J. B. Cotelerius, Judicium de epistola S. Barnabae apostoli

JUDGEMENTS OF MORE RECENT WRITERS

ON THE EPISTLE OF SAINT BARNABAS THE APOSTLE.

I.

(J. B. Cotelier, Patres Apostolici, vol. I, p. 5, Amsterdam edition, 1724.)

On the life and name of Barnabas. It is related by Blessed Luke that Joses or Joseph was a Levite, a Cypriot by race. Namely, very many Jews dwelt in that island: by whom afterwards, in the reign of Trajan, as we learn through Dio Cassius in the History of that emperor, Eusebius in his Chronicle, Orosius, Book VII, chap. 12, and his follower, pseudo-Jerome, in his treatise on places from the Acts of the Apostles, a boundless multitude of men was slaughtered, and the city of Salamis, all its inhabitants having been slain, was utterly overthrown. Luke also says that Joses received the surname of Barnabas from the apostles (whereby is signified son of paraklesis, that is, son of consolation and of exhortation. For parakleseos denotes both; although to Blessed Jerome on Titus 2:15, it sounds more like consolation than exhortation. Indeed, Saint Augustine hands down that some translated the word pareklethen, Ps. 118:52, I was comforted, others I was exhorted. And either translation is seen in St Hilary; who at verse 76 of the same psalm renders tou parakalesai as that he may exhort; and brings forth the passage of the Apostle, 2 Cor. 1:3, thus: Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies, and the God of all exhortation, Who exhorts us in all tribulation. Where the Vulgate has: the God of all consolation, Who comforts us in all our tribulation, that we also may be able to comfort those who are in all distress, through the exhortation wherewith we also are exhorted by God, etc. Thus also in Lucifer, in his book On Not Assembling with Heretics, the Apostle is cited in this manner, Heb. 3:13: But comfort yourselves, for which the Vulgate translator has exhort. Moreover, by Gregory of Nazianzus, in Oration 36, parakletos in 1 John 2:1 is explained as parainetes, exhorter. And you will find many similar things everywhere. Finally, Saint Ambrose on that verse of Ps. 118:76: That it may exhort me, says: Some codices have in this place, that it may comfort me. But even in the Apostle we read exhortation said for consolation, and consolation for exhortation. Out of these two meanings of parakleseos, the first in explaining the name of Barnabas is taken by Oecumenius on Acts 4:36, when he wishes that name to be a testimony of compassionate virtue, and to show solace and compassion; by Notker in his Martyrology, in volume VI of the Ancient Reading of Henricus Canisius, at the third day before the Ides of June,

writing: By the apostles he was called Barnabas or "son of consolation," for the reason that when he had a field, and had sold it, he laid its price before the feet of the apostles for the consolation of the poor; as well as those who in Jerome, in his book On Hebrew Names, translate it son of consolation. To the latter meaning, however, there can also be adduced the exposition of Saint Chrysostom, in Homily 11 on Acts: He was surnamed by the apostles Barnabas, which is son of paraklesis; and he seems to me to have received the name from his virtue, as being sufficient and suitable for this. He was surnamed by the apostles Barnabas, that is, "son of consolation and of exhortation." And he seems to me to have taken the name from his virtue, because he was fit and suitable for that, namely for comforting and exhorting. Hereunto is added the etymology of Jerome: Barnabas, son of a prophet, or of prophecy, that is, a prophet. For it belongs to prophets or teachers to exhort and comfort the people of God. Wherefore, in Acts 15:32, it is written: And Judas and Silas, being themselves also prophets, with much discourse exhorted the brethren, and confirmed them. According to our translator: And Judas and Silas, being themselves also prophets, with much speech comforted the brethren, and confirmed them. And 1 Cor. 14:3: But he who prophesies speaks to men edification and exhortation and solace. For he who prophesies speaks to men unto edification, and exhortation, and consolation. Verse 31: For you can all prophesy one by one, that all may learn, and all may be exhorted. From the same version: For you can all prophesy one by one, that all may learn, and all may be exhorted.

