但以理書註釋 第 1 章 第 4/11 段

for it is thy nature both to be merciful and to use long-suffering toward all, and thou hast power running side by side with thy will;

and the wonders wrought continually by thee bear witness to this.

For the things done for us will cause thy name to be hymned, not only by us who are saved, but also by those who behold our salvation.

(vv. 44, 45) 'And may all those who show forth evils to thy servants be put to shame, and may they be confounded from all their dominion, and may their strength be broken;'

'let them know that thou art the Lord, the only God, and glorious over the whole world.' For when this lovingkindness comes to pass toward us, the boldness of our adversaries will be broken down, and their raging madness will be quenched, and their lofty pride will be shattered, and they will know that thou alone art Lord and God, worthy to be hymned by the whole world;

and those who now worship many gods will recognise the weakness of their own gods, and will worship thy power.

Now those within the furnace continued dancing;

but the king's servants, and the accusers of the holy men, did not cease supplying fuel to the flame—brushwood, and tow, and naphtha;

and this is a substance found in that region, capable of kindling the flame.

So great was the nourishment supplied to the pyre that it spread over forty-nine cubits, and burned up those of the Chaldeans who drew near.

And those without went on kindling the flame;

But the divine angel scattered the flame, and laid bare the midst of the furnace of coals, and contrived a breeze both cool and moderately moist, and productive of much delight for the saints; he made the fire to labor as in birth-pangs, and set this breeze free upon the bodies of the saints.

For it says: 'He made the midst of the furnace as it were a moist wind whistling through, and the fire did not touch them at all, neither hurt them, nor troubled them.' Yet let no one, looking upon these things, belittle the contests of the saints, but rather let him call to mind those sacred words:

'There is a God in the heavens whom we serve, who is able to deliver us out of the burning furnace, and out of your hands, O king, He will rescue us. And if not, be it known to you, O king, that we do not serve your gods, nor do we worship the golden image which you have set up.' So then those holy youths despised that flame, not looking to this outcome, but expecting death;

but the Arbiter of the contest awarded the prize as He willed, and both put to shame those wicked men and rendered these youths renowned in song.

Having therefore enjoyed this salvation, the blessed and thrice-blessed youths — and having enjoyed it many times over — no longer left it to one alone to hymn God, but together (verse):

'As it were out of one mouth,' it says, 'they hymned and glorified God, and blessed Him in the furnace' — setting their most excellent harmony and wondrous hymnody in opposition to the concert before the image and to the musical instruments, and showing how much more profitable it was not to worship the image than to worship it.

And they begin the hymn thus:

'Blessed art Thou, O Lord, the God of our fathers, and to be praised and highly exalted unto the ages.'

'And blessed is the name of Thy glory, which is holy, and to be praised above all and highly exalted unto the ages.' These are the words of a most fervent and insatiable love;

not only [Himself], but also the name of His glory.

And rightly do they everywhere call Him Lord and God of the fathers, thereby confessing that they themselves are unworthy of this appellation.

'Blessed art Thou in the temple of Thy holy glory, and to be praised above all and glorious above all unto the ages.' They keep an unforgetting remembrance of the divine temple, and being exact keepers of the Law, they pray lawfully;

'Looking toward that temple where Thy glory was wont to appear, we offer Thee this hymn';

for even if it has been burned a thousand times, it partakes of Thy holiness.

And lest anyone suppose that they circumscribe within a place the God who is bodiless and unbounded, they necessarily add:

'Blessed art Thou upon the throne of Thy kingdom, and highly exalted unto the ages.' Then, showing what throne they mean, they immediately add:

'Blessed art Thou who beholdest the depths, sitting upon the Cherubim, and to be hymned above all and highly exalted unto the ages.' And since that temple also had images of the Cherubim in the Holy of Holies, in order that no harm might come to the hearers from this and that they might not think God to be circumscribed, they minister to the hearer, saying:

'Blessed art Thou in the firmament of heaven, and to be hymned above all and highly exalted unto the ages.' For everywhere, they say, art Thou, and Thou fillest all things, and containest the whole creation.

Having thus hymned, they summon all created nature into fellowship of the hymnody — not only the rational, but also the irrational and the inanimate.

'For bless the Lord,' they say, 'all ye works of the Lord; hymn Him and highly exalt Him unto all the ages.' And they are not content with the common summons alone, but summon each one individually as well, and not only the things seen, but also the invisible nature.

'For bless the Lord,' they say, 'ye angels of the Lord;'

'hymn Him and highly exalt Him unto the ages.' And lest, by interpreting each one, I should stretch out the discourse to boundless length — they summon into the choral dance both heaven, and the waters that are above the heavens, and the powers that circle about the divine throne.

