SUSANNA: Introduction

Susanna, one of the Additions to Daniel in the Greek translations of the Hebrew ot, found after chap. 12 in the Septuagint (lxx) version and at the beginning of Daniel in Theodotion. It was probably composed in Hebrew and appended to some manuscripts of the Hebrew-Aramaic version of Daniel sometime prior to 100 b.c. Susanna is the story of Daniel’s rescue of a young and beautiful woman, condemned to death for adultery as a consequence of a plot by two magistrates to blackmail her into having intercourse with them.

The story opens with the marriage of Susanna to Joakim, in whose house the local court sits (vv. 1-6). Two of the elders or magistrates of the court desire Susanna and look for an opportunity to find her alone (vv. 7-14). As she takes a bath in her garden, they hide and then give her the choice of submitting to them or having them accuse her falsely of adultery (vv. 15-21). Susanna refuses their demands (vv. 22-23). She is accused, tried, and condemned to death (vv. 24-41). In response to her prayer for help, God sends the youth Daniel to aid her (vv. 42-46). He interrogates the two elders separately, proving their guilt, and the court sentences them to death in Susanna’s place (vv. 47-62). The story concludes with Susanna’s parents and husband praising God and the note that this case first established Daniel’s reputation among the Jewish people (vv. 63-64).

The story is a masterpiece of the art of Jewish narrative. Like Tobit, Judith, the Rest of Esther, and the stories in Daniel 1-6, it illustrates how God defends the righteous who call upon him.

The difference in the case of Susanna is that the threat comes from within the Jewish community rather than from outside it.

Susanna also reflects the isolation of upper-class Jewish women in postbiblical times through virtual confinement to the home and the use of the veil in public. Protestants include the book among the Apocrypha, while Catholics consider it part of the canonical text of Daniel.

- Harpers Bible Dictionary

SUSANNA AND THE
PRE-CHRISTIAN BOOK OF DANIEL:
STRUCTURE AND MEANING

Synopsis

"The structure of the pre-Christian book of Daniel as newly edited in Palestine in the first century B.C. is coherent, often symmetrical, and meaningful and was the version used by Jesus and the early Christians. Origen's and Jerome's reordering of the fourteen-chapter book in conformity with the extant Hebrew, however, vitiated that structure. Susanna's account opened the pre-Christian Palestinian version. That account inaugurates the themes of wisdom and judgment and provides the restoration of right order within the community in exile, a restoration essential for what transpires thereafter. Her experience is the first of four holy ordeals placed symmetrically in the first half of the book and framing the book as a whole. Significantly, the two chapters of Daniel most quoted in the Gospels are the ones that open the two halves of the book: Susanna, and the first vision of Daniel. Those two chapters are linked thematically and by diction, including the pair of unique phrases '[one grown] ancient of evil days' and 'Ancient of Days'. Susanna exemplifies the experiences of the saints – suffering and then vindicated – and also, for the writers of the synoptic Gospels – the experiences of Jesus in his passion."

- C. B. Tkacz, (2007)
The Heythrop Journal vol. 49 Iss.2, pp.181-196

THE HISTORY OF SUSANNA

Exerpts from: An Introduction to the Books of the Apocrypha, By W O E Oesterley D D Litt D Copyright W O E Oesterley 1935. First published S.P.C.K. 1935. This edition prepared for katapi by Paul Ingram 2003.

- Susanna is set apart from the beginning of Daniel, because it is not in the Hebrew, just as the Story of Bel and the Dragon is likewise missing.

I. TITLE

In the one extant MS. of the Septuagint (Cod. Chisianus), which gives also Theodotion's Version, Susanna forms chap. 13 of Daniel, and it has the title Σουσαννα α´ σ´ θ´ - "Sousanna a' s' th'" ( i.e., = texts of Aquila, Symmachus, Theodotion).

(The Jewish form of the Greek Bible translated by Aquila (circa 130AD) was undertaken for polemical reasons. As it was translated from the Hebrew books after the fixing of their canonical character, this form of the Greek Old Testament does not contain the books of the Apocrypha. [Thus there are only two versions of Susanna])

The (Latin) Vulgate and the Syro-Hexaplar also place it at the end of Daniel as chap. xiii, though without any title. But the latter has a note at the end: "Completed is Daniel according to the tradition of the Seventy" so that it evidently regarded Susanna as part of the canonical book.

In Theodotion's Version, represented by all the Greek MSS, and by the other Versions, the title varies.