That this Barnabas was one of the Seventy disciples of the Lord can be proved by the testimony of Clement of Alexandria, both in Book II of the Stromata and in the Hypotyposes in Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History, Book I, chap. 12, and Book II, chap. 1; and that tradition is followed by Epiphanius at the end of Tome I, Book I, Against Heresies, the author of the so-called Alexandrian Chronicle, Dorotheus in his Synopsis, and those who wrote the acts of Barnabas. On the contrary Bede objects on Acts 4: It is wonderful how this Barnabas, who was afterwards ordained apostle of the Gentiles with Paul, and after long companionship with him again to Cyprus, whence he had sprung, in order to preach

returned, Eusebius, in his Ecclesiastical History, thinks to be of the number of the Seventy disciples of the Lord the Saviour; whereas Blessed Luke manifestly writes that he came to the discipleship of the apostles after the ascension of the Lord: unless perhaps it is to be supposed that he previously followed the discipleship of Christ in such a way that he had not yet renounced all things that he possessed: whether which agreed with evangelical doctrine is most easily clear to anyone. Yet with the leave of the venerable man, neither does Luke say that Barnabas began to believe after the ascension of the Lord, nor does it seem necessary that all the disciples cast away all their possessions: and even if that were so, our author could have sold a field recently acquired by inheritance, in order to lay the money at the feet of the apostles.

For the rest, many things are related concerning Barnabas in the New Testament: among other things, in Acts 11:29, 30, that the Christians of Antioch sent alms to those of Jerusalem by his hands: whence I think it came to pass that the Greeks in the ordination of the great steward said, by the prayers and intercessions of the holy and all-praised Barnabas the apostle and noble martyr, by the prayers and intercessions of the holy and most celebrated Barnabas, apostle and noble martyr; as may be seen in Jean Morin's Sacred Ordinations, Part II, page 115. The remaining things pertaining to that apostle, true or fabulous, both are commonly known and do not make very much for our purpose: wherefore we dismiss them.

The Epistle of Barnabas. We come to the Epistle bearing his name, often praised by the ancients, missed in earlier centuries, and happily published in our own by the most learned men Hugues Ménard and Isaac Vossius. It is doubted whether it be a genuine offspring, or supposititious. Indeed it was thought by Clement of Alexandria, Origen, and Jerome, men of the highest standing, whose credit therefore ought not easily to be withdrawn, that no fraud lurks here. But Eusebius, when in Ecclesiastical History, Book III, chap. 25, he places the Epistle among the spurious books, among the nothoi, seems to have suspected deceit: unless someone in that place explains a spurious volume, as in the iambic Epistle of Amphilochius to Seleucus, as that which is not a genuine book of sacred Scripture, whether in other respects it displays the true author in its title, or a forged one. Certainly it can scarcely be believed that so distinguished an apostle, a man full of the Holy Spirit and of faith (Acts 11:24; 13:2), set apart together with Paul by the Holy Spirit for the work of the Gospel, and colleague of the same apostle in the apostleship of the Gentiles, wrote the things that are contained in the present little work: I mean forced allegories, implausible expositions of the Scriptures, fables about animals, and other things of which we shall treat afterwards. Yet these things, scarcely credible as they are, did not deter the aforesaid Clement, Origen, and Jerome: just as the few blemishes which spot the comely face of the Epistle written by Clement of Rome to the Corinthians in the name of the Romans did not prevent it from being valued so highly; although a great difference, in my judgement at least,