They summon also the sun, and the moon, and the other luminaries;

and not only the things in heaven, but also the things that come to be in the air — rain and dew, and winds;

then the contrary qualities, cold and heat;

then nature and energy together, fire and burning heat;

for 'fire' is the name of a nature, but 'burning heat' is no longer a substance, but an energy of fire.

They summon also dew, and sleet, and frost, and cold, and hoar-frosts, and snows, and lightnings, and clouds — things kindred and of the same tribe.

Then nights and days, and the things productive of these, light and darkness;

for the one set are names, the other set are realities;

for 'God,' it says, 'called the light day, and the darkness He called night.' For even if darkness is a shadow and not a substance, yet it is a thing that is an accident, and productive of night.

And since they made mention of dew and sleet, they necessarily point out also the sources of these;

'For bless the Lord,' they said, 'ye lightnings and clouds' — the ones giving birth, the others heralding the birth-pangs beforehand.

'For lightnings,' says the prophet, 'He made into rain.' Having thus made mention of the things in heaven and the air, and having exhorted each one to hymn, they transfer the exhortation of the hymn to the common mother, the earth, and they say:

'Let the earth bless the Lord, let it hymn and highly exalt Him unto the ages.' Then by division:

'Bless the Lord, ye mountains and hills.' Then the earth's offspring:

'Bless the Lord, all ye things that grow in the earth.' Then the irrigation which they require:

'Bless the Lord, ye springs.' And since the sea also belongs to the lower portion, as do the rivers, they necessarily made mention of these too;

and they make mention also of the nurslings of the sea.

For indeed the blessed Moses too recorded that first the trees sprang forth by the divine Word, then the kinds of swimming creatures were brought forth, and in addition to these and together with these the nature of the air-traversing birds, and after these wild beasts and cattle, and last of all man.

Having summoned the nature of men into hymnody, they again by division enjoin them to hymn the Maker;

and first of all before all the rest they exhort the sons of Israel to do this;

and these too they divide in many ways, and they rank first the priests, inasmuch as they have been entrusted with the divine ministry.

Then, lest they be thought to confine the hymnody to the priests alone, they add:

They proclaim beforehand also the resurrection;

'For bless the Lord,' they say, 'ye spirits and souls of the righteous' — that is, the spiritual souls of the righteous, which have become superior to human passions, which have received the grace of the Spirit.

Then also those who have acquired certain forms of virtue;

for through these words they signify: 'We hymn Thee and highly exalt Thee, because through angels Thou dost benefit us, because for our sake Thou didst create heaven, and by the sun Thou dost illumine the day, and with the moon Thou dost temper the lightlessness of the night, and Thou teachest us the measures of time;'

'we hymn Thee, because Thou hast made heaven to bring forth for us a meadow of stars, and Thou dost feast our eyes with unfading flowers, and by the course of these Thou dost grant us to know the measures of the night.'

And who could worthily hymn Thee, beholding the changes of the seasons, the alternations of the solstices, the heat fittingly arising in summer? then the cooling breezes of the winds, the cold in winter and the rain that is brought on, and each thing advancing with rhythm and order — the lightnings that herald the rain, the clouds that travail with the rain, the mountains and plains luxuriant with crops and with groves, the springs gushing up and bringing irrigation to the plants, the rivers running unceasingly and admitting no cessation of their course, the sea lying in the midst, a cause of friendship and concord, and receiving as a common ground the transactions of these people and those? And, that I may not speak of each thing separately — first, the blessed ones made mention of all these, displaying their own gratitude, and wishing to accomplish the hymn more fervently by the remembrance of the benefits;

and then, they were trying to instruct also the Chaldeans who were listening from without, that the elements worshipped by them are creations of the God of all things.

For it was likely that those who beheld the great marvel, and saw the defeat of the fire, and the shame of themselves and of their king, and the salvation and boldness of speech of those captive youths, should receive through the hymnody the teaching of true religion.

Having thus hymned, they finally add:

'Bless the Lord, O Ananias, Azarias, Misael; hymn Him and highly exalt Him unto the ages.' Thus they esteemed themselves the last of creation, and the meanest of all men.

Such also was the blessed Paul, saying:

'To me, who am less than the least of all saints, was this grace given.' And elsewhere:

'[Christ Jesus came into the] world to save sinners, of whom I am chief.' And of sinners he names himself the first, but of the saints he calls himself the last;

so also these blessed ones, esteeming themselves the last, exhort themselves to hymn the Lord and to highly exalt Him unto the ages.

