SUSAN'NA (Gk. fokavya, Sousanna, from Heb. shushan, lily), HISTORY OF, also known as THE JUDGMENT OF DANIEL, and as SUSANNA AND THE ELDERS. One of three apocryphal addi tions to the Book of Daniel in the Greek Bible, the others being 7'he Song of the Three Holy Children and The History of Bel and the Dragon (q.v.). The story of Susanna is as follows: In the early days of the Babylonian captivity there lived a woman, Susanna by name, who was cele brated for her beauty and her virtue. She was the wife of Joiachim, a wealthy and respected man, and daughter of a priest, Hilkiah. Two elders, who were also judges and held in high repute, were seized by desire for Susanna, and, meeting each other unexpectedly in Joiachim's garden, agreed to coerce her. Susanna refused to listen to them, and in revenge the elders accused her of adulterous relations with a young man who had fled when surprised by their sudden appearance. She was condemned to death on this evidence, but Daniel, then a very young man, appeared and undertook to prove Susanna's inno cence. By questioning the witnesses apart and
showing discrepancies in their testimony he succeeded. The people applauded Daniel and put Susanna's accusers to death. There is noth ing to warrant the supposition that the story was originally written in Hebrew or Aramaic. In most manuscripts it precedes the first chapter of the Book of Daniel. and so we find it in the old Latin and Arabic versions: but the Septua gint, the Vulgate, the Complutensian Polyglot, and the Ilexaplar Syriac place it at the end of the book, and reckon it as the thirteenth chap ter. Consult: Ball, in the Speaker's Apocrypha, vol. ii. (London, 1888) ; Fritzsche, Apokryphen (Leipzig, 1871) ; Zockler, Apokryphcn. des Allen Testaments (Munich, 1891) ; Kautzsch, Apokry phen mid Pseudepigraphen des Alien Testaments (Tubingen, 1S99 et seq.).