In the great uncials B A Q, Susanna follows immediately after the title of the whole book, "Daniel" (Q: "Daniel according to Theodotion"), but without any special title for Susanna; similarly the Old Latin Version;

Cod.A (Alexandrinus), however, has the subscription: ορασις α´ - orasis a'. Some Greek MSS. have the title "Susanna," others, "The History of Susanna," yet others, "The judgement of Daniel". Fuller titles are given in the cursives 232, "Visions of the prophet Daniel concerning the elders and Susanna," and Ms. 235, "Vision of the very wise Daniel concerning Susanna."

(But there are reasons for thinking that Susanna did not originally occupy this place, see Bludau, "Die Alexandrinische Uebersetzung des Buches Daniel und ihre VerhAltniss zum Massoretischen Text," pp.166 f. (in Bardenhewer's Biblische Studien, ii. Bd., Heft 2 und 3 [1897].)

In Codex Chisianus Theodotion's Version is headed το ειρ αγρυπνος Δανιηλ - "to eir agrupnos Daniel", and Susanna appears as chap. 13. (το ειρ is explained as = the Hebrew העיו' "the Watcher," so that this title would mean "Daniel the sleepless Watcher." [or 'watchman', as in Enoch])

Kay refers to a Codex from Mount Athos, which has the title: αρασις ενδεκα του προφητου Δανιηλ deinde sequitur περι του Αββακουμ. His omnibus praemittitur περι της Συσαννης; and states that chap.xiv of Cod. Chisianus has the superscription; εκ προφητειας Αμβακουμ υιου Ιησου εκ της φυλης Λευι. (In Charles, op. cit., i.638.) It would thus appear that the story was sometimes associated with the name of Habakkuk (cp. Bel and the Dragon, verses 33 ff.).

THE TWO VERSIONS
OF SUSANNA

Susanna is a typical example of Jewish novelistc literature during the Second Temple period; it is a story in the Bible. Where then do we find the story in the Bible? Whereas Susanna appears as Daniel 13 in the Old Greek version (OG), the Theodotion version (Ɵ′) places it before Daniel chapt. 1.

Susanna is not there in the Theodotion version by accident, but it is there because of its significance. Some scholars argue that the story takes place before Daniel 1 in the Theodotion version becuase the story functions as introduction to Daniel in the Theodotion version, the hero of the book (Doran 1988, 864).

In general, the OG version (LXX) is much less polished than the Theodotion version; and Theodotion’s version is somewhat longer than the OG. For these reasons, the translations in the NRSV and NAB basically follow the translation of Theodotion rather than the OG version.

Some scholars believe that the Theodotion version made a separate Greek translation of a different Semitic text (Vorlage) rather than making an editorial revision of the Old Greek because of the use of Semitisms and the simple paratactic syntax (in OG Susanna, over fifty clauses begin with καί; for details, (see John J. Collins, Daniel, Hermeneia [Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1993], 427).

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Comparison of the Two Versions

The differences of the two versions are as follows:

Focus of Character: OG-Two Elders; Ɵ′- Susanna.

Aspect of the Story: OG- Details of her bathing are much less elaborated; Ɵ′- Enhancing the drama and the psychological/erotic aspects of the story.

Epilogue: OG- An exhortation to search for more youths like Daniel; Ɵ′- Susanna’s relatvies give praise and Daniel becomes great.

Minor Elaborations in Ɵ′: v. 11 adds that the elders were ashamed of their lust; vv. 20 and 21 fill in the words of the elders to Susanna; vv. 24-27 have the servants rush into the garden and learn of the accusation; v. 39 explains why the young man escaped; and v. 41 makes the death sentence explicit.

Point of View: OG- Focus of oriented toward social issues and categories; Ɵ′- Emphasis on individual character and ethics.

As Collins insists, even though the diferences should not be exaggerated, the differences of the focus of character and epilogue in both versions cannot be negelected because the different emphasis reflects their different social settings.

John C. Endres analyzes the diffrent settings of the two versions as follows:

The OG version, which is more oriented toward social issues and categories, is often connected with Alexandria, whereas Theodotion, with its emphasis on individual character and ethics, seems more reminiscent of the Hellenistic novella, which also emerged in Diaspora settings (parallel to the Babylonian setting of the story).

The story of Susanna, especially in Ɵ′, is an interesting tale for the study of Diaspora community: God is mentioned or alluded to 15 times in the book’s 64 verses. At two points (vv. 5 and 53), the Jewish scriptures are quoted or paraphrased. From begining to the end, religious interest and elements pervade the story.

The story of Susanna has influenced literature, music, and art. The scene of naked Susanna at her bath, who is being taken advantage of by two wicked judges, is a perfect example for the criticism of the relationship between sex and power.

