The language of the book is partly Chaldman (ii. 4; vii. zS) and partly Hebrew. The latter is not unlike that of Ezekiel, though less impure and corrupt, and not so replete with anomalous gram matical forms. The Chaldman is nowise that of the Chaldmans proper, but a corrupt vernacular dialect, a mixture of Hebrew and Aramaic, formed during the period of the exile. It resembles mostly the Chaldman pieces in Ezra, but differs greatly from the dialect of the latter Targums.
The style is, even in the prophetic parts, more prosaic than poetical, as Lowth has already ob served : `Totum Danielis Librum e Poeticorum censu excludo.' The historical descriptions are usually very broad and prolix in details ; but the prophecies have a more rhetorical character, and their delivery is frequently somewhat abrupt; their style is descriptive, painting with the most lively colours the still fresh impression which the vision has made on the mental eye.
The following are the essential features of the prophetic tenor of the book of Daniel, while the visions in ch. ii. and vii., together with their dif ferent symbols, may be considered as embodying the leading notion of the whole. The develop ment of the whole of the heathen power, until the completion and glorification of the kingdom of God, appeared to the prophet in the shape of four powers of the world, each successive power always surpassing the preceding in might and strength, namely, the Babylonian, Medo-Persian, Greek, and ' Roman. The kingdom of God proves itself con queror of them all ; a power which alone is ever lasting, and showing itself in its utmost glorifica tion in the appearance of the Messiah, as Judge and Lord of the world. Until the coming of the Messiah, the people of God have yet to go through a period of heavy trials. That period is particularly described, ch. viii. and xi., in the struggles of the Maccabman time, illustrative of the last and hea viest combats which the kingdom of God would have to endure. The period until the appearance of the Messiah is a fixed and sacred number : seventy weeks of years (ch. ix.) After the lapse of that period ensues the death of the Messiah ; the expiation of the people is realised; true justice is revealed, but Jerusalem and the Temple are I in punishment given up to destruction. The true rise from this fall and corruption ensues only at the end of time, in the general resurrection (ch.
xii.) The unity of the book has been disputed by several critics, and more especially by Eichhorn and Bertholdt, who conceived it to have been written by more than one author, on account of some contradictions which they thought they had discovered in it, such as in i. 21, compared with x. 1 ; and in i. 5-18, compared with ii. 1. With re- ' gard to the first supposed contradiction, we con sider the meaning of i. 21 to be, that Daniel had lived to see the first year of the reign of Cyrus, as a particularly memorable, and, for the exiled people, a very important year. This does by no means exclude the possibility of his having lived still longer than up to that period.
Respecting the second presumed contradiction, the matter in ch. i. 5-18 belongs properly to the co-regency of Nebuchadnezzar, which term is there added to his period of government, while in ch. ii. I his reign is counted only from the year of his actual accession to the throne. These attempts to disturb the harmony of the work are also discoun tenanced by the connecting thread which evidently runs through the whole of the book, setting the single parts continually in mutual relation to each other. Indeed, most critics have now given up that hypothesis, and look at the book as a closely connected and complete work in itself.
Much greater is the difference of opinion respect ing the authenticity of the book. The oldest known opponent of it is the heathen philosopher Porphyry, in the third century of the Christian era. The greater the authority in which the book of Daniel was held at that time by both Jews and Christians in their various controversies, the more was he anxious to dispute that authority, and he did not disdain to devote one whole book (the twelfth)—out of the fifteen which he had composed against the Christians—to that subject alone. He there maintains that the author of the book of Daniel was a Palestine Jew of the time of Antiochus Epiphanes, that he wrote it in Greek, and fraudu lently gave to past events the form of prophecies. Porphyry has been answered by Eusebius of Ciu sarea, Methodius of Tyre, and Apollinaris of Lao dicea. But their works, as well as that of Porphyry himself, are lost ; and we know the latter only from the numerous quotations and refutations in the Commentary of Jerome.