Cyrus Frees the Jews and Daniel Exposes the Idol

Astyages was driven from the kingdom by Cyrus, his grandson through his daughter, with the help of Persian arms, and so supreme power passed to the Persians. The Babylonians also came under his power and rule. At the beginning of his reign he issued public decrees giving the Jews permission to return to their own country, and he also gave back the sacred vessels that Nebuchadnezzar had carried off from the temple at Jerusalem. So a few returned to Judea at that time. As for the rest, we have not been able to discover whether they lacked the wish to return or the means. [a]

There was at that time among the Babylonians a bronze image of Belus, a very ancient king, whom Virgil also mentions. The people’s superstition held it sacred, and Cyrus too had been in the habit of worshiping it, deceived by the trickery of its priests. They claimed that the image ate and drank, while they themselves secretly carried off the daily portion that was offered to the idol. Cyrus, who was on close terms with Daniel, asked him why he did not worship the image, since it was a plain sign of the living God, consuming as it did the things offered to it. Daniel laughed at the man’s mistake and answered that it could not possibly be the case that a work of bronze, mere senseless matter, could take either food or drink.

So the king ordered the priests to be called; there were about seventy of them. Using threats to frighten them, he demanded with reproach to know who was in the habit of consuming what was offered, since Daniel, a man known for his wisdom, maintained that a senseless image could not do it. Trusting in their well-practiced trick, they had the usual offering made and asked the king to seal up the temple, on the understanding that if the whole offering was not found eaten on the following day, they would suffer death, while if it was, the same fate awaited Daniel. So the temple was sealed with the king’s signet. But Daniel had first, without the priests’ knowledge, covered its floor with ashes, so that footprints would betray the secret comings of anyone who entered.

The next day the king entered the temple and saw that the things he had ordered to be set before the idol had been taken away. Then Daniel laid bare the hidden fraud by the telltale footprints, showing that the priests, with their wives and children, had come into the temple through a hole opened from below and had eaten what was set before the idol. So all of them were put to death by the king’s order, and the temple and the image were handed over to Daniel’s power and destroyed at his command.