intervenes in respect of authority between Clement and Barnabas, whose Epistle did not attain so much renown as that of Clement. In addition to these things, by the argument which Saint Augustine uses, Book I Against the Adversary of the Law and the Prophets, chap. 20, to hiss off and explode the apocrypha written under the names of Andrew and John: If they were theirs, they would have been received by the Church; by that argument, I say, the Epistle comes under suspicion of illegitimate offspring, since it has already long since been rejected and relegated to the apocryphal scriptures. Let her know, says Jerome, Epistle 7, to Laeta, that the apocrypha do not belong to those with whose titles they are marked. Wherefore Origen, who thought the work to be Barnabas's, believed also that it was canonical. There are, he says at verse 24, chap. 1 of the Epistle to the Romans, besides (as we find in many passages of Scripture) also certain angels who are favourers and helpers of either side, or of either way, etc., where who does not see that allusion is made to chapter 18 of our Epistle, concerning the two ways, and concerning the angels set over either way? Moreover, in Book I Against Celsus the same Adamantius by no means rejects the saying uttered somewhat harshly by Barnabas against the apostles, nay rather, he fortifies and confirms it by similar sayings of Scripture, and furthermore intimates that the Epistle is sacred, and calls it Catholic: by which name indeed it is also indicated that it was admitted at least by many Catholics, and read constantly like the Catholic Epistles; and it is not only signified, as they say from Leontius, Book On Sects, Action 2, from whose opinion Oecumenius in no way dissents, that it was written to all generally, and not to one nation. For if that word declared this only, into whose mind would it ever have come to reckon the second of John, written to one household, and the third, written to one man, in the list of the Catholic Epistles? More prudently, therefore, was it done by Isidore of Seville, Book VI of the Origins, chap. 2 (for the opinion of Ebedjesu, the Chaldaic author, affirming in his Catalogue of Books that the Epistles of James, Peter, John, and Jude are called Catholic because they were committed to writing by those apostles in every character and tongue, does not deserve to be refuted), who, since he used the aforesaid word in the latter sense, calls the Epistles of Peter Catholic, but not likewise those of James, John, and Jude: although those of Jude and James are more general than the first of Peter: whence it was noted by a certain scholiast on the Epistle of James, in Manuscript Regius 705: The Epistle of James has been placed before the others, both because he was the first bishop, and because it is more catholic than that of Peter; for it was written to the twelve tribes scattered abroad throughout the whole earth. That is: The Epistle of James has been placed before the other Catholic Epistles; both because he was the first bishop, and because it is more universal than the epistle of Peter (namely the first); since it was written to the twelve tribes scattered throughout the whole world. Finally St Jerome, in the book On the Interpretation of Hebrew Names which, imitating Philo and Origen,

he composed, would not have placed the Epistle of Barnabas among the books of the New Testament, as he does, which he himself read with the apocryphal Scriptures, unless he had seen that this had been done by Origen. We also find the same opinion in the ancient Latin Stichometria, which is extant in two manuscript books, the one not long ago belonging to the Dupuy Brothers, now to the Most Christian King, the other to the monks of Saint-Germain. There the Epistle of Barnabas is placed after the Epistle of Jude, before the Revelation of John and the Acts of the Apostles.

Yet the teacher of Origen, Clement of Alexandria, had gone off in an altogether different direction, inasmuch as he attacks the work which he believes to be Barnabas's, though suppressing his name for the sake of honour, in Paedagogus II, chap. 10. Now he would by no means have committed this, if he had thought that it belonged to the Canon. And perhaps someone will suspect that Clement varied, or accommodated himself to the opinion of many, at a time when the Canon of the Scriptures had not yet received fixed limits. Since indeed in the books of the Hypotyposes, as Eusebius relates in History, Book VI, chap. 14, he had expounded the Epistle of Barnabas together with the books of the New Testament; which perhaps he deemed pseudepigraphal when he was refuting it. Moreover Jerome also, cited above concerning the notion of the word Apocryphum for a work of a false title, nevertheless in the passages recounted among the Testimonies of the Ancients wishes the Epistle to be apocryphal, not pseudepigraphal. Nay more, by Gelasius apocrypha are taken not merely for pseudepigrapha, or works whose authors are secret and unknown, but for all works which, because they seem to deserve some mark of censure, whether of supposition, or of error, or of impiety, ought to be hidden away and ignored (worthy of concealment rather than of reading, says the author of the Synopsis of Sacred Scripture believed to be Athanasius), and not to circulate in public knowledge, like the canonical books of the Scriptures, and those ecclesiastical books of the Fathers which can be run through without stumbling. Wherefore among the apocrypha he reckons the minor works of Clement of Alexandria, of Tertullian, Cyprian, Arnobius, Lactantius, Eusebius, and others, although undoubted.

From all of which it follows that it is not very clear whether we ought to adjudge the present Epistle to Barnabas the apostle, or to another apostolic man, who either assumed the name of Barnabas, or was of the same name as Barnabas, just as Dionysius of Alexandria in Eusebius, Book VII, chap. 25, teaches us that the names of the apostles were affected by the first Christians. I incline the more to think that it is not the apostle's. But if anyone brings forward more certain things, he will do a most welcome service. What I do not know, I cannot profess to know.

