But if the burning and sprinkling perfumes be so common in the Eaft as a mere civil compliment, how came this notion of the idolatroufnefs of Nebuchadnezzar's command to be fo univerfal? How came Maundrell, who fo happily explained the propofal of Saul's fervant to his mafter, to take no notice of this remarkable circumstance ? The last is only a proof, that the most ingenious travellers have taken little notice of the coincidence between the remaining oriental customs and paffages of Scripture, except in very striking cafes. And as to the first, writers seem to be fometimes ftrangely disposed to think many innocent usages of antiquity idolatrous. Thus the writers from whence the Notæ Variorum on Curtius are taken, fuppofe the pomp with which Alexander the Great was received into that very city of Babylon, (where Daniel now was,) a few generations after, was idolatrous, and paid to him as a God, without fufficient reafon. The pomp, as defcribed by Curtius confifted in ftrewing flowers and garlands in the way, burning frankincenfe and other odours on each fide of the places through which he paffed, making him royal prefents, and finging, and playing upon inftruments before him. Frienfhemius, who was one of these writers, fuppofeth the finging before him was idolatrous: though we not only find in Han"that a confiderable number of fingers * Vol. I. p. 249, 251. way 10 Lib. 10 ufed ufed to precede Kouli-Khan, the late celebrated Perfian monarch, where an idolatrous intention cannot be imagined; but that the like folemnity was in ufe among the Jews, where nothing of this kind is, or can be, fufpected, 2 Chron. xx. 21, 28; nay though Curtius exprefsly faith in this paffage, that these fingers were those that were wont to fing the praises of their kings. And even as to that burning frankincense and other odours, it appears to be no more than doing him great civil honours: for as it was cuftomary for the Perfians to burn odours before their princes, and in times of triumph and joy"; fo Briffonius ", (who is celebrated for the accuof his obfervations on the customs of the Perfians,) affirmed that he did not remember to have any where observed, that Perfians ufed incenfe in the worship of their Gods. Nor have the paffages Savaro " produces, it is certain, any force in them, to prove the contrary; the one being this very paffage of Curtius, and the other a line from a poet who flourished near five hundred years after the birth of our Lord, and therefore no competent witness concerning the idolatrous rites of the ancient Perfians. racy 13 14 The pouring out fweet odours on Daniel, which feems to be the import of the words, muft, fure! be lefs exceptionable than the 12 Vide Not. Var. in Q. Curtium, lib. 5. cap. I. p. 13 Ubi fupra. 14 Vide Not. Var in Q 264. 15 P. 264. burning burning odours before him. But if they were burnt before him, as it would not now in that country have the leaft idolatrous appearance; as it would not have had that appearance among the ancient Perfians, if it made, as Briffonius fuppofes, no part of the worthip of their Gods; as perfumes feem to have been used fometimes for mere civil purposes, in countries where they entered into the folemnities of religion, for Solomon fays, ointment and perfume rejoice the heart, Prov. xxvii. 9, and Mofes, when he forbids the Ifraelites the making a perfume to smell to like that ordered by him to be burnt in the Sanctuary, supposes perfumes might be, or were fometimes, burnt for mere fecular ufes; why fhould this command of Nebuchadnezzar be imagined to be idolatrous " ? To finish this article, Nebuchadnezzar appears in all this matter to have confidered Daniel merely as a Prophet: his words ftrongly express this, "Your God is a God " of Gods," v. 47; and had it been otherwife, a perfon fo zealous as Daniel, who ran the rifque of his life rather than neglect his homage unto his God, and had the courage 16 An honour of much the fame kind feems to have obtained in the Weft, which Horace fpeaks of in one of his Satires, and which appears, by that paffage, not to have been appropriated to fuch as the Romans deified, as they did their emperors, but to have been done to obfcure magiftrates, acknowledged to be mere mortals. -Infani ridentes præmia fcribæ, Prætextam, & latum clavum, prunaque batillum. L.I.S.V. to to pray to him, in that dangerous fituation, with his windows open towards Jerufalem, would undoubtedly like Paul and Barnabas have rejected these odours. To fuppofe after all this, that they were idolatrous, will seem to me almost as perverse, as to imagine the burning fweet odours at the death of King Afa, 2 Chron. xvi. 14, was the folemnity of an Apotheofis: but vehemently inclined as the Jews were to idolatry, the deifying their deceased kings doth not appear to have been one of their tranfgreffions. OBSERVATION XXX. There was an honour of a different kind done to Daniel afterwards, the clothing him with fcarlet, mentioned Dan. v. 16. 29. We have no cuftom of this kind: perfons receive favours of various forts from princes, but the coming out from their presence in a different drefs is not an honour in ufe among us, but it is ftill practised in the Eaft. XXII. Some doubt however may be made concerning the precife intention of this clothing him, whether it was the investing him with the dignity of the third ruler of the kingdom, by putting on him the dress belonging to that office; or whether it was a diftinct honour the modern customs of the East not determining this point, because caffetans, (or robes,) are at this day put on people with both views. So Norden, speaking of one of the Arab princes of Upper-Egypt, fays, that he had received at Girge the caffetan of the Bey, which was the only mark of respect they paid there to the Turkish government, force deciding between the competitors who fhould have the dignity, and he that was fent to Girge being abfolutely to be vefted with the caffetan by the Bey'. But then we find too that these caffetans are given merely as an honour, and not as an enfign of office, La Roque tells us that he himself received it at Sidon, and three other attendants on the French Conful, along with the Conful himfelf, who upon a upon a particular occafion waited on Ifhmael the Bashaw of that place. Agreeably to which Thevenot tells us, he faw an Ambaffador from the Great Mogul come out from an audience he had of the Grand Seignior, with a veft of cloth of gold upon his back, a caffetan of which fort of ftuff thirty of his retinue also had '; and in another place that he faw one hundred and eight of the retinue of an Ægyptian Bey thus honoured, along with their master, by a Basha of that country. 4 3 But if it fhould be indeterminate, whether this fcarlet vestment was merely the dress belonging to the office with which Daniel was dignified, or a distinct honour, it is by no means uncertain whether it was put upon Voy. de Syr. & du Mont Liban, 3 Part 1. p. 85. Part 2. p. 96, 97. Tom. 1. p. 15, 16. 2 P. 236. |