A.A. Trites on Susanna

Exerpt from: The NT Concept of Witness ( 2004), p 50,51

The Story of Susanna is,

'...intended to illustrate the value and necessity of cross-examination of witnesses. It also seeks to vindicate the execution of false witnesses, although their victim may be delivered before his sentence was carried out.' ¹

The two lustful elders are accusing witnesses in Susanna's trial; by their testimony they seek to establish her alleged adultery (v 36-41; note the phrase ταυτα μαρτυρουμεν in v. 41, LXX [=OG?]).

The 'elders of the people' are the 'judges' who decide the case and sentence Susanna to death. Before she can be executed however, Daniel raises a protest on her behalf and summons the legal assembly to return to 'the place of judgement' ("Kriterion"] (v. 45-49). There he is invited to act as an 'elder' by participating in the arbitration (v. 50). He does so by separating Susanna's accusers and 'examining' them individually ( , v 51).

Daniel follows the procedure laid down in Deut. 19:18 of making 'diligent inquisition' (R.V.). Under his searching cross-examination the testimony of the accusing witnesses breaks down, for they differ on a point of circumstantial evidence and therefore Daniel is able to convict them of bearing false witness (v. 54,58,61). ².

Acting in accordance with the O.T. law of malicious witness, the judges put Susanna's accusers to death (v 62), and Susanna is completely vindicated.

Susanna's story is important to this inquiry for several reasons:

(1) It illustrates what has already been observed in the OT, namely, the fact that one person can serve as judge and witness in the same legal assembly. In Susanna the two roles are virtually synonymous, for the judge helps the innocent person by acting as a witness in her defence. ³ Here the witness is not the eye-witness, but rather the advocate [paraclete] who takes the litigant's side and pleads her case.

(2) Susanna's story offers an interesting application of the Law of Malicious Witness mentioned in Deut. 19:16-21. Since this law also appears in the New Testament (cf. Rev. 11:13, 18:20b), here is another link between the idea of witness in the OT and the NT.

(3) Susanna employs καταμαρτυρειν (v. 21, 43, 49) and ψευδομαρτυειν "false witness" (v.62), offering parallels to the Synoptic uses of the same verbs in connection with the trial of Jesus (Mk 14:50,56,57; Mt.26:62, 27:13).

(4) Daniel convicts the false witnesses 'out of their own mouth' (sus. 61). Similar convictions on the basis of one's own evidence appear in the OT and later in the Synoptic Gospels ( 2nd Sam 1:16; Job 9:20; 15:6; Lk. 19:22, Mt. 12:37).

(5) The story highlights a dispute between the Pharisees during the time of Alexander Janneus (105-79 B.C.). As R. H. Charles and others have pointed out (Apoc & Pseud. vol I, 651), the Sadduces advocated carrying out the sentence only if the falsely accused had actually been put to death, while the Pharisees held that the death penalty was in force from the moment when the unjust sentence was passed (Mishnah Makkoth 1.6; Sifre on Deut. 19:19, Gemara, Makkoth 5B). According to the Pharisaic interpretation of Deut. 19:19, the two lustful elders must be executed for malicious witness.

(6) Susanna 51-59 may shed light on the interpretation of Jn 1:48,50. Prof. Moule, commenting on the Susanna story, had directed attention to the importance which the rabbinical tradition attached to the scrupulous examination of evidence (cf. Mishnah Sanhedrin v2 and Bab. Sanhedrin 41a). Thus he interprets 'under the fig tree' in Jn 1:48,50 as indicating 'the accurate knowledge of a person's whereabouts and movements' which is characteristic of a good witness. ⁴

Many other legal words are used in the Apocrypha and Pseudegrapha which will be encountered later in the New Testament. Two of the most interesting ones are παρακλητος ['paraklete'] and , both of which appear in Pirke IV.13:

He who does one precept gains for himself one advocate,
and he who commits one transgression gains for himself one accuser. ⁵

The Hebrew words represent παρακλητος and κατηγορος, words which will return to later in considering the concept of witness developed in the Fourth Gospel, 1st John, and Revelation (cf. Jn 5:45, 14:16,26; 15:26, 16:7; 1st Jn 2:1, Rev. 12:10).

Other legal words also appear, sometimes in forensic contexts where the idea of witness is prominent. A list of such words would include κριμα, κρισις, κριτης, κατακρινειν, κατακριμα, αιτια, αντιδικος, ψευδομαρτυρειν, ομολογειν . As these words, generally speaking, are not integrated into any unified concept of witness in the Apoc. and Pseudog., it is not necessary to look at them in great detail. Their importance lies inthe fact that they show the presence of the linguistic raw materials on which the NT writers were to draw in the formulation of their ideas of witness."

