Daniel Prologue or chapter 13 (dependent upon version), Daniel 3:17-18, Romans 4, Psalm 3:1-4.
The story of Susanna contains all the things that are delightful in the Readable Books. It is a story that engages the mind, the imagination, and the spirit; from the beginning it has been attached to the mysterious book of Daniel. Like the other Readable Books, which appear in the Old Greek Bible, this story was probably written originally in Greek, since it depends on that language for puns found at the climax of the story, where Daniel associates the two different trees reported by the evil elders in their lies with the condemning actions of God. (However, some scholars think that the original Hebrew was lost and that there could have been similar puns in a lost original, cleverly adapted by the Greek text. ) It also is a book that emphasizes the importance of family to the people of God, along with a prominent heroine, in an extensive way not found in the uncontested books of the Old Testament. It adds, so to speak, a “domestic” quality to the Scriptures, reminding us of the full orb of our lives, alongside moral, theological, and historical truths.
Depending on the version of the Greek text followed, it is placed in our English Bibles either as a prologue or an appendix to the book of Daniel: the Jewish scholar Theodotius rendered it chapter one, whereas the Septuagint positioned it as chapter 13, after the final vision of Daniel, and before another tale called Bel and the Dragon. (Curiously, though the Orthodox community mainly uses the Septuagint in the Bible as a whole, we have always read Daniel taken from the elegant version of Theodotius, and so we see the story at the head of Daniel in the Orthodox Study Bible). There are good reasons for either order. The placement at the end is reasonable: first, the rest of Daniel comes down to us in a mixture of Hebrew and Aramaic, while Susanna and Bel were probably written in Greek; next, the two extra books tell stories about Daniel that are not typical of the rest of the book, with Daniel seen as a hero who solves a problem rather than a prophet or an apocalyptic seer; third, it is hard to see where one could easily place these stories in terms of chronology, given the composite nature of Daniel as a compilation of prophetic stories and visions. However, placing Susanna at the beginning also makes sense, because the story is more like the tales found in the first six chapters of Daniel than the visons in chapters 7-12, and also because it is a story of the very young Daniel’s wisdom, setting us up to embrace him as a wise and insightful man of God. We are reminded, perhaps, of the debate surrounding when to read The Magician’s Nephew or The Horse and His Boy in the Narnian cycle—in one way, it helps to read them as close to the chronology as we can manage; in another way, it makes sense to see them as extra stories that fill in the broad overall shape of Lewis’s chronicles.
No matter where we place Susanna in our imagination, her story fills in our appreciation of Daniel, our understanding of the challenges faced by women and the young, and our grasp of God’s will for us in righteous living. Apparently, the ancient scholar Origen considered that the book was especially helpful to read in the family context, as we see in his words that have come down to us through the Latin Church father, Jerome: “It is well to make use of this testimony in order to exhort parents to educate with the divine law and testimony of God not only their sons but also their daughters” (Stromateis 10 [through Daniel 13.3]; T Collana di Testi Patristici. Rome: Città Nuova, 1961-, 203).
Many other church fathers, including Saints Hippolytus, Chrysostom, Augustine, and Cyril of Jerusalem, knew the story well, and used it both in commentary and in passing to give examples of godliness and instruction on guarding against evil. Especially important, it seems are the major themes of the story: God protects the innocent from evil accusations; yet evil can come from within the people of God, not simply from the pagans outside. This second theme is startling, considering the context of the whole book of Daniel, in which God’s people are pictured as harassed and harried by the Gentiles, both in the stories—where they sometimes win over those who are in leadership—and in the visions, where God’s victory over the whole world gives a final word of assurance.
But in Susanna, there are two elders who are not mindful of keeping God’s word while they are in exile, but instead use the prestige that they have in this fragile social situation to please themselves. Indeed, each starts out with individual plans to satisfy his own lust, and only when they accidentally discover each other lying in wait for the innocent woman do they band together to accomplish their nefarious plot. Hippolytus, in reading this against a backdrop of persecution, allegorizes to make the elders figure the Jewish and Gentile opponents of the early Church, and sees Susanna, with her bathing and anointing, as a figure of the Christian Church (Commentary on Daniel 1.14.5–6; SC 14: 96-8). No doubt this application was useful in his day, encouraging Christians who were beset on all sides. However, for our reading today, the natural level of the text is powerful in reminding us that even leaders of God’s people can turn from the way, and cause harm to the Church. Origen reports to us that a Jewish scholar supplied the names of the two, Achiah and Zedekiah, and that they were notorious among even the Jewish people who read this story as an example of outrageous adulterous passion (Stromateis 10 [through Daniel 13.5A). Ironically Achiah’s name mans “the fore-bearing God,” while Zedekiah means “God is righteous.” These two show the opposite of mercy and righteousness! Yet Hippolytus applauds the Scriptures that they “with all frankness, tell us everything”—including scandal, and not merely righteous actions! (Comm on Daniel 1.14.2–4 SC 14:96-97).
