DANIEL IN THE LIONS’ DEN Subject matter : Daniel in the lions’ den. Keywords : Daniel; Habakkuk; lion; Old Testament; prophet Summary : the prophet Daniel was thrown into a den with lions. He escaped unharmed thanks to divine intervention. This intervention materialized in the help of an angel and of Habakkuk -who, transported from Iudaea by an angel, took the food that he had prepared for himself to Daniel. The miracle was acknowledged by the king of Babylon, who sentenced the detractors of Daniel to the same punishment. Attributes and types of representation : Daniel is depicted both standing and sitting surrounded by lions. In the most complete version of the scene, Habakkuk, carried by an angel who holds him by his hair, brings food to Daniel. The lions may appear in different attitudes: faced in a heraldic outline, licking the feet of Daniel as a sign of respect and submission, placing their paws on him, trampling the bodies of the accusers of the prophet, etc 1. The divine protection is made explicit not only with the help of Habakkuk, but also in some cases with the appearance of the Dextera Dei . The depiction of the den occurs most frequently in early Christian images and in the illustration of manuscripts, and it can take various forms: rectangular, in the shape of a trough, or even it can be depicted as an architectural interior. 2 Sometimes Daniel is emphasized by being framed in a mandorla or he is represented with a halo. Habakkuk, meanwhile, can carry a staff. Written sources : the episode of the sentence of Daniel to the lions’ den is narrated in the Bible in the book of that prophet. There are two versions of the story. The first one (Dn. 6, 11- 25) 3, short on details, reports that the prophet was condemned because he refused to worship King Darius in order to remain faithful to Yahveh. Dario sealed the stone that closed the entrance to the den, where there were an unknown number of lions. Daniel was saved from their attack by an angel that gagged the lions. After that night, and in view of such a miracle, the prophet was released and his slanderers suffered the same punishment. The second version (Dn. 14, 28-42) takes place during the time of Cyrus. Following this account, the Babylonians were responsible for the punishment of Daniel, taking revenge on him for having destroyed their idol Bel. The story points out that the prophet spent six nights in the pit accompanied by seven lions. Habakkuk, miraculously transported to Babylon to provide Daniel with food, gave him bread and a stew without breaking the seal of the slab that closed the den. Given the incredible salvation of the condemned, Cyrus threw into the pit those who had accused the prophet. This second version, coming from apocryphal sources and richer in details, was added a posteriori to the book of Daniel. The salvation from the lions has some parallels in other Old Testament passages: 1 Sam. 17, 37, Psalm 22, 21, Psalm 90, 11-13, 1 Mac 2, 60 (which refers directly to Daniel), and was also quoted in the New Testament (Tm. 4, 17, Hb. 11 , 33). Some authors, however, have tried to 1 DÉONNA, Waldemar (1949): “Daniel, le ‘Maitre des Fauves’, à propos d'une lampe chrétienne du musée de Genève”, Artibus Asiae , vol. XII, nº 1-2, pp. 125-130, catalogues twelve main formulas of representation of the lions. 2 MOURE PENA, Teresa Claudia (2006): “La fortuna del ciclo de ‘Daniel en el foso de los leones’ en los programas escultóricos románicos de Galicia”, Archivo Español de Arte , t. LXXIX, nº 315, pp. 283-286. 3 For a critical study of the passage, see CASSIN, E. (1951): “Daniel dans la ‘fosse’ aux lions”, Revue de l’Histoire des Religions , t. CXXXIX, nº 2, 1951, pp. 129-161. relate the iconography of Daniel in the den with Jewish literary sources, in particular with midrashic texts 4. Christian exegesis on the episode of Daniel gives different meanings to the story 5. The main one is related to the issue of salvation, the triumph over evil and death and, therefore, the resurrection. The passage was also interpreted as a clear symbol of divine protection and of the constancy of faith over adversity. The presence of Habakkuk carrying bread led to an interpretation of the passage in Eucharistic terms, and also to an allegory of Christ’s virginal conception after the writings of Honorius of Autun, who pointed out that the prophet had entered the den without breaking the seal. The reference to Daniel in the lion’s den among the different paradigms of salvation in the Commendatio animae and other funeral prayers recited since the earliest times of Christianity 6 –whose precedents have been traced back to the Jewish world– has particular importance regarding the symbolic interpretation of the theme. The written sources of these prayers, however, don’t predate the 8 th and 9 th centuries. Two liturgical dramas, probably composed for the Christmas period, retell the episode of the lion’s den. The first one, contained in Hilarius Aurelianensis’ (c. 1075-1140?) Versus et ludi 7, shows elements of the two textual traditions of Daniel’s sentence, as it pairs Dario with Habakkuk. The well known Ludus Danielis 8, written for the Cathedral of Beauvais in the twelfth century, also merges the two passages. Other sources, non-written sources : unlike what happens with the literary sources, non- written sources don’t seem to have determined the iconic formula of the subject matter. 