NOTES for Dan 6:20

The actions of people in power do not always bring them joy. The Persian king's question to Daniel is telling in this respect: he is clearly not glad about what he had to do. Of course, on the one hand, the king's action could be considered exemplary for a person in power. The king himself had signed the law forbidding worship of anyone except the king, and now he strictly carried it out, although he would have preferred to make an exception for Daniel, toward whom he had a special attitude.

Such unwavering consistency in observing the law, regardless of persons and personal attachments, undoubtedly deserves approval in a statesman; therefore God also does not condemn the king, seeing that what is happening does not gladden him at all, that he would prefer to free Daniel from punishment if it were within his power, and that he still hopes, in essence, for a miracle that will save the one whom he himself cannot save, even as king. But, on the other hand, the situation in which the king found himself explains as well as possible why the Kingdom, if it is true, can only be "not of this world."

Here, obviously, the issue is not even whether this or that concrete ruler is good or bad. The issue is that the logic by which every earthly power is forced to be guided, the very mechanism of its functioning, is built according to the laws of the untransformed world. And if a person, like all God's creation, can be transformed, can qualitatively change his nature so that it becomes fit for life according to the laws of the Kingdom, the state mechanism cannot be transformed; an attempt to transform it can lead only to its destruction. And no human being can change anything here: if he wants the state machine to function, he will have to allow it to function according to the laws of the untransformed world.

As is evident, if a certain people, a certain society wants to give room in its life to the Kingdom, that people or society must limit the functioning of the state machine as much as possible without harming the fulfillment of the minimally necessary state functions. And, of course, there is no way to count on structures of this kind bringing any benefit in the affairs of the Church, whose vocation is to bring the Kingdom into the world. That very Kingdom which, by definition, is incompatible with any earthly power.

The image of a pagan ruler in the Book of Daniel is not painted only in black. Such a ruler is not always and not necessarily the embodiment of pure evil, a fiend of hell with nothing human in him. On the one hand there is Belshazzar, a cynic ready to violate any norms and rules and trample any holy things because for him there is nothing sacred at all, no norms or rules except his own will and his own desires. On the other hand there is Darius, a person of a completely different sort, with his own ideas of good and evil and corresponding rules of life and government, which in general Darius is ready to follow. Forced to throw to the lions a man whom Darius himself understands to be innocent and undeserving of execution, the ruler can find no peace because he has violated moral norms that are obvious to him and binding upon him.

But here the laws of the state begin to operate, that very state machine which takes no account of moral norms, just as no machine takes account of them at all. Its symbol becomes the irrevocability of a law adopted in the Persian Empire and its absolute binding force for everyone without exception. Giving orders and signing decrees, the king becomes their prisoner. He cannot revoke his decisions; he cannot stop the machine he himself has set in motion. Near him and around him are courtiers who will not allow the king to do so, even if the king himself wants it. The retinue really does, to a certain degree, make the king, often a very cruel king, and so it has been in every age.

Of course, much here depends on the concrete person, on the extent to which the person himself is ready to follow the rules of the game and allow the state machine to define him and his existence as a person, as a politician, as a statesman. Yet, as has often happened in history, a person who does not want to play by the rules ends up outside the game, whether voluntarily or by force. Understanding this, people who sought spiritual and everyday independence have in every age tried to stay away from affairs of state and politics. Often they were guided not by cowardice and not by snobbish escapism, but by a sober assessment of the situation and the realism proper to people who know the true state of things.

There have, of course, been exceptions: people who, even in high posts and at the head of a state, did what they considered right. But such people have been few, and their fate has never been simple. Darius, the hero of the Book of Daniel, as one can see, is not one of them. He is left only to grieve while continuing to do what the machine he himself has set in motion demands. In his spiritual condition, the condition of a pagan who has fallen under the power of the ruler of this world, he has no other choice.