DANIEL AND HIS PROPHECIES FROM THE CRITICAL STANDPOINT.
By George McCready Price
IN discussing the numerous questions regarding the value and meaning of the messages contained in such a book as that of Daniel, we can not avoid taking some things for granted, whether explicitly stated or tacitly assumed. Most modern critics always work from the supposition that every point in the record, either the narratives or the prophecies, which comes under the head of the "supernatural" ought to be regarded as fabulous. Hence in such a book as that of Daniel the "critics" do not leave very much that they are willing to endorse as of value to the world to-day, in spite of the express statement in various places therein that "the vision belongeth to the time of the end." But we as Christians ought to follow the teaching of Christ. The books of the Old Testament, viewed from the Christian standpoint, derive their authority from the recognition accorded them by our Lord and the apostles, as well as from the intrinsic character of the book themselves. And tho there are legitimate questions regarding the interpretation of these scriptures, or even regarding their textual value in some cases, yet the historical parts of the Old Testament endorsed in the New Testament writings ought to be accepted by Christians as true; and no part of the entire Hebrew literature has received a more emphatic seal of authenticity in this respect than the book of Daniel. Of course the New Testament writers nowhere declare that the text of the Old Testament books had been preserved intact even to their day. But both the apostles and Christ Himself constantly appealed to the form in which these books had been handed down by the Great Synagogue and in the Septuagint version; and, however imperfect the received text may be in some passages, we may rest assured that a book so emphatically endorsed by our Lord and Master has been preserved from anything that would cause our moral or spiritual confusion here in this twentieth century. It is true there are many points in both the historical and the prophetical portions of the Scriptures which we in the present state of our knowledge can not fully clear up; yet in even the most difficult cases a professed Christian commentator and critic ought to discard all explanations which imply that Christ was ignorant of the history of the past, or of the future which He professed to reveal. We can not admit that while on earth our Lord was subject to the ignorant prejudices of the age in which He lived, and of the people from which He sprung. But on the day of His resurrection, in His glorified state, He twice affirmed the truth of the prophecies which He had previously explained to the disciples. Twice did He explain to their dull, unbelieving minds that the Messianic prophecies contained in the law of Moses, the Prophets, and the Psalms (Luke 24: 44) testified of Himself; and if in this He was, as the critics of the "New Theology" affirm or imply, either grossly mistaken or simply acting a part, it seems to me that the whole system of revealed religion is gone. The historical portions, of course, have been one of the main points of attack by the destructive critics. In the present state of the controversy, while the battle is still going on, and fresh discoveries are continually being made among the monuments of Babylon, it seems very unwise to treat any point as settled adversely against the historical statements recorded in the book of Daniel, as even such a stout defender of the Old Testament as Professor Sayce of Oxford seems to do. It is true that while the buried witnesses have risen in whole armies from the dust-heaps of forgotten centuries to testify to the literal accuracy of great portions of other parts of the Old Testament, there are many statements in the history of Daniel, like the capture of Jerusalem related in the first chapter, and the account of "Darius the Mede," which have not yet been thus vouched for by contemporary inscriptions; yet the argument from our ignorance is never secure, and is not likely to carry very much weight for the patient believer in the Word of God, who remembers the history of oriental discovery during the last century or so. But in a brief article like this the details of such matters can not be discussed, nor can we pause to consider such matters as why there are two, possibly three, languages used, or why Daniel himself is always spoken of in the third person in the first six chapters, while the first person is employed in the rest of the book.9But the prophetical part is of more interest, and indeed of more importance to us; and in beginning this subject I can not do better than quote from a valuable book recently issued by Rev. Chas. H. H. Wright, of Oxford University, England: In discussing chapters VII-XII, one must strongly repudiate the "methods" which have been adopted by critics in order completely to destroy its importance. If it were admitted that the Roman empire is the fourth kingdom depicted in chapters II and VII, the conclusion must follow that the writer of the book of Daniel was supernaturally gifted with prophetic insight into the future. Unbelieving critics have, therefore, from the time of Porphyry downwards, been compelled to suggest some other solution of the enigma. Those four kingdoms were expounded by eminent Jewish interpreters to be the Babylonian, Medo-Persian, Grecian, and Roman, in ages before Christ came into the world, and long after that event. The same explanation is followed by Christ, and by the great majority of Christian expositors for nearly two millennia.—"Daniel and His Prophecies," Introduction, XII. Williams and Norgate, London, 1906. The very numerous and conflicting interpretations of the prophecies of Daniel that have been put forth may be conveniently arranged in three distinct classes or schools. 1. The Orthodox or Biblical School.
