Ezechiel 28:3

18. Ezekiel also speaks of him to the same effect, thus: “Thus saith the Lord God, Because thine heart is lifted up, and thou hast said, I am God, I sit in the seat of God, in the midst of the sea; yet art thou a man, and not God, (though) thou hast set thine heart as the heart of God. Art thou wiser than Daniel? Have the wise not instructed thee in their wisdom? With thy wisdom or with thine understanding hast thou gotten thee power, and gold and silver in thy treasures? By thy great wisdom and by thy traffic hast thou increased thy power? Thy heart is lifted up in thy power. …

4. Nay, can we be better men than Daniel himself, concerning whom God, speaking to the prince of Tyre, says by the prophet Ezekiel, “Art thou wiser than Daniel?” who also is placed among the three righteous men to whom alone God saith that He would grant deliverance, pointing, doubtless, in them to three representative righteous men, declaring that he would deliver only Noah, Daniel, and Job, and that they should save along with themselves neither son nor daughter, but only their own souls? Nevertheless, read also the prayer of Daniel, and see how, when in captivity, he confesses not only the sins of his people, but his own also, and acknowledges that because of these the justice of God has visited them with the punishment of captivity and with reproach. …

Daniel, indeed, after the prayer which he poured out before God, actually says respecting himself, “Whilst I was praying and confessing my sins, and the sins of my people, before the Lord my God.” This is the reason, if I am not mistaken, why in the above-mentioned Prophet Ezekiel a certain most haughty person is asked, “Art thou then wiser than Daniel?” Nor on this point can that be possibly said which some contend for in opposition to the Lord’s Prayer: “For although,” they say, “that prayer was offered by the apostles, after they became holy and perfect, and had no sin whatever, yet it was not in behalf of their own selves, but of imperfect and still sinful men that they said, ‘Forgive us our debts, as we also forgive our debtors.’ They used the word our ,” they say, “in order to show that in one body are contained both those who still have sins, and themselves, who were already altog …

Again, listen to him who descended from Joseph, than whom no one was wiser. “Art thou wiser,” says he, “than Daniel?” ( Ezek. xxviii. 3 .) This Daniel then, when all the wise men that were in Babylon, and the astrologers moreover, the prophets, the magicians, the en chanters, yea when the whole of their wisdom was not only coming to be convicted, but to be wholly destroyed (for their being destroyed was a clear proof that they had deceived before), this Daniel coming forward, and preparing to solve the king’s question, does not take the honor to himself, but first ascribes the whole to God, and says, “But as for me, O king, it is not revealed to me for any wisdom that I have beyond all men.” ( Dan. ii. 30 .) And “the king worshiped him, and commanded that they should offer an oblation.” ( Dan. ii. …

And yet Daniel had occasions innumerable for being puffed up; but he knew that these also came to him on account of his not being puffed up, and he did not destroy his treasure. For among all men, and in the whole world he was celebrated, not only because the king cast himself on his face and offered sacrifice to him, and accounted him to be a God, who was himself honored as God in all parts of the world: for he ruled over the whole [earth]; (and this is evident from Jeremiah. “Who putteth on the earth,” saith he, “as a garment.” (See Jer. xliii. 12 and Ps. civ. 2 .) And again, “I have given it to Nebuchadnezzar My servant” ( Jer. xxvii. 6 ), and again from what he [the King] says in his letter). …

1 Tim. vi. 16 . God only hath immortality and is “only wise”; yet others, like the Prince of Tyre ( Ezek. xxviii. 3 ), are wise derivatively. So we are pure, but only by grace. Thus

57. Who would refuse the counsel of Daniel, of whom God Himself said: “Who is wiser than Daniel?” How can men doubt about the minds of those to whom God has given such grace? By the counsel of Moses wars were brought to an end, and for his merit’s sake food came from heaven and drink from the rock.

12. There is also diversity even among men themselves. Daniel, of whom it was said: “Who is wiser than Daniel?” was wise in a different sense to what others are. The same may be said of Solomon, who was filled with wisdom, above all the wisdom of the ancients, and more than all the wise men of Egypt. To be wise as men are in general is quite a different thing to being really wise. He who is ordinarily wise is wise for temporal matters, is wise for himself, so as to deprive another of something and get it for himself. He who is really wise does not know how to regard his own advantage, but looks with all his desire to that which is eternal, and to that which is seemly and virtuous, seeking not what is useful for himself, but for all.