The Epistle of Barnabas, when written. You will say: If it is not the apostle's, when was it written? of how great authority is it to be held and was it held? Concerning the first point, it is clear from chap. 16 of the Epistle that it was written after the destruction of Jerusalem. It is also evident from Clement of Alexandria, who quotes the Epistle with praise, that it appeared before the end of the second century. Now just as by the first point one would not well trace back its origin

to the times immediately following the destruction; so it would be badly concluded by the second that its birth took place immediately before Clement composed his books. For was it necessary that an apocryphal monument of intellect, as soon as it had gone forth from the hands of the writer, should straightway come to common knowledge and be cited by the Fathers? especially at that time, when both few wrote, and those who committed their thoughts to letters adduced almost solely the sacred books in testimony: not to mention the most lamentable loss of ecclesiastical volumes written in the earlier centuries. Therefore it seems that a middle course should be taken, and the work referred to the time which intervenes between the two; in such a way, however, as to approach nearer to the first: which fact the style of speech, savouring of apostolic antiquity, not obscurely signifies.

Of how great authority. As to the second question, regarding the present time no difficulty arises. It is agreed among all that the Epistle has no place in the canon. Nor ought it to be less agreed that a work which carries so much age and esteem is worthy of great veneration. If however we consider the first centuries, when the Churches used a diverse canon, Christians were divided into various parties. That this may be understood, it must be observed that of the Scriptures which either are sacred, or were held to be such by some, not one single division is found among the holy Fathers. Sometimes Scripture is made twofold only: canonical, whose dictator is the Holy Spirit, and apocryphal, whose author is man alone. So Jerome in the Prologus galeatus, Augustine, Book II On Christian Doctrine, chap. 8, and Isidore, Origins, Book VI, chap. 2. So also two kinds of Scriptures are laid down in Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History, Book III, chap. 3, those acknowledged and indisputable and those not such; in the Synopsis of Athanasius or another, those canonized and those not canonized; in the fourth Catechesis of Cyril of Jerusalem, those of the Testament and acknowledged among all and those apocryphal and disputed; in Poem 33 of Gregory of Nazianzus, divine or genuine and falsely inscribed or not genuine; in Jerome, Epistle 129, and on chapter 2 of the Epistle to Titus, and in the Commentary on the Psalms, if indeed he is to be deemed the author of this book, on Psalm 149, ecclesiastical and apocryphal; in Pope Innocent, Epistle 3, chap. 7, received in the canon and to be rejected. Sometimes Scripture is stated to be threefold: canonical, altogether to be received; apocryphal, utterly to be rejected; and doubtful, placed between the two; namely admitted by some, rejected by others; mixed and intermediate between genuine and spurious; nearest to the true, which is spoken against indeed, yet honour is paid to it that it be read to catechumens; which finally, although Catholics do not hold it in the same esteem as the canonical, so as to confirm dogmas of faith from it, they do not on that account abhor like the apocryphal, and banish from the churches, nay rather they receive it with reverence, and read it constantly in the churches for the edification of the people. These things we are taught

by Origen on John 4:22; Eusebius, History, Book III, chap. 3, 25, 31, and elsewhere; Athanasius in his Festal Epistle, and in the Synopsis of Divine Scripture; Amphilochius in his Iambic Poem to Seleucus; Jerome in his prefaces to Judith, and to the three volumes of Solomon; Rufinus in his Exposition of the Creed, and Nicephorus of Constantinople in his Canon of the Scriptures. Furthermore, the members of each of these divisions are subdivided. In the first, the canonical Scriptures, according to the opinion of Saint Augustine in the passage cited from Christian Doctrine, either are received by all Catholic Churches, or by more and weightier ones, or by fewer and of lesser authority, or perhaps by more but not weightier ones, or finally perhaps by weightier but not more numerous ones; and thus they ought to be reckoned of either complete, or greater, or equal authority. That this inequality of authority was not unheard of among the Jews I gather from Philo, in his book On the Contemplative Life; Josephus, Book I Against Apion; and Jerome, in his prefaces to Kings, to Tobit, to Judith, to the Works of Solomon, and to Daniel. By the same Augustine, Book XVIII On the City of God, chap. 36, a twofold canon of the Scriptures of the Old Testament seems to be established: of those which the Jews hold as canonical, and of those which the Church holds: concerning which matter Isidore's Origins, Book VI, chap. 1, should be consulted. In the same first division apocryphal books similarly obtain degrees, according as they incline more or less to truth and piety, or to falsehood and impiety. In the second division likewise, doubtful Scriptures, in Eusebius, Book II, chap. 23; Book III, chap. 3 and 25, receive diversity from their proximity to the canonical or to the apocryphal; when they are publicly read by many Churches, when they are found alleged by ancient doctors, and when they seem spurious and are doubted as much as possible.

