The style is that of simple, clear, and well-told narrative, with very little rhetorical embellishment about it, yet bearing somewhat of a dramatic cast, like much of the canonical book to which it is appended. It is not tedious (though there is much to tell which might have been easily spun out), but is brief and spirited. There is nothing superfluous to the aim of the story.[[69]]
[69] It is even given in L.C. Cope's English Composition (Lond., 1900), as an example of the four essentials of composition, viz. invention, selection, disposition, diction. He also speaks (p. 29) of the "superb workmanship in framing the narrative."
Moreover, the narrative is told in such a way as ever to be a story of captivating interest to the young, being full of movement and interesting incident. The style of the composition is much more in accordance with Syrian than with Alexandrian models. There is nothing of Hellenistic speculation or philosophy, though the subject of idolatry would have lent itself to such treatment (as that of injustice would in Susanna). No figurative or hyperbolic phraseology is employed.
An idea has been revived and maintained that the lions' den episode at the end is a mere adaptation and embellishment of that in Dan. vi.[[70]] (Churton, 392; Streane, 109, "distortions of O.T. narratives"; J.M. Fuller, S.P.C.K. Comm. in loc.). This idea is successfully opposed by Arnald, who (on v. 31) gives three reasons against it, and by Bishop Gray (Introd. to O.T. in loc.). Delitzsch (p. 30) calls this section of Θ's version "partem dignissimam." Attempts to prove the falsity of this martyrdom, if such it may be called, by first assuming the identity of these two events, treating the latter as an ornamental exaggeration of the former, and then pointing out what are taken for irreconcileable discrepancies, are beside the mark. Nor does the supposition that the one night in the den (of Dan. vi.) was increased to six, nor that the detail of withholding the lions' usual food to sharpen their appetites (in Θ only), were added for the purpose of heightening the effect, carry much weight. The omission of Daniel's speech, with the detail[[71]] of the angel closing the lions' mouths (vv. 21, 22), tells in the opposite direction. It is no more necessary to reckon these two den episodes as one event than our Lord's feeding of the four and five thousand, or his healing of the centurion's servant and the nobleman's son.
[70] Bar Hebræus (op. cit., p. 27), gives this as a reason why some would not receive Bel and the Dragon.
[71] Not in Ο´.
Religious And Social State.
Religious.
A religious feeling, strong though misdirected, evidently existed both in king and people, involving considerable expenditure on objects and places of worship. It was not as to the propriety of worship in itself, but of the object towards which it ought to be directed, that the controversy arose.
Two sorts of worship were in vogue:—