Moses, Daniel, and the Three Young Men

No nation has ever been more richly blessed than the one Moses led, and none would have gone on enjoying greater blessings, had they not of their own will withdrawn from the guidance of the Holy Spirit. But who can worthily tell the praises of Moses himself? He brought an unruly nation into order and trained their souls in habits of obedience and respect. He brought them out of captivity into freedom and turned their mourning into gladness. He so lifted up their spirits that, through the sheer contrast with their former condition and the abundance of their prosperity, the people’s spirit swelled with haughtiness and pride. He so far surpassed in wisdom those who had lived before him that even the wise men and philosophers praised by the pagan nations sought to imitate his wisdom. Pythagoras, for one, followed his wisdom and reached such a height of self-control that he became, for Plato, himself a model of discretion, the standard of Plato’s own self-mastery. [a]

Again, how great and terrible was the cruelty of that ancient Syrian king over whom Daniel triumphed: the prophet who unfolded the secrets of the future, whose actions showed surpassing greatness of soul, and the brilliance of whose character and life shone out above all others. The name of this tyrant was Nebuchadnezzar. His line afterward died out, and his vast and mighty power passed into Persian hands. The wealth of this tyrant was famous far and wide then, and still is today, and so too was his untimely devotion to unlawful worship: his idol statues, raising their heads to the sky and made of various metals, and the terrible and savage laws laid down to uphold this worship. These terrors Daniel, upheld by genuine devotion to the true God, utterly despised, and he foretold that the tyrant’s untimely zeal would bring fearful evil on himself. He could not, however, convince the tyrant, for great wealth is an effective barrier to true soundness of judgment. In the end the monarch showed the savage cruelty of his character by ordering the righteous prophet to be thrown to the fury of wild beasts. Noble, too, was the united spirit shown by those brothers, whose example others have since followed, winning surpassing glory by their faith in the Savior’s name. I mean those who stood unharmed in the fiery furnace, among the terrors meant to devour them, driving back by the holy touch of their bodies the flame that surrounded them.

When the Assyrian empire was overthrown, destroyed by thunderbolts from heaven, the providence of God brought Daniel to the court of Cambyses, the Persian king. Yet envy followed him even there; and not envy only, but the deadly plots of the magi against his life, with a long series of pressing dangers. From all of these he was easily rescued by the providential care of Christ, and he shone out in the practice of every virtue. Three times a day he offered his prayers to God, and the proofs of supernatural power he displayed were memorable. So the magi, filled with envy at the very power of his prayers, told the king that the possession of such power was a danger, and persuaded him to sentence this distinguished benefactor of the Persian people to be devoured by savage lions. So Daniel, condemned in this way, was put into the lions’ den, not to suffer death but to win unfading glory. Though he was surrounded by these ferocious beasts of prey, he found them gentler than the men who had shut him in. Upheld by the power of calm and steadfast prayer, he was able to subdue all these animals, ferocious as they were by nature. Cambyses learned what had happened, for so mighty a proof of divine power could not possibly be hidden. He was amazed at the marvelous story and regretted how easily he had believed the slanders of the magi, yet he resolved to see the spectacle for himself. But when he saw the prophet with uplifted hands giving praise to Christ, and the lions crouching at his feet as though worshiping him, he immediately condemned the magi who had persuaded him to the very same sentence, and shut them up in the lions’ den. The beasts, so gentle a moment before, rushed at once on their victims, and with all the fierceness of their nature tore them apart and destroyed them all.