Schrader (Schenkel's Bibel Lex. 1869, art. Habak. p. 556) classes Bel and the Dragon with pseudo-Epiphanius' and Rabbinic legends of the same tale, as "reine Fabeln und Legenden zu erkennen." This seems too positive an opinion of their untrustworthiness. It is agreed with, however, by Orelli (Introd.to Hab., Clarke's Transl.), who styles Bel and the Dragon, or at least the Habakkuk incident in it, "an idle story." A.B. Davidson also (Encyclop. Brit. ed. 9, II. 181) writes of it as being "completely fabulous;" and Ewald speaks of the episode of Habakkuk as an example of an unhistoric spirit, growing rapidly and dangerously (v. 487).
Cloquet's plea that non-canonicity is 'proved' (XXXIX Arts. 1885, pp. 112, 113) by six days being named here, and one day in the canonical book, as the length of Daniel's incarceration in the den, is beside the mark. It assumes for controversial purposes that the two passages must refer to the same event. This writer also speaks generally (p. 115) of Bel and the Dragon's "direct contradictions of Scripture." Such strictures are only worth noticing as specimens of many instances in which possible discrepancies between canonical and uncanonical books are treated by a particular class of writers as certain, in the hope of depreciating the latter. These are sometimes attacked with extreme violence as full of fables, superstitions, and impieties—apocryphal in the worst sense. But they deserve to be saved from this unmerited contempt, indulged in usually for polemical purposes, and only rendered possible by an insufficient study of the works themselves and the many admirable points which they contain.
Our own Church indulges in no rash or sweeping assertions, but follows the golden mean. She states in Art. VI. her present practical view of this and the other Additions in common with the rest of the Apocrypha. While not making any special doctrine to turn upon an apocryphal text, she directs the perusal of this, with the other books of its class, for purposes of practical edification. In singularly guarded and cautious terms she is careful not to commit herself to anything more than a statement of her authorized practice. Thus she has not closed the door, as the Council of Trent is supposed to have done,[[82]] against the entry of fresh knowledge, with its corresponding changes of view or modifications of usage.
[82] Cf. Revue biblique internationale (Dominican) Paris, Jan. 1901, p. 149, "L'église romaine s'est prononcée dès ce moment, et si elle ne pas dès lors imposé sa solution comme définitive et irréformable, elle ne s'en est du moins jamais écartée et c'est cette solution qui explique l'unanimité pratique de l'Église latine, où les doutes n'étaient plus que le reflet érudit d'anciennes controverses." See also Sanday on Inspiration, Note B. to Lect. V. "The Use of the term Deutero-canonical in the Roman Church."
Early Christian Literature And Art
Literature.
The following examples from primitive Christian writings bear more or less directly upon this book.
NEW TESTAMENT. Compare B.V.M.'s words in St. Luke i. 38 with Daniel's at the end of v. 9, Θ. With John xviii. 35 compare Bel 38, Ο´ and Θ, as to a Gentile being taken for a Jew. Moreover the phrase τὰ σεβάσματα ὑμῶν in Acts xvii. 23 is very like a reminiscence of Bel 27, Θ, end. But A. Scholz's idea that our Lord's words in John x. 9 are based on vv. 3, 6, 13 has little likelihood: "gegensätzlich so nahe verwandt, dass in den Evangelium darauf Bezug genommen sein könnte" (note on v. 13).
IRENÆUS (†200) in IV. ix. 1 quotes vv. 4, 5, 24, as coming from Daniel, apparently without the smallest misgiving. His quotations accord with Θ as against Ο´, v. 4 being the same in both. As Schürer says in Hauck's Encyclopædia (I. 640): "Irenäus benuzt die Uebersetzung des Theodotion und so alle Folgenden." But see under Cyprian.
CLEMENT OF ALEXANDRIA (†220) refers, Strom. I. 21 (middle, ed. Potter, Oxf. 1715), among a chain of historic events, to the closing scene in this piece: τότε διὰ δράκντα Δανιὴλ εἰς λάκκον λεόντων βληθεὶς, ὑπὸ Ἀμβακοὺβ[[83]] προνοίᾳ θεῦ τραφεὶς, ἑβδομαῖος ἀνασώζεται.