- Alison A. Trites, The NT Concept of Witness, p 50,51

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Original Footnotes:

1. R.H. Charles, Apoc. and Pseudepigrapha, vol. I, 638. Cf. R.A.F. MacKenzie, The meaning of the Susanna story, CJT, 3 (1957), 211-218 and Sanhedrin 41a.

2. But cf. Sanhedrin 69a.

3. Cf. Leon Morris, The Biblical Doctrine of Judgment (Lond. 1960), p 15-16.

4. C. F. D. Moule, 'A note on "under the fig tree" in John 1:48,50', JTS, NS, 5 (1954), 210-211. Cf. C. H. Dodd, Historical Tradition in the Fourth Gospel (Camb. 1963), p. 105.

5. R. H. Charles, op cit. vol. II, p705. Cf T.F. Glasson Moses in the Fourth Gospel, (Lon.1964), p. 105.

Dating Old Greek Daniel

excerpt from: The Madness of King Nebuchadnezzar, by Matthais Henze chapt. 1, p.22fwd.

It was only in 1937 that a pre-Hexaplaric Greek witness to the Old Greek was published. The Chester Beatty Papyrus (P 967), discovered in 1931 in Aphroditopolis in Egypt, contains portions of Ezekiel, Daniel, and Esther. ³³ It stems from the early 3rd century CE, ³⁴ and thus pre-dates MS 88 [Codex Chisianus] by at least six centuries. The significance of this publication lies in the fact that for the first time scholars were able to look into the pre-Origenian period of the transmission of the Old Greek.

The text portions were divided among three different libraries at Dublin, Cologne, and Barcelona. Ziegler's masterful edition of the Old Greek (1954) is based on MS 88, the Syro-Hexapla, and parts of the Chester Beatty Papyrus.

Unfortunately, the great bulk of Papyrus 967, preserved at Cologne and Barcelona, was not available to Ziegler, but was published only later in a series of articles and monographs. The two most distinctive differences between P 967 and all other witnesses are both concerned withthe rearrangement of the material.

In P 967 the story of Susanna follows Bel and the Serpent. More striking, though, is the placement of chapters 7 and 8 before chapter 5 and 6, thus breaking the division of the biblical book with the narratives in chapters 1-6 and the visions in the chapters 7-12.

The motivation for this reordering of the text is obviously the desire to fix the chronological problems in the received text (in chapters 7 and 8 the story returns to Belshazzar who had left the scene with the end of chapter 5). ³⁵

Dating the Old Greek

Before we finally turn to a textual comparison of the MT with the Old Greek, a brief word is in order about the date of the Old Greek. It was noticed as early as in the late 19th century that the Greek text of 1st Maccabees draws from the Old Greek of Daniel. ³⁶ The date of the former is commonly given as around 100 BCE, which would imply that the Old Greek of Daniel dates to the second half of the 2nd century BCE. This date finds support from a comparison of Daniel with the Greek texts of other apocryphal writings which date to the same period and share a number of stylistic elements thought to be characteristic of that period, such as 1st Esdras.

Some scholars wish to date the Old Greek even earlier by pointing to parallels between the Sybilline Oracles, dating to the year 140 BCE, and Daniel 7. ³⁷ May it suffice at this point to note that the Old Greek of Daniel was probably in existance by the end of the 2nd century BCE or shortly thereafter, thus standing in immediate proximity to the date of the final redaction of the biblical book during the Maccabean Revolt (167-164 BCE).

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Original Footnotes:

32. A. M. Ceriani, Codex syro-hexaplaris ambrosianus (Monumenta sacra et profana 7; Milan: Bibliotheca Ambrosiana, 1874). On the Syro-Hexapla of Daniel and its few divergences from MS 88, see Ziegler, Septuaginta, 13-18.

33. F. G. Kenyon, ed. The Chester Beatty Papyri: Descriptions and TExts of the Twelve MSS on Pap. of the Greek Bible (Lond. E. Walker 1937).

34. On the collection of the Chest. Beat.Pap., see S Jellicoe, The Sept. and Modern Study (Oxf. Press 1968, reprint. Winona Lake: Esenbrauns, 1993) 229-231.

