The Book of Daniel

The Kingdom of the World and the Kingdom of God

This Book was probably written during the dramatic period when Judaism was in danger of being wiped out, namely, during the persecution by Antiochus IV Epiphanes, of which the Books of the Maccabees tell us.

In 175 B.C., Antiochus IV Epiphanes, an unscrupulous politician, came to power in Syria. The empire he had to govern was too disparate in character and too big; the vassal peoples grew restless from time to time. In order to keep the empire united, Antiochus undertook a policy of systematic Hellenization. All the nations were to have a single administration, a single way of life, and the same customs; all were to accept the religion of the Greek state, since religion was part of public life, and, in addition, they were to venerate the sovereign as a god.

A number of peoples, those that had no special difficulty in accepting a variety of gods into their pantheon, could accept this policy without running any great risks to their own religion. The same was not true of the Jews; for them, to participate in this kind of public life with its state-imposed worship meant turning to idolatry and renouncing their faith in the one God, the faith of their fathers. Conflict was therefore unavoidable. The monarch did indeed find accomplices among some of the more influential Jews, but when he went so far as to set up a pagan statue in the temple, the famous “abomination that causes desolation” (1 Mac 1:54; Dan 9:27; 11:31), a revolt broke out among the lower priesthood, who were joined by intellectuals and common folk who remained faithful to the covenant. For three and a half years Antiochus attempted to suppress resistance with weapons.

After the events, the Books of Maccabees provided a passionate account of those tragic times, but a different literature, of which the Book of Daniel is a part, came into existence and was circulated at the very time of the persecution, its purpose being to support the persecuted in their trials.

The author of the Book of Daniel has a primarily theological view of history; in his mind, all the events that have occurred since the Exile are part of God’s plan. Addressing a people who are continually persecuted, he speaks to them in a coded language that will mislead the police forces of the oppressor but will, at the same time, set forth his own religious ideas of current history. He pretends to have lived in an earlier time and to be seeing as future that which, in reality, is contemporaneous with him. In fact, it can easily be shown that he is very well informed about the beginning of the second century before our era; on the other hand, the information he provides about the past, in which he pretends to have lived, is very confused and inaccurate; he is also vague on events that would take place after the persecutions. We must therefore conclude that he was writing during the persecution itself.

If he nonetheless makes Daniel speak as though he were a prophet living during the Exile in the sixth century (just as the later sapiential books put their sayings in the mouth of Solomon), he does so in order to connect all events, even those contemporary with him, with the word of God; but there are no more prophets in this second century. There is, instead, a fervent cult of the past. The struggles going on are, in the author’s eyes, the symbol of powers hostile to God and of the coming victory of the reign of God; such is the central idea of the Book. The author also attempts to describe this still uncertain future. All of these traits taken together characterize the apocalypses, of which this Book provides a complete model.

The hero of the Book is righteous and wise; he has a name well known in the Jewish tradition (Ezek 14:14f; 28:3) and made famous throughout the East by many stories. The first part of the Book (chs. 1–6) takes the form of a series of edifying stories, which at times are based on historical facts, although in a very free way. Such could be the case, for example, with Belshazzar’s feast. The second part of the Book (chs. 7–12), which is an apocalypse in the proper sense, attributes to Daniel a series of visions in which the author makes use of primitive Babylonian traditions and other historical and biblical texts (see Joel 4; Zec 14).

The various elements used in composing the Book make it a complicated one. Moreover, some of its chapters are written in Hebrew, others in Aramaic, the current language, and still others, added later, in Greek. But the author, an intellectual who belongs to the group in rebellion, has succeeded in putting together an original work that does not lack unity and inspiration and that retains a lasting value. It bears witness that the kingdom of God is built up slowly in the course of world history, as the Lord always ends by triumphing over hostile forces that are opposed to his plans. Above and beyond passing earthly regimes, there is an everlasting kingdom, whose meaning the “son of man” (7:13) is coming to reveal, and in which all realities acquire their true nature. The new order associated with the resurrection can already be glimpsed: the martyrs will live with God (12:2). While it is useless to seek in Daniel for a means of calculating the coming of the end of time, the Book, by reason of its special literary genre, does offer a message of hope for those who struggle and suffer for justice, for the true reign of God. It has had a strong influence on later apocalyptic writings and especially on Christian apocalypses.

The Book of Daniel may be divided as follows:

I: Edifying Accounts: The Acts of Daniel and His Companions (1:1—6:29)

II: Apocalypse: Visions of Daniel concerning the Future (7:1—12:13)

III: Appendix (13:1—14:42)