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“I kept on beholding in the visions of the night, and, see there! with the clouds of the heavens someone like a son of man happened to be coming; and to the Ancient of Days he gained access, and they brought him up close even before that One. And to him there were given rulership and dignity and kingdom, that the peoples, national groups and languages should all serve even him. His rulership is an indefinitely lasting rulership that will not pass away, and his kingdom one that will not be brought to ruin."
There are whoever two questions when it comes to the use of this title: 1) How is it broadly used in reference to the divine nature, in the writings of the fathers and the hymns of the Church, and then 2) who is the Ancient of Days in the prophesy of Daniel. == Who is the Ancient of Days as applied to the Godhead ==
===St. [[Dionysius the Areopagite]]===
:...Almighty God is celebrated as "Ancient of days" because He is of all things both Age and Time,--and before Days, and before Age and Time. And yet we must affirm that He is Time and Day, and appointed Time, and Age, in a sense befitting God, as being throughout every movement unchangeable and unmoved, and in His ever moving remaining in Himself, and as being Author of Age and Time and Days. Wherefore, in the sacred Divine manifestations of the mystic visions, He is represented as both old and young; the former indeed signifying the "Ancient" and being from the beginning, and the latter His never growing old; or both teaching that He advances through all things from beginning to end,----or as our Divine initiator says, "since each manifests the priority of God, the Elder having the first place in Time, but the Younger the priority in number; because the unit, and things near the unit, are nearer the beginning than numbers further advanced. ...Almighty God we ought to celebrate, both as eternity and time, as Author of every time and eternity, and "Ancient of days," as before time, and above time; and as changing appointed seasons and times; and again as being before ages, in so far as He is both before eternity and above eternity and His kingdom, a kingdom of all the Ages. Amen.<ref> [http://www.tertullian.org/fathers/areopagite_03_divine_names.htm#c10 On the Divine Names, chapter 2, section I]</ref>
===In Orthodox Hymns===
In Orthodox Christian hymns, the Ancient of Days is often identified with Jesus Christ.
:«The Ancient of Days became an infant». St. [[Athanasius of Alexandria]]. (Homily on the Birth of Christ).
:"The just Symeon received into his aged arms the Ancient of Days under the form of infancy, and, therefore, blessed God saying, ‘Now lettest Thy servant depart in peace...’" St. [[Methodius of Olympus]] (P.G.18, 3658)
==The Ancient of Days depiction ==