ANSWER TO THE FOREGOING LETTER.
Thurcaston, August 29, 1772.
Sir,
Your very elegant letter on the antiquity and authenticity of the Book of Daniel (just now received) finds me here, if not without leisure, yet without books, and therefore in no condition to enter far into the depths of this controversy; which indeed is the less necessary, as every thing, that relates to the subject, will come, of course, to be considered by my learned successors in the new Lecture. For, as the prophecies of Daniel make an important link in that chain, which, as you say, has been let down from heaven to earth (but not by the Author of the late Sermons, who brought into view only what he had found, not invented) the grounds, on which their authority rests, will, without doubt, be carefully examined, and, as I suppose, firmly established.
But, in the mean time, and to make at least some small return for the civility of your address to me, I beg leave to trouble you with two or three short remarks, such as occur to me, on the sudden, in reading your letter.
Your main difficulties are these two: 1. That the author of the Book of Daniel is too clear for a prophet; as appears from his prediction of the Persian and Macedonian affairs: And 2. too fabulous for a contemporary historian; as is evident, you suppose, from his mistakes, chiefly, I think, in the vith chapter.
1. The first of these difficulties is an extraordinary one. For why may not prophecy, if the Inspirer think fit, be as clear as history? Scriptural prophecy, whence your idea of its obscurity is taken, is occasionally thus clear, I mean after the event: And Daniel’s prophecy of the revolutions in the Grecian empire would have been obscure enough to Porphyry himself, before it.
But your opinion, after all, when you come to explain yourself, really is, as one should expect, that, as a prophet, Daniel is not clear enough: for you enforce the old objection of Porphyry by observing, That, where a pretended prophecy is clear to a certain point of time, and afterwards obscure and shadowy, there common sense leads one to conclude that the author of it is an impostor.
This reasoning is plausible, but not conclusive, unless it be taken for granted that a prophecy must, in all its parts, be equally clear and precise: whereas, on the supposition of real inspiration, it may be fit, I mean it may suit with the views of the Inspirer, to predict some things with more perspicuity, and in terms more obviously and directly applicable to the events in which they are fulfilled, than others. But, further, this reasoning, whatever force it may have, has no place here; at least, you evidently beg the question when you urge it; because the persons, you dispute against, maintain, That the subsequent prophecies of Daniel are equally distinct with the preceding ones concerning the Persian and Macedonian empires, at least so much of them as they take to have been fulfilled, and that, to judge of the rest, we must wait for the completion of them.
However, you admit that the suspicion arising from the clearest prophecy may be removed by direct positive evidence that it was composed before the event. But then you carry your notions of that evidence very far, when you require “that the existence of such a prophecy prior to the accomplishment should be proved by the knowledge of it being generally diffused amongst an enlightened nation, previous to that period, and its public existence attested by an unbroken chain of authentic writers.”
What you here claim as a matter of right, is, without question, very desirable, but should, I think, be accepted, if it be given at all, as a matter of courtesy. For what you describe is the utmost evidence that the case admits: but what right have we, in this or any other subject whether of natural or revealed religion, to the utmost evidence? Is it not enough that the evidence be sufficient to induce a reasonable assent? And is not that assent reasonable, which is paid to real evidence, though of an inferior kind, when uncontrouled by any greater? And such evidence we clearly have for the authenticity of the book of Daniel, in the reception of it, by the Jewish nation, down to the time of Jesus, whose appeal to it supposes and implies that reception to have been constant and general: Not to observe that the testimony of Jesus is further supported by all the considerations that are alledged for his own divine character. To this evidence, which is positive so far as it goes, you have nothing to oppose, but surmise and conjecture, that is, nothing that deserves to be called evidence. But I doubt, Sir, you take for granted, that the claim of inspiration is never to be allowed, so long as there is a possibility of supposing that it was not given.
II. In the second division of your Letter, which is longer and more laboured than the first, you endeavour to shew that the historical part of the book of Daniel, chiefly that of the sixth chapter, is false and fabulous, and, as such, confutes and overturns the prophetical. What you say on this head is contained under five articles.
1. You think it strange that Daniel, or any other man, should be advanced to a great office of state, for his skill in divination.
But here, first, you forget that Joseph was thus advanced, and for the same reason: Or, if you object to this instance, what should hinder the advancement either of Joseph or Daniel (when their skill in divination had once brought them into the notice and favour of their sovereign) for what you call mere human accomplishments? For such assuredly both these great men possessed, if we may believe the plain part of their story, which asserts of Joseph, and indeed proves, that he was, in no common degree, discreet and wise; and of Daniel, that an excellent spirit was found in him, nay that he had knowledge and skill in all learning and wisdom, over and above his understanding in all visions and dreams. In short, Sir, though princes of old might not make it a rule to chuse their ministers out of their soothsayers, yet neither would their being soothsayers, if they were otherwise well accomplished, prevent them from being ministers: Just as in modern times, though churchmen have not often, I will suppose, been made officers of state, even by bigotted princes, because they were churchmen, yet neither have they been always set aside from serving in those stations, when they have been found eminently qualified for them.
