Daniel

" And Daniel the prophet says:

and in the fifth year of his reign Ezekiel prophesies in Babylon, after whom Naum the prophet, then Daniel;

Then Daniel, cast into a lions' den on account of the dragon, fed by the providence of God through Ambacum, is brought safe on the seventh day.

"And behold, with the clouds of heaven, as the son of man, coming, he came even to the Ancient of days, and was present in his sight;

For we shall be caught up in the clouds to meet the Lord, according to the apostle (that son of man, namely, coming in the clouds, according to Daniel), and so we shall ever be with the Lord — in so far as we shall be both on earth and in heaven;

The same was revealed directly to Daniel himself, the Son of man coming with the clouds of heaven, a judge, as the Scripture also demonstrates.

We will reckon from the first year of Darius, since in that very time this vision was shown to Daniel.

Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord and to the house of the God of Jacob — not of Esau, the elder son, but of Jacob, the later, that is, of our people, whose mountain is Christ, cut out without the hands of those who hew, filling all the earth, as shown in Daniel.

And so, since the prophecy was fulfilled by his coming — that is, by the birth which we recalled above, and by the passion which we have plainly declared — therefore Daniel too said that the vision and the prophet were sealed, since Christ is the seal of all the prophets, fulfilling all the things that had been announced of him before;

that Daniel was twice cast into the den of lions;

Remember the vision of God granted to Daniel, how he brings the judgement before our eyes.

And like to him, in later times, they say that the wise Daniel learned the wisdom of the Chaldeans at Babylon, and only then laid hold of the divine teachings.

Nor did Elisha ever signify to Naaman the Syrian, nor Jonas to the Ninevites, nor Daniel to Nebuchadnezzar, nor the other Prophets to the Tyrians, the Moabites, the Egyptians, to whom they wrote, that it was necessary for them to adopt the Mosaic Law.

For one of the prophets, the most wise Daniel, says to the king of Babylon:

For so even the demons demand it of their dreamers, namely for the pandering of divinity, since they know the friend of God — since Daniel too, again, by a station of three weeks grew dry in his diet, but in order to allure God by the offices of humiliation, not in order to build up sense and wisdom for the soul about to dream, as though it would not act in ecstasy.

" And Daniel:

For after He had declared, "And then Jerusalem shall be trodden down by the nations, until the times of the nations be fulfilled" — those, namely, to be enrolled by God and gathered with the remnants of Israel — thence already, unto the world and unto the age, He proclaims, according to Joel and Daniel and the whole council of the prophets, signs to come in the sun and in the moon and in the stars …

So too Daniel, in all else supported by Darius, was in office so long as he was free from peril to discipline.

For if it were so, surely men of such great holiness and constancy would at once have refused the defiled dress, and it would at once have appeared that Daniel had not served idols, that he worshipped neither Bel nor the dragon—which appeared much later.

Hence very lately a dispute has arisen, whether a servant of God may take the administration of any dignity or power, if he can keep himself, either by some favour or by some shrewdness, untouched by every species of idolatry—according as both Joseph and Daniel, clean from idolatry, administered both dignity and power in the ornament and purple of the prefecture of all Egypt or Babylonia.

Which Daniel's case too persuades, who prayed three times a day—surely with the exception of certain hours, and none other than the more notable, thence the apostolic ones, the third, the sixth, the ninth.

Daniel alone, trusting in God and knowing what would serve to merit God's grace, demands a space of three days, fasts with his brotherhood, and so, his prayers being commended, is fully instructed in both the order and the meaning of the dream;

I return to Daniel and his brethren, preferring the food of pulse and the drink of water to royal dishes and wine-jars, and thereafter the comelier for it—lest anyone fear even for the appearance of his poor little body—being moreover cultivated in spirit besides.

Even though these things stand simply, without any precept of observance, yet it would be good to establish some presumption, which may both bind us to the admonition of prayer, and, as it were by a law, wrest us from our business at times to such a duty — so that, as we read was observed by Daniel too, surely out of the discipline of Israel, we may pray not less than three times at least in the d …

For Daniel too — the suppliant of none but God, and therefore accused and demanded by the Chaldeans — the shut-in and accustomed ferocity of the lions would surely at once have devoured, had Darius's worthy presumption about God deserved to be disappointed.