35. The following chart serves to illustrate the different arrangements of the material in the versions. All of the versions, with the exception of the MT, insert the Prayer of Azariah and the Hymn of the Three Men after Daniel 3:23 (cf. A. Wysny, Die Erzahlung von Bel und dem Drachen; Untersuchungen zu Dan 14, SBB 33, Stuttgart: Verlag Katholisches Bibelwerk Gmbh, 1996, p.18).

P 967	MT	OG/Syro-Hex	Theodot.	Vulgate
--	--	--	Susanna	--
Dan 1-12 (ch 7-8 bef. 5-6)	Dan 1-12	Dan 1-12	Dan 1-12	Dan 1-12
Bel & Serpent	--	Susanna	Bel & Serpent	(Susanna)
Susanna	--	Bel & Serpent	--	Bel & Serpent

(We have rearranged the chart to reflect the chronological direction.)

36. Bludau, Ubersetzung, 7-8, gives a long list of references which indicate a direct literary dependency of 1st Maccabees on the Old Greek of Daniel. Bludau was followed by Montgomery, Daniel, 38.

37. Sib. Or. 3:400 is thought to include an allusion to Dan 7:8. See already Bludau, op. cit 9; more recently P. Grelot, "La septante de Daniel IV et son substrat semitique", RB 91 (1974) 5-23, 23, n. 18.

Early Christian Textual History

Excerpt for review purposes from: Susannah’s Virtues
The Prayer of Distress & the Cause of Justice
by Patrick Henry Reardon

"First, this story of Susannah was most dear to earlier generations of Christian believers. Already early in the second century we find the first of six mural icons drawn from the Susannah story on the walls of the Roman catacombs. ¹ Spread throughout Italy and Gaul, there are seven extant examples of scenes from the Susannah chapter in bas relief on Christian sarcophagi from the first few centuries. ² Moreover, in all of Christian history there is preserved not a single Christian manuscript of the Book of Daniel without the story of Susannah.

When Julius Africanus in the third century objected that the Susannah chapter was uncanonical because it did not stand in the Hebrew Bible, Origen responded that the story was “found in every church of Christ in that Greek copy that the Greeks use.” ³

Susanna Abandoned by the Jews

At the time when Origen wrote this, nonetheless, not many Jews seem to have been reading Susannah, at least not as Holy Scripture. Although the tale had clearly been part of the earlier Semitic form of Daniel (Aramaic more likely than Hebrew, as in the bulk of Daniel) that was translated into the Septuagint, it is not contained in any of the seven Semitic copies of Daniel discovered among the Dead Sea scrolls at Qumran. Moreover, the story is found neither in Josephus in the first century nor in the second-century translation of the Hebrew Scriptures by the Jew Aquila.

We have the further witness of Jerome speaking of a Jewish critic who considered the story a piece of Greek fiction. ⁴ As to why the account of Susannah was no longer to be found in the rabbinical canon of the Sacred Scriptures, Hippolytus in Rome and Origen in Egypt were perhaps speaking for a common Christian view in the third century when they advanced a rather simple explanation. The reason that the story of Susannah had not been included in that canon, they said, was that the latter was established by Jewish elders who would not look favorably on a narrative that made villains of two of their number! ⁵

The Domination of Theodotion's Recension

With respect to the Christian reading of the Greek version of Daniel, including Susannah, there is a further and most curious feature of textual history to be mentioned here.

After Origen, in his famous Hexapla, placed Theodotion’s fairly recent (late 2nd century) translation of Daniel in a parallel column with that of the Septuagint, Christian readers compared the two renderings and decided that they much preferred Theodotion. Thus, in spite of the traditional and venerable authority of the Septuagint in the Church, Theodotion’s translation of Daniel came to predominate among Christian copyists. ⁶ His version was adopted as the Danielic text of the Byzantine liturgical lectionary, and the Latin (Vulgate) translation of Theodotion’s Susannah was incorporated into the Roman lectionary.

So great was the dominance of Theodotion in this respect that the ancient Septuagint translation of Daniel almost disappeared, not a single copy of it being known until the discovery of the Chisianus Codex [c. 9th century] in 1772.

Similarly, it was Theodotion’s translation of Daniel that was rendered into almost all the other ancient Christian versions (the Peshitta Syriac, both the Boharic and Sahidic Coptic, the Ethiopic, Armenian, Arabic, and the Slavonic), as well as virtually all modern translations. ⁷

Given this massive dominance of Theodotion in the textual tradition of Daniel, it is this version of Susannah that we will be following in the present article, except where otherwise noted. Moreover, a comparison of the two accounts of Susannah shows Theodotion’s to be by far the more colorful and detailed. Consequently, one suspects that, even if their choice of Theodotion had not pertained to Daniel as a whole, it is no wonder that Christian copyists preferred his rendering of Susannah. ⁸

Continued Popularity of Susanna

Furthermore, notwithstanding Luther’s relegation of Susannah to the Apocrypha, it is arguable that her story has always been better known to Christians in the West than in the East. It is quoted far more frequently by the Latin writers than by the Greeks, and the reason for this phenomenon almost certainly had to do with a traditional liturgical practice.

