Introductory Note to the Epistle of Barnabas
[ 100.] writer of this Epistle is
supposed to have been an Alexandrian Jew of the times of Trajan and
Hadrian. He was a layman; but possibly he bore the name of
“Barnabas,” and so has been confounded with his holy and
apostolic name-sire. It is more probable that the Epistle, being
anonymous, was attributed to St. Barnabas, by those who supposed that
apostle to be the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews, and who
discovered similarities in the plan and purpose of the two works. It is
with great reluctance that I yield to modern scholars, in dismissing the
ingenious and temperate argument of Archbishop Wake
for the apostolic origin of this treatise. The learned Lardner shares his convictions; and the very interesting and ingenious views of Jones never appeared to me satisfactory, weighed with preponderating arguments, on the other side.
The Maccabæan spirit of the Jews never burned more
furiously than after the destruction of Jerusalem, and while it was
kindling the conflagration that broke out under Barchochebas, and blazed
so terribly in the insurrection against Hadrian. It is not credible
that the Jewish Christians at Alexandria and elsewhere were able to
emancipate themselves from their national spirit; and accordingly the old
Judaizing, which St. Paul had anathematized and confuted, would assert
itself again. If such was the occasion of this Epistle, as I venture to
suppose, a higher character must be ascribed to it than could otherwise
be claimed. This accounts, also, for the degree of favour with which it
was accepted by the primitive faithful.
It is interesting as a specimen of their conflicts with
a persistent Judaism which St. Paul had defeated and anathematized, but
which was ever cropping out among believers originally of the
Hebrews. Their own habits of allegorizing, and their Oriental tastes, must
be borne in mind, if we are readily disgusted with our author’s
fancies and refinements. St. Paul himself pays a practical tribute to
their modes of thought, in his Epistle to the Galatians iv. 24. This is the ad hominem form of rhetoric, familiar to all speakers, which laid even the apostle open to the slander of enemies (2 Cor. xii. 16),—that he was “crafty,” and caught men with guile. It is interesting to note the more Occidental spirit of Cyprian, as compared with our author, when he also contends with Judaism. Doubtless we have in the pseudo-Barnabas something of that œconomy which is always capable of abuse, and which was destined too soon to overleap the bounds of its moral limitations.
It is to be observed that this writer sometimes speaks
as a Gentile, a fact which some have found it difficult to account for, on the supposition that he was a Hebrew, if not a Levite as well. But so, also, St. Paul sometimes speaks as a Roman, and sometimes as a Jew; and, owing to the mixed character of the early Church, he writes to the Romans iv. 1 as if they were all Israelites, and again to the same Church (Rom. xi. 13) as if they were all Gentiles. So this writer sometimes identifies himself with Jewish thought as a son of Abraham, and again speaks from the Christian position as if he were a Gentile, thus identifying himself with the catholicity of the Church.
But the subject thus opened is vast; and “the
Epistle of Barnabas,” so called, still awaits a critical editor, who at the same time shall be a competent expositor. Nobody can answer these requisitions, who is unable, for this purpose, to be a Christian of the days of Trajan.