Here, then, we find a young wife and mother of a godly husband and family, taking her bath after her husband’s associates have gone home. Ironically, she is at a home where justice is to be administered when the elders gather there, but is facing danger from two of those who should care for the exiled community. They each hide to find an opportunity to rape her, comically discover each other, and make a pact to force her to comply. Alone, since she has sent her maid to fetch bathing accoutrements, she is confronted by these monsters, who tell her to give them satisfaction, or they will report that she has committed adultery with a young man who has eluded them. Her response reminds us of what the three young men respond to the pagan King: one must do what is right, and leave the conclusion to God: God will deliver us from your hands…but if not…we will not serve your gods” (Dan 3:17-18). With the same courage, Susanna says, “I am hemmed in on all sides, for if I do this thing, it is death for me; yet if I do I not, I will not escape your hands. But it is better for me not to do it … than to sin against the Lord” Susanna 22-3).
So she cries out to God “with her voice,” as in the third Psalm. So, too, do the elders cry out, and give a false report, so that it looks as though God has not heard her. All her family mourns, and her servants, who always thought her pious, are dumbfounded as she is taken out to be executed. Ater all, the status of the two elders is thought unimpeachable, and they are, as two witnesses, believed, until a young man, Daniel, is led by the Spirt of God to heed the cry of Susanna, who prays: “O eternal God, who know both what is secret and all things before they come to be. You know these men testified against me falsely….” Like Abraham, Susanna trusts God in her extreme distress, and is, at the last moment, answered, for God counts her faith as righteousness (Romans 4). Soon, God’s servant Daniel also cries out loudly, saying “I am innocent of the blood of this woman.”
The people are stunned at Daniel’s boldness, and he goes on to chide them for not properly examining the evidence, for she is a true daughter of Israel. Then, in a scene that reminds us of murder mysteries where the detective gets to the root of the matter, by examining each separately, Daniel trips up the two in their lies, with each giving the name of a different tree in the garden under which the adultery supposedly took place. They are condemned by their own words, with Daniel’s word of God’s judgment sounding like the name of the tree they selected.
All the people praise God for Daniel’s wisdom, and execute the two slandering elders, while Susanna’s family praise God for her justification. “Thus Daniel,” concludes the story, “had a great reputation among the people from that day forward.”
In speaking of this story, St Cyril of Jerusalem sums up:
The Spirit endued the soul of Daniel with wisdom so that, young as he was, he became a judge of elders. The chaste Susanna was condemned as a wanton harlot. There was no one to plead her case, for who was to deliver her from the rulers? She was led away to death; she was now in the hands of the executioners. But her Helper was close at hand, the Comforter, the Spirit who sanctifies every rational nature. Come here to me, he says to Daniel. Even though you are young, convict old men infected with the sins of youth. For it is written, God raised up the Holy Spirit on a young lad; and nevertheless (to pass on quickly) by the sentence of Daniel that chaste woman was saved.
(Catechetical Lectures 16.31; CP 103:372-3).
The story, then, admits that evil can be found among elders (and perhaps within each of our hearts!), that the young can be led by God’s Spirit, and that God vindicates His own. Origen and Hilary of Poitiers both see a cautionary tale that each of us take care so that we “not be perverted”(Origen, Hom Josh 226; CTP 108:283-4; Hilary, Hom Psalms 52:19; CTP 185:234-5). Whether taken as an encouragement or a warning, the narrative brings to the foreground the power and love of God, showing the Holy Spirit who “is everywhere present and fills all things.” Because of Jesus, that same Spirit has been poured out on men and women, old and young, and God uses those whom He wills for His purpose. Those who hold fast in adversity, and seek truth, will be rescued by this Comforter, “who sanctifies every rational nature,” in a sacred mystery. Susanna teaches us on all these levels, pointing forward to the full story of God.
Edith M. Humphrey 