2. Your next exception is, That a combination could scarce have been formed in the court of Babylon against the favourite minister (though such factions are common in other courts) because the courtiers of Darius must have apprehended that the piety of Daniel would be asserted by a miraculous interposition; of which they had seen a striking instance. And here, Sir, you expatiate with a little too much complacency on the strange indifference which the ancient world shewed to the gift of miracles. You do not, I dare say, expect a serious answer to this charge; Or, if you do, it may be enough to observe, what I am sure your own reading and experience must have rendered very familiar to you, that the strongest belief or conviction of the mind perpetually gives way to the inflamed selfish passions; and that, when men have any scheme of interest or revenge much at heart, they are not restrained from pursuing it, though the scaffold and the axe stand before them in full view, and have perhaps been streaming but the day before with the blood of other state-criminals. I ask not, whether miracles have ever actually existed, but whether you do not think that multitudes have been firmly persuaded of their existence: And their indifference about them is a fact which I readily concede to you.
3. Your third criticism is directed against what is said of the law of the Medes and Persians, that it altereth not; where I find nothing to admire, but the extreme rigour of Asiatic despotism. For I consider this irrevocability of the law, when once promulgated by the Sovereign, not as contrived to be a check on his will, but rather to shew the irresistible and fatal course of it. And this idea was so much cherished by the despots of Persia, that, rather than revoke the iniquitous law, obtained by surprize, for exterminating the Jews, Ahasuerus took the part, as we read in the book of Esther, (and as Baron Montesquieu, I remember, observes) to permit the Jews to defend themselves against the execution of it. Whence we see how consistent this law is with the determination of the Judges, quoted by you from Herodotus—“That it was lawful for the King to do whatever he pleased”—for we understand, that he did not please, that his law, when once declared by him, should be altered.
You add, under this head, “May I not assert, that the Greek writers, who have so copiously treated of the affairs of Persia, have not left us the smallest vestige of a restraint, equally injurious to the monarch, and prejudicial to the people?” I have not the Greek writers by me to consult; but a common book I chance to have at hand, refers me to one such vestige in a very eminent Greek Historian, Diodorus Siculus. Lowth’s Comm. in loc.
4. A fourth objection to the historic truth of the book of Daniel is taken, with more plausibility, from the matter of this law, which, as you truly observe, was very strange for the King’s councillors to advise, and for any despot whatsoever to enact.
But 1. I a little question whether prayer was so constant and considerable a part of Pagan worship, as is supposed; and, if it was not, the prejudices of the people would not be so much shocked by this interdict, as we are ready to think. Daniel indeed prayed three times a day: but the idolaters might content themselves with praying now and then at a stated solemnity. It is clear that when you speak of depriving men of the comforts, and the priests of the profits of religion, you have Christian and even modern principles and manners in your eye: perhaps, in the comforts, you represented to yourself a company of poor inflamed Huguenots under persecution; and, in the profits, the lucrative trade of Popish masses. But, be this as it may, it should be considered, 2. that this law could not, in the nature of the thing, suppress all prayer, if the people had any great propensity to it. It could not suppress mental prayer: it could not even suppress bodily worship, if performed, as it easily might be, in the night, or in secret. Daniel, it was well known, was used to pray in open day-light, and in a place exposed to inspection from his usual manner of praying; which manner, it was easily concluded, so zealous a votary, as he was, would not change or discontinue, on account of the edict. Lastly, though the edict passed for thirty days, to make sure work, yet there was no doubt but the end proposed would be soon accomplished, and then it was not likely that much care would be taken about the observance of it.
All this put together, I can very well conceive that extreme envy and malice in the courtiers might suggest the idea of such a law, and that an impotent despot might be flattered by it. Certainly, if what we read in the third chapter be admitted, That one of these despots required all people, nations, and languages to worship his image on pain of death, there is no great wonder that another of them should demand the exclusive worship of himself, for a month[255]; nay perhaps he might think himself civil, and even bounteous to his gods, when he left them a share of the other eleven. For, as to the presumption—
——Nihil est quod credere de se
Non possit, cui laudatur Diis æqua potestas.
5. A fifth, and what you seem to think the strongest objection to the credit of the book of Daniel, is, “That no such person, as Darius the Mede, is to be found in the succession of the Babylonish princes [You mean, as given in Ptolemy’s Canon and the Greek writers] between the time of Nebuchadnezzar and that of Cyrus.”
In saying this, you do not forget, nor disown, what our ablest chronologers have said on the subject: But then you object, that Xenophon’s Cyaxares has been made, (to serve a turn) to personate Darius the Mede, and yet that Xenophon’s book, whether it be a romance, or a true history, overturns the use which they have made of this hypothesis.