4 KLAGSBALD, Victor A. (1988): “Thèmes bibliques dans les lampes historiées des premiers siècles de l’ère chrétienne”. In: MENTRÉ, Mireille (dir.), L’Art Juif au Moyen Âge , Paris, Berg International, pp. 29-53. 5 The first commentary on Daniel preserved is that of Hippolytus of Rome ( Commentarius in Danielem , c. 202- 204, published in the collection Sources chrétiennes , nº 14, Paris, M. Lefèvre, 1947), which already develops the parallel with the Resurrection of Christ remarking that Daniel and Habakkuk remained alive even after a stone sealed his tomb. The text also compares Daniel with Adam regarding his authority over the animals and puts the den and the lions on a par with hell and its punitive agents. Other prominent writers of Antiquity and the Middle Ages that glossed the passage are HILARIUS OF POITIERS: De Trinitate , X, 46 ( Corpus Christianorum. Series Latina , vol. LXIIA, p. 499); SAINT AMBROSE: De Elia et jejunio ( Patrologia Latina -PL -, XIV, col. 704); SAINT JEROME: Commentarii in Danielem (PL , XXV, cols. 491-584); MAXIMUS OF TURIN, Sermo 21 ( PL , LVII, col. 576); RABANUS MAURUS, Allegoriae in sacram Scripturam ( PL , CXII, cols. 884ss.); HAIMO OF AUXERRE, Homiliae de tempore , XXVIII ( PL , CXVIII, col. 194); RATERIUS OF VERONA, Pauca de uita sancti Donatiani , in Praeloquiorum ( Corpus Christianorum. Continuatio Medievalis , vol. XLVIA, p. 281); RUPERT OF DEUTZ, De Trinitate ( PL , CLXVII, cols. 1511ss.); HONORIUS OF AUTUN, Speculum ecclesiae (PL , CLXXII, col. 905); GOTTFRIED OF ADMONT, Homiliae Dominicales , homily XXXVIII ( PL , CLXXIV, cols. 254-258). For this list of commentators, see TRAVIS, William J. (2000): “Daniel in the Lion’s den: problems in the iconography of a Cistercian manuscript. Dijon, Bibliothèque Municipale, MS. 132”, Arte Medievale , II serie, año XIV, nº 1-2, p. 53, and ANGHEBEN, Marcello (2003): Les chapiteaux romans de Bourgogne. Thèmes et programmes , Turnhout, Brepols, pp. 186-187. 6 Libera, Domine, animam eius, sicut Danielem of lacu leonum Liberati, quoted by CABROL, Fernand, y LECLERCQ, Henri (1920): “Daniel”, Dictionnaire d’Archéologie Chrétienne et de Liturgie , t. IV.1, París, Létouzey et Ané, col. 223. Regarding the allusions to Daniel in these prayers, see the table included in NTEDIKA, Joseph (1971): L’évocation de l’au-delà dans la prière pour les morts. Étude de patristique et de liturgie latines (IVe-VIIIe s.) , Lovaina-París, Nauwelaerts, p. 79. 7 Reproduced in YOUNG, Karl (1993): The Drama of the Medieval Church , II, Oxford, Clarendon Press (1962), pp. 287-290. 8 http://ahorie.net/Daniel_Text.pdf Geographical and chronological framework : the iconography of Daniel in the lion’s den was widely used during early Christian art and the High Middle Ages, reaching its high point during the Romanesque period. Its frequency in the late Medieval period decreased significantly. This episode is one of the most repeated ones in late antique Christian iconography since the 3rd century, probably due to its connection with the funerary liturgy. Its presence is common throughout the entire Christian world from the Middle East to North Africa and the Iberian Peninsula. The Romanesque sculpture marks a second moment of splendour of the depiction of this scene since its beginnings (head of Sainte-Radegonde of Poitiers, ambulatory of Saint- Sernin de Toulouse), constituting one of the first historiated scenes that became widespread in the monumental arts. It is located both in portals (Jaca, Ripoll, Ydes, Beaulieu) and interiors of churches and cloisters. The rise of this scene in Romanesque sculpture has been noted in particular in studies of regional scope such as those regarding Galicia, Cantabria and Palencia, or Burgundy 9. The occurrence of the scene was higher in Western Christianity, although the Byzantine and Eastern area also show interesting examples. That is the case of the Cosmas Indicopleustes (Vatican Library, gr. 699, late ninth century), the Homilies of Gregory Nazianzen (BnF, Grec. 510, c. 879-882, fol. 435v.), or the wall paintings of the Cappadocian church of Agaçalti and the reliefs of the church of the Holy Cross in Aghtamar, both of them of the 10 th century. It was also represented in mosaic in the Greek church of Hosios Lukas in the early eleventh century.