks it shall be built again [with] broad place and moat, and that in straitness of times. 26. .\nd after the si,xty-two weeks an anointed one will be cut off and he will have no . . . [Heb. 1^ )S1; Sept. (tal ovK ecTToi] ; and the people of a prince who shall come will destroy the city and the .sanctuary, and the end thereof [will be) in a flood, and until the end [sh.all be) war, a sentence of desolations. 27. lie will make a firm covenant with many for a week, and for half a week he shall cause sacrifice and oblation to cease, and instead thereof [i:3 ^J?, a more probable reading than the present one: e^JS ^y 'upon the wing') the abomination th.at makes desolate, and that until the consumm.ation and that which is determined be poured upon the dcsolator."
The difficulty of rendering this pas.sage of the He- brew text is only surpa.ssed by that of intenireting its contents. Most commentators admit, indeed, that the seventy weeks are weeks of years, which fall into three periods of 7, 62, and 1, weeks of years, rcspcc- IV.— 4a
tively, but they are still at variance with regard to
both the exact starting point and the precise terminus
of the seventy weeks. Mo.st of them, too, regard the
prophecy of the seventy weeks as having a Messianic
reference, but even all Catholic interpreters do not
agree as to the precise nature of this reference, some
among them, after Hardouin, S. J., Calmet, O. S. B.,
etc., seeing in the contents of the prophecy a typical ref-
erence to Christ, in preference to the literal one which
has been, and is still, more prevalent in the Church.
Briefly stated, the following are the three principal
interpretations which have been given by Dan., ix,
24-27. The first is the ancient view, which may be
called traditional, and which maintains that the
prophecy of the seventy weeks refers directly to the
appearance of Christ in the flesh, His de.ath. His es-
tablishment of the New Covenant, and the destruction
of Jerusalem by the Romans. The second is that of
most recent scholars, chiefly non-Catholic, who refer
the whole passage directly to the time of Antiochus
Epiphanes, with (Christians generally) or without
(Rationalists at large) a typical reference to Christ.
The third is that of some Fathers of the Church and
some recent theologians who understand the jirophecy
in an eschatological sense, as a prediction of the devel-
opment of the Kingdom of Cod from the end of the
Exile to the fulfilment of that kingdom at Christ's
second Advent.
(5) Text and Principal Ancient Versions. — One of the chief reasons of the obscurity which surrounds the interpretation of Dan., ix, 24-27, is found in the im- perfect condition in which the original text of the Book of Daniel has come to us. Not only in the prophecy of the seventy weeks, but also throughout both its Hebrew (Dan., i-ii, 4; viii-xii) and its Ara- maic (ii, 4-vii) sections, that text betr.ays various defects which it is easier to notice and to point out than to correct. Linguistics, the context, and the ancient translations of Daniel are most of the time insufficient guides towards the sure restoration of the primitive reading. The oldest of these translations is the Greek version known as the Septuagint, whose text has come down to us, not in its original form, but in that given to it by Origcn (died about A. d. 254) for the composition of his Hexapla. Before this revision by Origen, the text of the Sei)tuagint was regarded as so unreliable, because of its freedom in rendering, and of the alterations which IkuI been introduced into it etc., that, during the second centurj' of our era,_it was discarded by the Church, which adopted in its stead the Greek version of Daniel made in that same century by the Jewish proselyte, Theodotion. This version of Theodotion was apparently a skilful revi- sion of the Septuagint by means of the original text, and is the one embodied in the authentic edition of the Septuagint published by Sixtus V in 1587. In Dr. H. B. Swete's edition of the Septtiagint, Origen's revision and Theodotion's version are conveniently printed side by side on opposite pages (vol. Ill, pp. 498 sqq.). The version of the proto-canonical por- tions of the Book of Daniel in the Latin Vulgate is St. Jerome's rendering from practically the same He- brew and Aramaic text as is found in the current Hebrew Bibles.
Deuteho-C.\nonical Portions. — The Hebrew and Aramaic sections of the Book of Daniel, thus far do.alt with, are the only ones found in the Helircw Bible and recognized by Protestants as sacred and canonical. But besides those sections, the Vulgate, the Greek translations of Daniel (Septuagint and Theodotion), together with other ancient and modern versions, con- t;iin three important portions, which are deutero- canonical. These are: (1) the Prayer of Azari.as and the Song of the Three Children, usually inserted in the third chapter between the twenty-third and the twenty-fourth verses; (2) the historj' of Sti.sanna, found as eh. xiii, at the end of the book; (3) the his-