Then they recount the marvel:

'For He hath rescued us out of Hades, and saved us from the hand of death.' For we had been condemned by human votes.

'And He hath rescued us out of the midst of the burning flame;'

'and out of the midst of the fire He hath rescued us.'

(89.) 'Give thanks therefore unto the Lord, for He is good, for His mercy endureth unto the age.' For what is kinder, what is better than Him who has used so great a mercy in the things concerning us? And having displayed such great virtue, they say that they obtained salvation by mercy.

Then, since above they had made mention only of the sons of Israel, they summon also those among the nations who are godly and who have been zealous to worship God.

'Bless the Lord, all ye that fear the Lord, the God of gods; hymn Him and give thanks, for His mercy endureth unto all the ages, and unto the age of ages.' And striving to show the boundlessness of His goodness, yet being overcome, they repeatedly turn back to the word 'of the ages.'

Such was this hymn of these saints, which, having astounded even that brutish and savage king, raised him up from his royal throne, and made him run to them, and he beholds four instead of three dancing in the furnace.

And he says to his nobles:

'Did we not cast three men bound into the midst of the fire? (62.) And behold, I see four men loosed, and walking in the midst of the fire, and there is no corruption in them, and the appearance of the fourth is like a son of God.' O the ineffable long-suffering!

With good reason the holy youths cried aloud:

'For His mercy endureth unto all the ages, and unto the age of ages.' For behold, even this man, who had used such great cruelty and arrogance, and had attempted to snatch away the divine worship and to punish the divine servants cruelly and brutishly — Him He leads to true religion, and shows him His own wonder-working, and makes visible to him the angel that was sent for the succor of the saints.

And He astounds him, first by the number, showing four instead of three;

then by the loosing of the bonds;

for he saw them loosed instead of bound.

'Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, servants of the Most High God, come forth and draw near.'

And Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego came forth out of the midst of the fire. The vain man, who had said, has learned his lesson:

'Who is the God that shall deliver you out of my hands?' — for there is a God who possesses ineffable power, commanding the fire to display toward the saints a quality contrary to its own.

For the God whom that man did not regard as God, he now came to know that He is God, and the Most High God.

When the saints had come forth, all the satraps, governors, and captains marvelled, beholding the bodies of the saints preserved unharmed, and the very hairs of their heads receiving no sensation from that flame;

and not only the hairs, but their very clothing and their sandals remained intact, so that they were rid even of the very smell of the fire.

Then Nebuchadnezzar, having beheld these things, sings praise and says:

'Blessed be the God of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, who sent His angel and delivered His servants who trusted in Him; they set aside the king's word and yielded up their bodies, that they might not serve nor worship any other god save their own God.' Yet the vain man, ever learning the power of God by experience, ever consigns His wonders to oblivion.

For he rose up and did obeisance to him, and gave orders that an oblation and a sweet savour should be offered to him.

he says, a godly death is better than a lawless life.

'And now,' he says, 'behold, I set forth a decree, that every people, tribe, or tongue that shall utter any blasphemy against the God of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego shall be brought to destruction, and their houses shall be plundered; for there is no other God who is able to deliver in such a manner.' And in truth he has learned this by experience;

for having overthrown the sanctuaries of many so-called gods, plundered their treasuries, torn down their altars, and slain their priests, he received no experience of any divine visitation;

but when he vented his fury upon those consecrated to God, he beheld both the boundless power of God and His ineffable long-suffering;

for He kept His own servants unscathed, yet for the time did not exact from him the penalty of his madness; and when he persisted in impiety, after a little while He chastised him moderately, and then, when he had recourse to repentance, He deemed him worthy of His loving-kindness.

And rightly did these holy youths cry out: 'There is no shame for those who trust in Thee.' Let us, then, also acquire this hope, preferring the Maker and Governor above the whole creation together;

and let these blessed youths become for us a pattern of profit, an archetype of piety, guides toward God, and toward those things which God bestows upon the worthy;

which may it be granted to us all to attain, by the grace and loving-kindness of our Lord Jesus Christ, with whom to the Father be glory, together with the Holy Spirit, now and ever, and unto the ages of ages.

'Nebuchadnezzar the king, unto all peoples, tribes, and tongues, that dwell in all the earth: peace be multiplied unto you.' I think it useful first to set forth the subject of this epistle and its occasion, and thus to make the interpretation.

Nebuchadnezzar, having gained mastery over all of Asia, and having brought Egypt under himself, and subdued the Ethiopians bordering on Egypt, treated his subjects most cruelly and harshly, and was driven to such arrogance that he reckoned himself greater and more powerful not only than the so-called gods, but even than the true God Himself.