Since at least the 5th century the Roman eucharistic lectionary prescribed that the Susannah narrative be read at Mass each year on the Saturday before the Fourth Sunday of Lent ( Laetare Sunday). The origins of this prescription go back even further, to the venerable custom of Roman “stational churches,” a liturgical arrangement in which the pope would visit and preside at the Eucharist at the various parish churches of the Eternal City in a specific order. As it happened, the parish church traditionally selected for the Saturday before the Fourth Sunday of Lent was dedicated to St. Susannah, a consecrated virgin martyred under Diocletian.

What, then, could be a more appropriate biblical reading for that annual occasion than the story of the earlier Susannah from the Book of Daniel? This propriety was heightened, moreover, by the striking circumstance that both women suffered persecution in the safeguarding of their chastity. This established reading endured in the West for nearly a millennium and a half, until the lectionary reforms associated with Vatican II only a few decades ago. ⁹

...

Counsel for the defense, a parakletos

In this regard Origen commented on the similarities (paraplesia ) between Daniel’s cross-examination of the elders and Solomon’s questioning of the two harlots contending for the living child in 1st Kings 3. In each case, Origen observed, the wise man attained the truth of the thing by addressing the witnesses individually and comparing their reactions.⁷⁸

Daniel thus displays not only the spirit of prophecy but also the wisdom of righteous judgment.

Daniel functions here, that is to say, as a counsel for the defense, a parakletos in the Johannine sense. Indeed, this picture of Daniel may profitably be compared to the various “forensic settings” in John’s Gospel.

John 7:53-8:11 and John 9

The first of these is the account of the woman taken in adultery at the beginning of John 8. Indeed, ancient liturgical usage amply justifies our comparison of these two texts. The Susannah story, as we have already seen, was long used in the Church of the West as a eucharistic reading on the Saturday before the Fourth Sunday of Lent. Now it is passing curious that the Gospel on those occasions was precisely this story of the woman taken in adultery! This imaginative juxtaposition of stories of two women accused of adultery, the one guilty and forgiven, the other innocent and released, eventually became a standard arrangement among all Latin Christians who observed the Roman liturgical type.⁷⁹

Leaving aside the textual difficulty with assigning this narrative as originally Johannine,⁸⁰ we may comment on those features of it that have affinities with Susannah and, as we shall see, certain themes of the Fourth Gospel.

The woman, taken in the very act of adultery, was apprehended alone. Therefore, like Susannah, she is tried alone. Her accusers are respected members of the community, “scribes and elders,” who call for her to be stoned to death. Jesus, however, the new Daniel acting as a sort of counsel for the defense, or parakletos, turns the tables on her accusers and sets her free.

The second story is that of the healed blind man in John 9. The opening verses of that account already show that it is going to be a story about guilt and innocence: “Lord, who has sinned, this man or his parents?” During the course of the narrative both the blind man and his parents are subpoenaed by the Sanhedrin, Israel’s official judicial body, which pronounces the blind man himself to be the sinner (John 9:34). Jesus, again, acting the part of the parakletos, finally turns the tables and pronounces the accusers themselves to be the sinful party in the story; it ends:

“If you were blind, you would have no sin;
but now you say, ‘We see.’, Therefore your sin remains” (John 9:41).

Thus, in both stories, Jesus, like Daniel, vindicates the accused and condemns the accusers. In both stories, likewise, the true intent of the accusers themselves was to condemn Jesus. Thus, they bring to him the woman (whom the operative Roman law, anyway, would certainly not have permitted to be stoned to death for adultery) in order to test Jesus himself, and, in the case of the blind man, their obvious intent in questioning him was to find something with which to accuse Jesus.

Conclusion

In the Fourth Gospel as it stands in the canonical text, therefore, both stories prepare for the trial of Jesus before Pilate, in which the Lord acts as his own counsel for the defense.

The Church likewise is promised a new parakletos, who, when he comes, will turn the tables on the accusers and “convict the world of sin, of justice, and of judgment” (John 16:8).

Thus, Daniel’s prompt and wise intervention as a defense counsel for the loyal servant of God, may be regarded as a type of that coming Holy Spirit sent in Christ’s name (John 14:25), the Spirit of truth who will guide the Church into all truth (16:13), but whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him (14:17).