These consider the prophecies of Daniel to be history in outline written beforehand; that they sketch the great outlines of history from Daniel's time down to the second coming of Christ. As is stated in the above given quotation, this view has been the one almost universally received by the church until quite recent times. These strive to maintain that the book of Daniel was written in the days of the Maccabees, say B. C. 164, and is not in any sense a prediction of future events, but merely a statement of contemporary and past occurrences. During much of the nineteenth century it was fashionable in critical circles to interpret the fourth kingdom to be the empire ruled over by the Diadochoi, or the successors of Alexander. This view is now quite generally abandoned, tho still maintained by Dean Farrar and some others. But in place of this solution, most modern critics subdivide the Medo-Persian into two distinct empires, the Median and the Persian. These, they claim, are respectively the second and third kingdoms referred to in the prophecies, while the fourth, the Grecian, can still be squeezed in between the time of Nebuchadnezzar and the date at which it is alleged the book of Daniel was composed, and thus the whole thing become not real prophecy, but merely past history written in the prophetic style. This view, it may be remarked in passing, is based almost wholly on the casual mention of "Darius the Mede" having received the kingdom at the death of Belshazzar, and the assumption that the writer regards the Median and the Persian empires as distinct. 3. The Futuristic School.
This might almost be called also the Roman Catholic school, for it seems to have originated with Ribera (1585), a Jesuit, who was opposing the work of the Reformation; and it was eagerly adopted by other Jesuit interpreters of the seventeenth century. The essence of this view is that the "little horn" of Daniel 7 and other parallel passages refers to an anti-Christian power destined to arise yet in the future, in connection with the beginning of the setting up of Christ's everlasting kingdom. It would lead us too far afield to examine in detail the fantastic views of this school regarding the imaginary antichrist of the last days. As Wright well points out, these interpretations have led the Futurists into conclusions which tend to undermine the foundations of all Christian evidences, their reasonings and principles being "more incredulous than those of the infidel," while Professor Birks, of Cambridge, stated as long ago as 1841 that "when such opinions gained general currency and approval in the church, the reign of open infidelity would be at hand." Similar warnings to that effect were uttered by other writers. The warnings have passed by unheeded. What was foreseen has long since come to pass. Both in England and Germany the old interpretation of Daniel and the Apocalypse has been too often cast aside, as worthy at best only of the study of antiquarians, and the disparagement of the prophecies of Scripture as truly "inspired" has grown apace. I must close this article with another quotation from Wright showing how these false views of prophecy tend directly to make converts to the Roman Catholic Church: When the Tractarians began their work in the Church of England under the leadership of Newman, Pusey, and their confederates, they soon discovered that it was absolutely necessary for the spread of their opinions that a blow should be struck at the old so-called "Protestant" interpretation of prophecy, which was then almost universally accepted as correct. Newman, as he states in his Apologia pro vita sua, was long kept back from imbibing peculiar Romish views by the notion which had been instilled into him in early days that the pope was the anti-christ. When that opinion was once demolished to his satisfaction, he proceeded comfortably on the road towards Rome. These Futuristic views of prophecy quite naturally were soon popular among the High Church Party, and were imitated by many others to avoid the pointed, convincing arguments of those who still adhered to the old interpretation, and who showed that important truths are due at the present time. The so-called "Plymouth Brethren" have quite generally adopted these views, as well as such men as Baxter, Dimbleby, G. H. Pember, and Sir Robert Anderson, the author of "Daniel in the Critics' Den." But from Daniel and the Apocalypse, as interpreted by Christ and by nearly all Christian writers for many centuries, we can not avoid the conclusion that God has a vital, special message for the world at the present time. And the work of the Futuristic school, as well as that of the "higher critics," is only an effort, weak and ineffectual, to avoid the claims of this message upon our attention to-day. At some future time perhaps we may consider this subject more in detail.