These things being thus laid down, all difficulty vanishes. The Epistle of Barnabas was reputed canonical by Origen and certain Churches; by Clement of Alexandria sometimes canonical, sometimes doubtful, sometimes non-canonical, or apocryphal in the good sense of the first division; by Eusebius doubtful, spurious, cited indeed by the ancients, but nearer to the apocrypha of better stamp;

Verses of the Sacred Scriptures.

Genesis, 4500 verses; Exodus, 3700; Leviticus, 2800; Numbers, 3650; Deuteronomy, 3300; Joshua son of Nun, 2000; Judges, 2000; Ruth, 250; Kings, First book, 2500; — Second book, 2000.

by Jerome apocryphal, or outside the canon, pertaining to the edification of the Church; by Nicephorus of Constantinople not canonical, not apocryphal, but spoken against; by no one apocryphal of a worse stamp, namely harmful, heretical, impious; of which kind seems to have been the Gospel inscribed with the name of Barnabas, which was condemned in the Roman council by the agency of Gelasius. See above at the beginning of the notes on the Apostolic Constitutions, the List of Scriptures drawn from the Royal Library.

Title of the Epistle. Nothing else remains save to inquire concerning the title of the Epistle, to whom it was written. The matter is not of great moment. For as Tertullian admirably says: Nothing matters concerning titles, since the apostles wrote both to all and to certain ones. And perhaps it was always uninscribed; such as we see the first Epistle of John the apostle to be. But if the case be otherwise, I would conjecture from the whole tenor of the discourse that, having been sent to Hebrew Christians who were too tenacious of the antiquated law, it was inscribed To the Hebrews. And hence it could have happened that, having heard a rumour of a certain Epistle of Barnabas to the Hebrews not seen by himself, Tertullian in chap. 20 of his book On Modesty thought that the canonical Epistle of Paul to the Hebrews, concerning whose author and authority there was doubt, had been addressed by Barnabas. And thus far concerning the Epistle.

The Ancient Version. Now the ancient translation shows barbarism everywhere, everywhere negligence, and is imperfect and mutilated, both here and there, and especially at the end, where the latter chapters are cut off, perhaps because they seemed less learned to the translator, and pertaining more to morals: therefore having omitted them, and inserted a few words, he places a colophon by way of a doxology. Yet that version has its own value: to which we owe the earlier chapters, with not a few emendations of the Greek text, to say nothing of its antiquity and simplicity.

Stichometria. For the rest, it has pleased us to set down here the unpublished Stichometria which I mentioned, although mutilated and corrupt; because it will bring no small fruit to those who read it, and compare it with that of Nicephorus of Constantinople, with the manuscript codices of the Bibles, and with the lists of the Scriptures.

Kings, Third book, 2600; — Fourth book, 2400; (The books of Chronicles seem to have dropped out.) Psalms of David, 5000; Proverbs, 1600; Ecclesiastes, 600; Song of Songs, 300; Wisdom, 1000; Wisdom of Jesus, 2500; Twelve Prophets, 3110; Hosea, 530.

Amos, 410; Micah, 310; Joel, 90; Obadiah, 70; Jonah, 150; Nahum, 140; Habakkuk, 160; Zephaniah, 160; Haggai, 110; Zechariah, 660; Malachi, 200; Isaiah, 3600; Jeremiah, 4070; Ezekiel, 3600; Daniel, 1600; Maccabees thus: First book, 2300; — Second book, 2300; — Third book, 1000; Judith, 1300; Esdras, 1500; Esther, 1000; Job, 1600; Tobit, 1000; Four Gospels: Matthew, 2600; — John, 2000; — Mark, 1600.

— Luke, 2900; Epistles of Paul: To the Romans, 1040; — To the Corinthians, first, 1060; — To the Corinthians, second, 70; — To the Galatians, 350; — To the Ephesians, 375; (To the Philippians and To the Thessalonians are missing.) — To Timothy, first, 208; — To Timothy, second, 289; — To Titus, 140; — To the Colossians, 251; — To Philemon, 50; Of Peter, first, 200; Of Peter, second, 140; Of James, 220; Of John, first, 220; Of John, second, 20; Of John, third, 20; Of Jude, 60; Epistle of Barnabas, 950; Revelation of John, 1200; Acts of the Apostles, 2200; Of the Shepherd, 4000; Acts of Paul, 4560; Revelation of Peter, 2070.