Considered within the biblical canon as a whole, then, the story of Susannah lends itself readily to Hippolytus’s understanding of it as an allegory of the historical trial of the Church in the world and her final vindication by the wise judgment of God’s appointed emissary.

- Patrick Henry Reardon, Touchstone, (June 2000)

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Original Footnotes:

1. Cf. Henri Leclercq, “Suzanne,” Dictionnaire d’Archéologie Chrétienne et de Liturgie (hereafter DACL, followed by volume and column numbers) 15.1745–1748.

2. Art. cit. (DACL 15.1748–1749).

3. Origen, Ad Africanum 2 ( Bibliotheke Hellenon Pateron [hereafter BHP, followed by volume and page numbers] 16.350). Except in the case of Leander of Seville, all translations in this article are my own.

4. Jerome, In Danielem, Praefatio (PL 28.1293A).

5. Hippolytus, In Danielem 1 (PG 10.692); Origen, Ad Africanum 9 (BHP 16.354,356).

6. Some other sections as well: Lamentations, Ruth, and select parts of Samuel, Kings, Job, the Canticle, and Jeremiah.

7. The Syro-Hexaplar and the Vetus Latina, both translated from the Septuagint, are the exceptions to this rule. It is worth mentioning that I presume here the common hypothesis that Theodotion translated from a Semitic Daniel different from that underlying the Septuagint. If this view should be erroneous, however, there would be no disadvantage to my purpose in this study.

8. Both the Theodotion and the Septuagint Daniel are printed on split pages in Alfred Rahlfs’s standard edition of the Septuagint. Whereas in the Septuagint and the Vulgate the Susannah story forms chapter 13 of Daniel, the story stands at the very beginning of Daniel in almost all other versions. This latter arrangement is most certainly the earlier. It is instanced not only in the Byzantine lectionary, which is based on Theodotion, but also in our oldest surviving Greek manuscript of Daniel, the Septuagint Papyrus 967, and in the Vetus Latina, which was based on the Septuagint. It is also instructive to observe that our earliest commentary on Daniel, that of Hippolytus in the early third century, though certainly based on the Septuagint (cf. the detail of sequence in his In Danielem 1.55 [PG 10.697]), shows that the story of Susannah was found at the very beginning of the book. This accumulated evidence is conclusive.

9. The Ordo Lectionum Missae (Rome: Vatican Polyglot Press, 1969) makes no liturgical provision for reading the Susannah story, proh dolor.

...

78. Origen, Ad Africanum 11 (BHP 16.359).

79. Cf. John Beleth, De Ecclesiasticis Officiis 92 (CCM 41A.163). These two texts were also compared by Hincmar of Rheims, De Divortio Lotharii et Tetbergae 21 (PL 125.738A). There is a passage in Rupert of Deutz suggesting that sometimes the Gospel reading accompanying the Susannah narrative may have been the story of the loose-living Samaritan woman in John 4; cf. his De Divinis Officiis 4.16 (CCM 7.132).

80. The textual testimony is very weak in assigning it to the Fourth Gospel, since John 7:53–8:11 is missing from papyri 66 and 75, the codices Sinaiticus and Vaticanus, the oldest versions in Syriac and Coptic, and a host of other witnesses. Moreover, no Greek Father during the first thousand years ever commented on it in the course of exegeting the Fourth Gospel. The canonicity of the text, on the other hand, is not in doubt, some manuscripts placing it in other New Testament contexts. I have long suspected that this story found its way into the Gospel of John because it was recognized to touch certain themes otherwise present in that Gospel.

Patrick Henry Reardon, pastor
All Saints Antiochian Orthodox Church in Chicago, Illinois.

Susanna: Older than Daniel?

Exerpt from: Michael A. Knibb, The Book of Daniel in its Context,
The Book of Daniel: Composition and Reception,
ed. J. J. Collins (BRILL, 2001), p. 16 fwd.

"The hero of the story of Susanna is represented as being at the start of his career: he is described as a "young man" (νεωτερος) in the Old Greek, and as a "young boy" ( παιδαριον, v. 45) in Theodotion. The story is remarkable in a number of respects, but my concern is with its relationship to the biblical book [i.e., Heb Daniel 1-12].

In fact the story of Susanna shows very little connection with, or knowledge of, the biblical book, and the view that it was not in origin a Daniel story at all has a good deal to commend it. ³⁵ Here two points seem to me of particular relevance.

