Susanna (Book of Daniel)

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Susanna and the Elders by Artemisia Gentileschi

Susanna (

Hellenistic Jewish
redactor of the Septuagint text (c. AD 150).

Summary

A fair Hebrew wife named Susanna was falsely accused by lecherous voyeurs. As she bathes privately (having sent her attendants away) in her locked and walled garden, two elders, having previously said goodbye to each other, bump into each other again when they spy on her bathing. The two men realize they both lust for Susanna. When she makes her way back to her house, they accost her, demanding she have sexual intercourse with them. When she refuses, they have her arrested, claiming that the reason she sent her maids away was to be alone as she was having intercourse with a young man under a tree.

She refuses to be blackmailed and is arrested and about to be put to death for adultery when the young Daniel interrupts the proceedings, shouting that the elders should be interrogated to prevent the death of an innocent.

After being separated, the two men are cross-examined about details of what they saw but contradicted about the tree under which Susanna supposedly met her lover. In the

puns with the sentences given by Daniel. The first says they were under a mastic tree (ὑπο σχίνον, hypo schinon), and Daniel says that an angel stands ready to cut (σχίσει, schisei) him in two. The second says they were under an evergreen oak tree
(ὑπο πρίνον, hypo prinon), and Daniel says that an angel stands ready to saw (πρίσαι, prisai) him in two.

The great difference in size between a mastic and an oak makes the elders' lie plain to all the observers. The false accusers are put to death, and virtue triumphs.

Date and textual history

Part of the Septuagint text of the Susanna story as preserved in Papyrus 967 (3rd century).

The Greek text survives in two versions. The received version is due to

Codex Chisianus 88
. The Greek puns in the texts have been cited by some as proof that the text never existed in
English
.


Sextus Julius Africanus did not regard the story as canonical. Jerome (347–420), while translating the Vulgate, treated this section as a non-canonical fable.[8] In his introduction, he indicated that Susanna was an apocryphal addition because it was not present in the Hebrew text of Daniel. Origen received the story as part of the 'divine books' and censured 'wicked presbyters' who did not recognize its authenticity (Hom Lev 1.3.), remarking that the story was commonly read in the early Church (Letter to Africanus); and claimed the two Elders who had accused Susanna were Ahab ben Kolaiah and Zedekiah ben Masseiah, (Jeremiah 29:21); he also noted the story's absence in the Hebrew text, observing (in Epistola ad Africanum) that it was "hidden" by the Jews in some fashion. Origen's claim is reminiscent of Justin Martyr's charge that Jewish scribes 'removed' certain verses from their Scriptures (Dialogue with Trypho: C.71-3). Although omitted from current Jewish scripture, the story of Susanna is acknowledged to have been part of Jewish tradition in the Second Temple period.[9]

Depictions in art

The story is portrayed on the Lothair Crystal, an engraved rock crystal made in the Lotharingia region of northwest Europe in the mid 9th century, now in the British Museum.[10]

The story was frequently painted from about 1470. Susanna is the subject of paintings by many artists, including (but not limited to)

National Gallery, London) has no elders visible at all.[11]
The Uruguayan painter Juan Manuel Blanes also painted two versions of the story, most notably one where the two voyeurs are not in sight, and Susanna looks to her right with a concerned expression on her face.

In 1681 Alessandro Stradella wrote an oratorio in two parts La Susanna for Francesco II, Duke of Modena, based upon the story.

In 1749, George Frideric Handel wrote an English-language oratorio Susanna.

Susanna (and not Peter Quince) is the subject of the 1915 poem

Dominic Argento
and by the Canadian Gerald Berg.

American artist

voyeurs
.

The Belgian writer Marnix Gijsen borrows elements of the story in his first novel Het boek van Joachim van Babylon, 1947.

Pablo Picasso, too, rendered the subject in the mid-twentieth century, depicting Susanna much as he depicts his other less abstract reclining nudes. The elders are depicted as paintings hanging on the wall behind her. The picture, painted in 1955, is part of the permanent collection at the Museo Picasso Málaga.

The American opera Susannah by Carlisle Floyd, which takes place in the American South of the 20th century, is also inspired by this story, with the addition of a traveling preacher who seduces Susannah.[12]

Portia
as being "A second Daniel" because of her sound judgments. Shakespeare is assumed to have named his eldest daughter after the biblical character.

The story is also repeated in the One Thousand and One Nights under the name The Devout Woman and the Two Wicked Elders.[13]

See also

Further reading

  • Budge, Wallis (1910). "Also the Explanation of Apa John, Archbishop of Constantinople, Concerning Susanna." . Coptic homilies in the dialect of Upper Egypt. Longmans and Co.
  • Knecht, Friedrich Justus (1910). "Daniel saves Susanna" . A Practical Commentary on Holy Scripture. B. Herder.
  • Gigot, Francis (1908). "Book of Daniel" . In Herbermann, Charles (ed.). Catholic Encyclopedia. Vol. 4. New York: Robert Appleton Company.

References

  1. . Lutherans and Anglicans used it only for ethical / devotional matters but did not consider it authoritative in matters of faith.
  2. .
  3. .
  4. ^ "Jewishencyclopedia.com". Jewishencyclopedia.com. Retrieved 2013-08-25.
  5. ^ New American Bible (Revised Edition), Footnote a.
  6. OCLC 53059839.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: others (link
    )
  7. . Retrieved 11 January 2020.
  8. ^ Knights of Columbus Catholic Truth Committee (1908). The Catholic Encyclopedia: An International Work of Reference on the Constitution, Doctrine, Discipline, and History of the Catholic Church. Encyclopedia Press. p. 626. "Although the deutero-canonical portions of Daniel seem to contain anachronisms, they should not be treated – as was done by St. Jerome – as mere fables"
  9. ^ Simkovich, Malka (2016). "The Tale of Susanna: A Story about Daniel - TheTorah.com". www.thetorah.com. Retrieved 5 April 2022. The stories in the Hebrew Bible about Daniel preserved in Daniel 1–6 are only a portion of the tales that were circulating about Daniel in Second Temple times. Some of these stories were eventually included the Apocrypha, a name used to refer to books in the Septuagint, the Greek translation of the Bible, which were not included in the Masoretic Text. One such story about Daniel is the book of Susanna, which appears in two slightly different versions: the Old Greek version, the earliest Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible, and the version of Theodotion, who produced a slightly different Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible in the second century C.E. In Theodotian's version, Susanna served as the introduction to the book of Daniel.
  10. ^ British Museum. "Lothair Crystal". Collection online. Retrieved 23 June 2016.
  11. ^ "Susanna at her Bath, 1850, Francesco Hayez". Nationalgallery.org.uk. Retrieved 2013-08-25.
  12. S2CID 144987051
    .
  13. ^ The Devout Woman and the Two Wicked Elders

External links