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THE EPISTLE OF BARNABAS

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Originally appearing in Volume V03, Page 409 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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THE See also:

EPISTLE OF See also:BARNABAS iS one of the apocryphal books of the New Testament. At the end of the Codex Sinaiticus of the 4th See also:century, as a sort of appendix to the New Testament, there stands an " Epistle of Barnabas." Here it is followed by the Shepherd of Hernias, while in an zrth-century MS., which contains also the See also:Didache, it is followed by two writings which themselves See also:form an appendix to the New Testament in the Codex Alexandrinus. This means that it once enjoyed quasi-canonical authority, a fact amply See also:borne out by what See also:Eusebius (H. E. iii. 25) says as to its See also:standing in the See also:ancient See also:Church. It was at See also:Alexandria that its authority was greatest. See also:Clement comments on it, as on the canonical scriptures, in his Hypoty poses; See also:Origen cites it in the same spirit as scripture (C. Celsum, is 63, De Princ. iii. 2, 4, 7). Clement, too, ascribes it to " the apostle " or " the See also:prophet " Barnabas (Strom. ii. 6, 31, cf. ii. 2o, 116), with explicit reference to See also:Paul's See also:fellow-apostle.

See also:

Internal See also:evidence makes this ascription impossible, nor does the epistle itself See also:lay any claim to such authorship. See also:Lightfoot, indeed, suggests that its author was " some unknown namesake " of the famous Barnabas: but it is simpler to suppose that it was fathered upon the latter by the Alexandrian Church, ready to believe that so favourite a See also:writing was of apostolic origin. " That Alexandria, the See also:place of its earliest reception, was also the place of its See also:birth, is borne out by the internal evidence of See also:style and See also:interpretation, which is Alexandrian throughout " (Lightfoot). The picture,, too, which it gives of the danger lest the See also:Christianity of its readers should be unduly Judaic in feeling and practice, suits well the experiences of a writer living in Alexandria, where Judaism was immensely strong. Further, he shows an " astonishing familiarity with the Jewish See also:rites," in the See also:opinion of a See also:modern See also:Jew (Kohler in the Jewish Encycl.) ; so much so, that the latter agrees with another Jewish See also:scholar in saying that " the writer seems to have been a converted Jew, whose fanatic zeal rendered him a See also:bitter opponent of Judaism within the See also:Christian Church." These opinidns must overrule the view of some Christian scholars that the writer often blunders in Jewish matters, the fact being that his knowledge is derived from the Judaism of Alexandria' rather than See also:Palestine. But we. need not therefore regard the author as of Jewish birth. It is enough, and more in keeping with the thought as a whole, to regard him as having been in See also:close contact with Judaism, possibly as a See also:proselyte. He now uses his knowledge to warn his readers, with intense See also:passion, against all See also:compromise between Judaism and the See also:Gospel. In this he goes so far as to deny any See also:historical connexion between the two, maintaining with all the devices of an extravagant allegorism, including the Rabbinic Gematria based on the numerical values of letters (ix. 7 f.), that the See also:Law and Prophecy, as meant by See also:God, had never been given to See also:Israel as a See also:people. The Divine oracles had ever pointed to the Christian See also:Covenant, and had been so understood by the men of God in Israel, whereas the apostate people had turned aside to keep the ceremonial See also:letter of the Law at the instigation of an evil See also:angel (ix. 4).

In this way he takes in See also:

succession the typical Jewish institutions—See also:Circumcision, Foods, Ablutions, Covenant, See also:Sabbath, See also:Temple—showing their spiritual counterpart in the New People and its ordinances, and. that the See also:Cross was prefigured from the first. Such insight (gnosis) into the reality of the See also:case he regards as the natural issue of Christian faith; and it is his See also:main See also:object to help his readers to attain such spirituality=the more so that, by similar insight applied to the signs of the times, he knows and can show that the end of the See also:present See also:age is imminent (i. 5, 7-iv.). The See also:burden of his epistle, then, is, " Let us become ' His reference to the wide prevalence of circumcision beyond Israel (ix. 6) is perhaps simply an exaggeration, more or less conscious. spiritual, a perfect temple unto God " (iv. 1I); and that not only by theoretic insight, but also by See also:practical See also:wisdom of See also:life. In See also:order to enforce this moral, he passes to " another sort of gnosis and instruction " (xviii. I), viz. the precepts of the " Two Ways," cited in a slightly different form from that found in the first See also:part of the Teaching of the Apostles. The modifications, however, are all in a more spiritual direction, in keeping with the genuinely evangelic spirit which underlies and pervades even the allegorical ingenuities of the epistle. Its opening shows it to have been addressed to a Church, or rather a See also:group of Churches, recently visited by the writer, who, while not wishing to write as an authoritative " teacher " so much as one who has come to love them as a friend (i. 8, cf. ix.

9), yet belongs to the class of " teachers " with a recognized spiritual See also:

gift (charisma), referred•to e.g. in the Didache. He evidently feels in a position to give his gnosis with some claim to a deferential See also:hearing. This being so, the epistle was probably written, not to Alexandria, but rather by a " teacher " of the Alexandrine Church to some See also:body of Christians in See also:Lower See also:Egypt among whom he had recently been visiting. This would explain the See also:absence of specific address, so that it appears as in form a " See also:general epistle," as Origen styles it. Its date has been much debated. But Lightfoot's See also:reading of the apocalyptic passage in ch. iv.—with a slight modification suggested by See also:Sir W. M. See also:Ramsay—is really conclusive for the reign of See also:Vespasian (A.D. 70-79). The main See also:counter-view, in favour of a date about A.D. 130, can give no natural See also:account of this passage, while it misconstrues the reference in ch. xvi. to the See also:building of the spiritual temple, the Christian Church. Thus this epistle is the earliest of the Apostolic Fathers, and as such of See also:special See also:interest.

Its central problem, the relation of Judaism and Christianity—of the Old and the New forms of a Covenant which, as Divine, must in a sense abide the same—was one which gave the See also:

early Church much trouble; nor, in absence of a due theory of the See also:education of the See also:race by See also:gradual development, was it able to solve it satisfactorily.

End of Article: THE EPISTLE OF BARNABAS

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