First, according to v.1 of the Theod. version, the story of Susanna, like the stories in Daniel 2-6, is set in Babylon, and this setting has often been assumed also for the Old Greek.

But in the Old Greek the evidence is unclear. Verses 1-5a are obelised in the Syro-Hexaplar as not part of the Old Greek, and pap. 967, the prime representative of the Old Greek, begins (pg 191) with a heading corresponding to v.5b of Theodotion:

"Concerning what (περι ων) the Lord said, that lawlessness came forth from Babylon, from elders, judges, who seemed to guide the people:"

The editor of pap. 967 (A. Geissen) argued that περι ων must have had an antecendent, and that the Old Greek began at the missing bottom of the previous side (pg 190) with the equivalent of v. 5a of Theodotion ³⁶ but it is also conceivable that some other statement, which identified the location of the story, stood before v. 5b.

H. Engel has, however, made a very strong case for the view that the Old Greek did begin with v. 5b. ³⁷ If this is correct, all that can be concluded with certainty from the heading is that the judges came from Babylon, not that the story is set there, and a Palestinian setting cannot be excluded. The provenance of the story has in any case often been assumed to be Palestinian.

Secondly, the figure of Daniel in the story of Susanna has very little connection with the hero of the biblical book, and this is the element of truth that lies behind Kottseiper's claim that the original story had in mind, not the exile Daniel, but the wise Daniel of the Book of Ezekiel, ³⁸ although it may be doubted whether even this view accurately reflects the character of the hero of Susanna.

On of the major concerns of the story of Susanna in its Old Greek version is the contrast between the corrupt elders and the shrewd young man, ³⁹ and the story ends with the exhortation:

"Let us also watch out for capable young sons, for (if) young men are pious, there will be in them a spirit of knowledge and understanding for ever and ever (v. 62b)."

Daniel is mentioned by name only five times (vv. 45, 48, 51a, 52, 59) in the Old Greek version, and it must be doubted whether his name originally belonged in the story. Rather we should envisage that the hero of the story - like the hero of the Prayer of Nabonidus - was originally anonymous. The reference at the end of the Old Greek version to the endowment of young men with a "spirit of knowledge and understanding" (πνευμα επιστημης και συνεσεως) links up with the statement that the angel gave the "young man called Daniel" a "spirit of understanding" (πνευμα συνεσεως, v. 45), and knowledge and understanding (...Old Greek επιστημην και συνεσιν) are exactly the qualities attributed to Daniel and his companions in Dan 1:17.

In the form in which the story of Susanna exists in both the Old Greek and Theodotion, it serves to explain how the young man Daniel came to prominence and was thus an appropriate figure to be trained at the court of Nebuchadnezzar. It is in accordance with this understanding of the story's purpose that in Theodotion it has been placed before the Book of Daniel, and that it ends with the statement: "And Daniel became great before the people from that day on."

But the inconsistency remains in Theodotion that the story is already set in Babylon, whereas in chapter 1 of Daniel he is one of the exiles taken to Babylon.

In view of the lack of connection with, and knowledge of, Daniel, the story itself may be assumed to be older than the formation of the Book of Daniel, and it may well go back to the early Hellenistic or the Persian period.

- Michael Knibb, Book of Daniel, (2001), p.26 fwd

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Original Footnotes:

35. Cf. for example, Moore, Daniel, Esther, and Jeremiah: The Additions, 80, 109; and L. M. Wills, The Jew in the Court of the Foreign King: Ancient Jewish Court Legends (Harv. Diss. in Relig. 26; Minn.: Fortress, 1990) 76-79.

36. A. Geissen, Der Septuaginta - Text des Buches Daniel 5-12 sowie Esther 1-2,15 (Papyrologische Texte und Abhandlungen 5; Bonn: Rudolf Habelt Verlag. 1968) 33-37, 280-1.

37. H. Engel, Die Susanna-Erzahlung (OBO 61; Freiburg: Universitatsverlag Freiburg: Gottingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1985) 12-15.

38. Kottsieper, "Zusatze zu Daniel", 288-9. Kottsieper argues that a link is made with the exile Daniel in a later redactional layer he identifies in which, through his mantic-prophetic ability, Daniel knows in advance the true character of the elders (vv. 52b-53, 56b-57). But the complex redactional history of the narrative proposed by Kottsieper is unconvincing.

39. For this contrast, cf. Engel, Die Susanna-Erzahlung, 177-81, and note the repeated use of the terms πρεσβυτεροι (vv. 5b, 13, 29, 34, 36, 41, 51a, 52) and νεωτερος (vv. 44-45, 52, 55, 60-62, 62a, 62b).