'Woe to the Assyrians! the rod of my wrath and mine anger is in their hands;

I will send my wrath against a lawless nation, and against mine own people I will give charge to make spoil and plunder, and to trample down the cities, and to lay them in the dust.' What He says is of this sort:

The Assyrians are indeed worthy of lamentations, being the workers of countless evils;

yet nevertheless I will use these as ministers for the punishments against sinners, and I will bring them, like a chastising rod, upon the transgressors;

and not against the rest of mankind only, but even against the people that is called by my name.

And I will bring them, because of their great impiety and lawlessness, and through them I will pull down their cities, and I will cause the spoils in the cities to become theirs.

I therefore, using the Assyrian as a kind of executioner, exact by his hand the penalties from the transgressors.

'But he,' He says, 'did not so intend, and in his soul did not so reckon;

but his mind will turn aside, even to destroy nations not a few.'

'Thou alone art ruler,' and he will say;

Then He foretells the evils that shall overtake Jerusalem, and He also indicates the causes of the punishment;

'For howl,' He says, 'ye graven images in Jerusalem, and in Samaria;

for as I did in Samaria and to her works of men's hands, so will I do also in Jerusalem and to her idols.' Now we have learned that Sennacherib, king of the Assyrians, did not prevail over Jerusalem, but that Nebuchadnezzar, having transferred the seat of empire to Babylon and declared it a royal city after the destruction of Nineveh, marched against Judea, and having laid Jerusalem waste, slew most of the inhabitants, and the rest he led away captive into bondage;

so that it is clear from this too that divine Scripture knows of but one kingdom of the Assyrians and Babylonians;

and this is easy to perceive from what follows as well.

'For it shall come to pass,' He says, 'when the Lord shall have finished doing all His works on Mount Zion and in Jerusalem, that the Lord will bring upon the great mind, the ruler of the Assyrians, and upon the loftiness of the glory of his eyes.' Now God punished Jerusalem, not through Sennacherib, who reigned over the Assyrians, but through Nebuchadnezzar.

For the former not only did not sack the city, but having lost his entire army, fled alone, and at home received his slaughter at the hands of his sons;

but Nebuchadnezzar both razed the city, and burned down the divine temple, and led the people away as captives of the spear.

'Howl, ye graven images in Jerusalem;

for as I did to Samaria and to her idols, so will I do also to Jerusalem and to her works of men's hands.' 'The Lord,' He says, 'shall bring upon the great mind, the ruler of the Assyrians.'

And He does not say 'of the Babylonians,' but 'of the Assyrians';

for one and the same is the kingdom of these and of those.

And He calls it a 'great mind' because of the loftiness and arrogance of its counsels;

'And upon the loftiness of the glory of his eyes.' And He did not say simply 'of his glory,' but 'of the glory of his eyes'; that is to say, one who, being a man, imagines himself to be most exalted and greatest.

'By my strength will I do it, and by the wisdom of mine understanding will I remove the borders of nations, and I will spoil their strength, and I will shake inhabited cities, and I will grasp the whole world in my hand as a nest, and as eggs that are left will I take it up; and there shall be none that shall escape me, or gainsay me.' Having thus stripped bare the pride of the Assyrian's reasonings, He convicts the vanity of his devices, and teaches that nothing of what was done by him would have come to pass, had not God permitted it and willed to exact from those who suffered these things by his hand the penalties for their impiety.

'Shall an axe be glorified without him that heweth with it? or shall a saw be exalted without him that draweth it? Likewise, if one should lift up a rod or a stick.' As it is impossible, He says, for an axe, or a saw, or a rod to be moved of itself;

for each of these acts only then, when someone, using his hand, wishes to move them;

even so thou also, when My providence yielded to thee, didst do what thou didst, on account of the transgression of those who suffered.

Do not therefore suppose that thou hast accomplished these things by thine own wisdom and power.

But if thou wilt not learn these things with sobriety, and lay down thine arrogant brow, thou shalt learn by experience that these things are so.

'For the Lord of hosts shall send dishonour upon thine honour, and upon thy glory a burning fire shall be kindled to burn.' And in another place again God speaks such things to the prophet:

'And thou shalt take up this lamentation against the king of Babylon, and shalt say in that day:

the gladness of the whole world;

The whole earth,' He says, 'shall rejoice with gladness, and the trees of Lebanon shall be glad over thee, and the cedar of Lebanon;

since thou art laid low, no feller hath come up against us.' He says these things figuratively;

and He calls 'cedars of Lebanon' either Israel, being distinguished and glorious, or those illustrious in dignities and entrusted with royal rule.