1. I permit myself, perhaps, to be too much flattered by your civility in referring me to my own taste, rather than to the authority of Cicero: But the truth is, I am much disposed to agree with you, “that, if we unravel with any care the fine texture of the Cyropædia, we shall discover in every thread the Spartan discipline and the philosophy of Socrates.” But then, as the judicious author chose to make so recent a story as that of Cyrus, and so well known, the vehicle of his political and moral instructions, he would be sure to keep up to the truth of the story, as far as might be; especially in the leading facts, and in the principal persons, as we may say, of the drama. This obvious rule of decorum such a writer, as Xenophon, could not fail to observe: And therefore, on the supposition that his Cyropædia is a romance, I should conclude certainly that the outline of it was genuine history.
But, 2. if it be so, you conclude that there is no ground for thinking that Darius the Mede ever reigned at Babylon, because Cyaxares himself never reigned there.
Now, on the idea of Xenophon’s book being a romance, there might be good reason for the author’s taking no notice of the short reign of Cyaxares; which would break the unity of his work, and divert the reader’s attention too much from the hero of it: while yet the omission could hardly seem to violate historic truth, since the lustre of his hero’s fame, and the real power which, out of question, he reserved to himself, would make us easily forget or overlook Cyaxares. But, as to the fact, it seems no way incredible, that Cyrus should concede to his royal ally, his uncle, and his father-in-law (for he was all these) the nominal possession of the sovereignty—or that he should share the sovereignty with him—or, at least, that he should leave the administration, as we say, in his hands at Babylon, while he himself was prosecuting his other conquests at a distance. Any of these things is supposable enough; and I would rather admit any of them, than reject the express, the repeated, the circumstantial testimony of a not confessedly fabulous historian.
After all, Sir, I doubt, I should forfeit your good opinion, if I did not acknowledge that some, at least, of the circumstances, which you have pointed out, are such as one should hardly expect at first sight. But then such is the condition of things in this world; and what is true in human life is not always, I had almost said, not often, that which was to be previously expected: whence, an indifferent romance is, they say, more probable than the best history. But should any or all of these circumstances convince you perfectly that some degree of error or fiction is to be found in the book of Daniel, it would be too precipitate to conclude that therefore the whole book was of no authority. For, at most, you could but infer, that the historical part, in which those circumstances are observed, namely the sixth chapter, is not genuine: Just as hath been adjudged, you know, of some other pieces, which formerly made a part of the book of Daniel. For it is not with these collections, which go under the name of the prophets, as with some regularly connected system, where a charge of falsehood, if made good against one part of it, shakes the credit of the whole. Fictitious histories may have been joined with true prophecies, when all that bore the name of the same person, or any way related to him, came to be put together in the same volume: But the detection of such misalliance could not affect the prophecies, certainly not those of Daniel, which respect the latter times; for these have an intrinsic evidence in themselves, and assert their own authenticity in proportion as we see, or have reason to admit, the accomplishment of them.
And now, Sir, I have only to commit these hasty reflections to your candour; a virtue, which cannot be separated from the love of truth, and of which I observe many traces in your agreeable letter. And if you would indulge this quality still further, so as to conceive the possibility of that being true and reasonable, in matters of religion, which may seem strange, or, to so lively a fancy as your’s, even ridiculous, you would not hurt the credit of your excellent understanding, and would thus remove one, perhaps a principal, occasion of those mists which, as you complain, hang over these nice and difficult subjects.
I am, with true respect,
Sir, &c.
R. H.
I should not perhaps have thought it worth while to print either of these Letters, if a noble person had not made it necessary for me to give the former to the publick, by doing this honour (though without my leave or knowledge) to the latter. By which means, however, we are now at length informed (after the secret had been kept for twice twelve years) that the anonymous Letter-writer was Edward Gibbon, Esq. afterwards the well-known author of “The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire[256].”
Of Mr. Gibbon’s Letter to me, I have no more to say: And of his History, only what may be expressed in few words.
It shews him, without doubt, to have possessed parts, industry, and learning; each in a degree that might have entitled him to a respectable place among the compilers of ancient history. But these talents were disgraced, and the fruit of them blasted, by a FALSE TASTE OF COMPOSITION: that is, by a raised, laboured, ostentatious style; effort in writing being mistaken, as it commonly is, for energy—by a perpetual affectation of wit, irony, and satire; generally misapplied; and always out of place, being wholly unsuited to the historic character—and, what is worse, by a free-thinking libertine spirit; which spares neither morals nor religion; and must make every honest man regard him as a bad citizen, as well as writer.
These miscarriages may, all of them, be traced up to one common cause, an EXCESSIVE VANITY.
Mr. Gibbon survived, but a short time, his favourite work. Yet he lived long enough to know that the most and best of his readers were much unsatisfied with him. And a few years more may, not improbably, leave him without one admirer.—Such is the fate of those, who will write themselves into fame, in defiance of all the principles of true taste, and of true wisdom!
R. W.
Hartlebury Castle, Nov. 18, 1796.