Epistle to the Hebrews
Tertullian, in his treatise
de Pudicitia, ascribes the
Epistle to the Hebrews to Barnabas; but this opinion, though probably shared by some of his
contemporaries, is destitute of all probability.
Gospel according to Barnabas
A gospel ascribed to Barnabas is held in great reverence among the Turks, and has been
translated into Italian, Spanish, and English. It seems to be the production of a Gnostic,
disfigured by the interpolations of some Mohammedan writer. (Fabric.
Codex Apocryphus Novi Testamenti, Pars Tertia, pp. 373-394; White's
Bampton
Lectures.)
Epistle attributed to Barnabas
Respecting the epistle attributed to Barnabas great diversity of opinion has prevailed
from the date of its publication by Hugh Menard, in 1645, down to the present day. The
external evidence is decidedly in favour of its genuineness; for the epistle is ascribed to
Barnabas, the coadjutor of Paul, no fewer than seven times by Clemens Alexandrinus, and
twice by Origen. Eusebius and Jerome, however, though they held the epistle to be a genuine
production of Barnabas, yet did not admit it into the canon. When we come to examine the
contents of the epistle, we are at a loss to conceive how any serious believer in divine
revelation could ever think of ascribing a work full of such gross absurdities and blunders
to a teacher endowed with the gifts of the Spirit. It is not improbable that the author's
name was Barnabas, and that the Alexandrian fathers, finding its contents so accordant with
their system of allegorical interpretation, came very gladly to the precipitate conclusion
that it was composed by the associate of Paul.
This epistle is found in several Greek manuscripts appended to Polycarp's Epistle to the
Philippians. An old Latin translation of the epistle of Barnabas was found in the abbey of
Corbey; and, on comparing it with the Greek manuscripts, it was discovered that they all of
them want the first four chapters and part of the fifth. The Latin translation, on the other
hand, is destitute of the last four chapters contained in the Greek codices.
Editions
An edition of this epistle was prepared by Usher, and printed at Oxford; but it
perished, with the exception of a few pages, in the great fire at Oxford in 1644.The following are the principal editions: in 1645, 4to. at Paris; this edition was
prepared by Menard, and brought out after his death by Luke d'Acherry; in
1646, by Isaac Vossius, appended to his edition of the epistles of Ignatius;
in 1655, 4to. at Helmstadt, edited by Mader; in 1672, with valuable
notes by the editor, in Cotelerius's edition of the Apostolic Fathers; it is
included in both of Le Clerc's republications of this work; in 1680, Isaac
Vossius's edition was republished; in 1685, 12mo. at Oxford, an edition
superintended by Bishop Fell, and containing the few surviving fragments of Usher's
notes; in the same year, in the Varia Sacra of Stephen Le Moyne; the
first volume containing long prolegomena, and the second prolix but very learned
annotations to this epistle; in 1746, 8vo. in Russel's edition of the Apostolic
Fathers; in 1788, in the first volume of Gallandi's Bibliotheca Patrum; in 1839, 8vo. by Hefele, in his first,
and, in 1842, in his second edition of the Patres
Apostolici.
Translations
In English we have one translation of this epistle by Archbishop Wake, originally
published in 1693 and often reprinted.Among the German translations of it, the best are by Rössler, in the first
volume of his Bibliothek der Kirchenväter, and
by Hefele, in his Das Sendschreiben des Apostels Barnatbs anfs
Neue untersucht, übersetzt, und erklärt, Tübingen,
1840.