Epistle of Barnabas

The Epistle of Barnabas (Βαρνάβα Ἐπιστολή) is a Greek epistle written between AD 70 and 132. The complete text is preserved in the 4th-century Codex Sinaiticus, where it appears immediately after the New Testament and before the Shepherd of Hermas. For several centuries it was one of the "antilegomena" ("disputed") writings that some Christians looked on as sacred scripture, while others excluded them. Eusebius of Caesarea classified it as such. It is mentioned in a perhaps third-century list in the sixth-century Codex Claromontanus and in the later Stichometry of Nicephorus appended to the ninth-century Chronography of Nikephoros I of Constantinople. Some early Fathers of the Church ascribed it to the Barnabas who is mentioned in the Acts of the Apostles, but it is now generally attributed to an otherwise unknown early Christian teacher, although some scholars do defend the traditional attribution. It is distinct from the Gospel of Barnabas. The main message of the Epistle of Barnabas is that the Jewish scriptures — what would become the Old Testament in Christianity — were actually Christian documents from the beginning. According to the epistle, the Jews had misinterpreted their own law by applying it literally; the true meaning was to be found in its symbolic prophecies foreshadowing the coming of Jesus. The Jews broke their covenant from the very beginning, and are misled by an evil angel. After explaining its Christian interpretations of the Jewish scriptures, the epistle concludes by discussing "The Two Ways", also seen in the Didache: a Way of Light and a Way of Darkness. The 4th-century Codex Sinaiticus (S), discovered by Constantin von Tischendorf in 1859 and published by him in 1862, contains a complete text of the Epistle placed after the canonical New Testament and followed by the Shepherd of Hermas. The 11th-century Codex Hierosolymitanus (H), which also includes the Didache, the two Epistles of Clement and the longer version of the Letters of Ignatius of Antioch, is another witness to the full text.