And a little after, deriding his pride, and teaching the overthrow of his arrogance:

'How art thou fallen,' He says, 'from heaven, O Lucifer, that didst rise in the morning? He that sent forth unto all the nations is crushed to the earth. But thou saidst in thy mind:

I will ascend into heaven, and above the stars I will set my throne;

I will sit upon a lofty mountain, upon the high mountains toward the north; I will ascend above the clouds, and I will be like the Most High.' Then He shows the perishableness of human prosperity:

'But thou,' He says, 'who hast dared to devise these things, shalt go down into hades, even into the foundations of the earth.'

'They that see thee shall marvel at thee, and shall say:

Is this the man that provoked the earth, that shook kings, that made the whole earth a desert, and pulled down her cities?

he had no mercy on those in captivity;

all the kings of the nations lay down to sleep in honour, each man in his own house;

but thou shalt be cast forth upon the mountains as a corpse, abominable, together with many dead men that have been pierced through with the sword, going down into hades.' And that I may not, by adducing all the prophecies concerning him, grow weary through their length, and, referring both those who now hear and those who shall hereafter meet with these words to those passages — those, that is, who wish to know his pride and his cruelty — I will bring back the discourse to the matter before us.

This man, then, the God of all, wishing to lead him toward piety, brought to him many saving remedies on many occasions: and first, in the second year of his reign, He showed him in a dream that image; then, by the forgetting of the dream, He brought him to have need of the prophet;

then, through the interpretation, He taught him accurately the successions of the kings, showing the brevity and perishableness of human prosperity.

For he commanded that incense and libations be offered to it as to a god.

But again, when no long time had passed, he set up that image, and compelled all his subjects to worship it, and those who had preferred true religion he delivered over to the fire that fed itself insatiably.

And again, having received some small benefit from that event, he indeed extols the God of all, and threatens the uttermost punishment against any who should utter something blasphemous against Him;

but straightway and at once, in that very same year, again consigning to oblivion this greatest of wonders, he marched against Jerusalem, and tore down the walls of the city, and set fire to the holy temple of God, and dared to profane its inner sanctuaries, and having plundered all its dedicated offerings, he carried them away to Babylon together with the captives.

That he marched forth at this very time, the blessed Jeremiah also teaches us, speaking thus:

'In the eighteenth year Nebuchadnezzar the king made a golden image'; so that it is clear that at the beginning of the year he demanded the worship of the image;

then, having sent his army ahead, he himself also followed, and prevailed over Jerusalem in the eleventh year of the reign of Zedekiah, but in the nineteenth year of his own reign.

But when he was unwilling to reap any healing from God's forbearance, He brings upon him the evils He had threatened;

and He punishes him not simply, but that arrogant mind of his, which had dreamed of things above nature, He smites with derangement and madness.

Then, when he had become brutish, He causes him to be driven out, and to dwell in the wilderness for a long time.

Thereafter He causes him to gain a perception of the terrible things that held him fast;

for it was not possible for him to reap any benefit while he was disposed altogether without sensation and without feeling of pain.

Thus recovering himself, that man recognizes the swift-tilting changes of life, and laments and bewails his own folly, and confesses that the kingdom of God is without succession, enduring unto all ages.

Having been taught these things by experience, he returned again to his own kingdom through the unspeakable loving-kindness of God;

and deeming that he would wrong all mankind if he were to hide God's providence, by a letter he sets forth to all his subjects throughout the inhabited world both his former prosperity and the misfortune that had befallen him.

This, then, is the subject of the letter;

and I have dealt with it at greater length, both wishing to display his pride by the testimonies of the Scriptures, and desiring to make plain the care of the God of all for all men.

Come, then, let us begin the exposition part by part.

'Nebuchadnezzar the king, to all peoples, tribes, and tongues that dwell in all the earth: peace be multiplied unto you.' It is fitting to apply to these words that prophetic utterance:

'It is good for me that Thou hast humbled me, that I might learn Thy statutes.' Having also himself been taught by experience to be sober-minded, he was shown forth as a teacher of true religion, and sets before all men his own sufferings as remedies, and not only for his subjects but also for those who are outside his kingdom.

And rightly and fittingly did he compose his salutation;

'Peace be multiplied unto you'; that is, may you remain untried by the evils which I have experienced, continuing to enjoy peace.

'The signs and wonders which God the Most High wrought with me, it seemed good in my sight to declare unto you.' Having become, he says, an eyewitness of the divine wonders, I have deemed it just that you all should become sharers in the contemplation of them.

For they are not ordinary things, but great and mighty—and!