an apocryphal and uncanonical book. It was always
rejected by the Jewish church, and is extant neither in the Hebrew, nor
in the Chaldee languages; nor is there any proof that it ever was so,
although the council of Trent allowed it to be part of the canonical
book of Daniel, in which it stands in the Latin Vulgate. There are two
Greek texts of this fragment, that of the Septuagint, and that found in
Theodotion’s Greek version of Daniel. The Latin and Arabic versions are
from the text of Theodotion. Daniel probably, by detecting the mercenary
contrivances of the idolatrous priests of Babylon, and by opening the
eyes of the people to the follies of superstition, might furnish some
foundation for the story; but the whole is evidently charged with
fiction, though introduced with a pious intent. St. Jerom gives it no
better title than, “The fable of Bel and the Dragon.” Selden thinks that
this history ought rather to be considered as a poem or fiction, than a
true account: as to the dragon, he observes, that serpents, _dracones_,
made a part of the hidden mysteries of the Pagan religion, as appears
from Clemens Alexandrinus, Julius Firmicus, Justin Martyr, and others.
See SERPENT.
rejected by the Jewish church, and is extant neither in the Hebrew, nor
in the Chaldee languages; nor is there any proof that it ever was so,
although the council of Trent allowed it to be part of the canonical
book of Daniel, in which it stands in the Latin Vulgate. There are two
Greek texts of this fragment, that of the Septuagint, and that found in
Theodotion’s Greek version of Daniel. The Latin and Arabic versions are
from the text of Theodotion. Daniel probably, by detecting the mercenary
contrivances of the idolatrous priests of Babylon, and by opening the
eyes of the people to the follies of superstition, might furnish some
foundation for the story; but the whole is evidently charged with
fiction, though introduced with a pious intent. St. Jerom gives it no
better title than, “The fable of Bel and the Dragon.” Selden thinks that
this history ought rather to be considered as a poem or fiction, than a
true account: as to the dragon, he observes, that serpents, _dracones_,
made a part of the hidden mysteries of the Pagan religion, as appears
from Clemens Alexandrinus, Julius Firmicus, Justin Martyr, and others.
See SERPENT.