Epistle of Barnabas 10.4

Anonymous · Epistle of Barnabas · ca. 70–135 (often ca. 130) · place unknown · Read in context

Traditional ascription rejected: The letter names no author. From Clement of Alexandria (late second century) onward it was ascribed to Barnabas, Paul's companion (Acts 4:36), but its date and its hostility to Jewish practice make that unlikely; modern scholars treat it as anonymous.

Greek text · Lake, LCL 24:374

Οὐδὲ φάγῃ τὸν ἀετὸν οὐδὲ τὸν ὀξύπτερον οὐδὲ τὸν ἰκτῖνα οὐδὲ τὸν κόρακα· οὐ μή, φησίν, κολληθήσῃ οὐδὲ ὁμοιωθήσῃ ἀνθρώποις τοιούτοις, οἵτινες οὐκ οἴδασιν διὰ κόπου καὶ ἱδρῶτος πορίζειν ἑαυτοῖς τὴν τροφήν, ἀλλὰ ἁρπάζουσιν τὰ ἀλλότρια ἐν ἀνομίᾳ αὐτῶν καὶ ἐπιτηροῦσιν ὡς ἐν ἀκεραιοσύνῃ περιπατοῦντες καὶ περιβλέπονται, τίνα ἐκδύσωσιν διὰ τὴν πλεονεξίαν, ὡς καὶ τὰ ὄρνεα ταῦτα μόνα ἑαυτοῖς οὐ πορίζει τὴν τροφήν, ἀλλὰ ἀργὰ καθήμενα ἐκζητεῖ, πῶς ἀλλοτρίας σάρκας καταφάγῃ, ὄντα λοιμὰ τῇ πονηρίᾳ αὐτῶν.

English · Claude translation

“Nor shall you eat the eagle, nor the hawk, nor the kite, nor the crow.” You shall not, he means, cling to or become like such people, who do not know how to provide their food by toil and sweat, but in their lawlessness seize what belongs to others, and, while walking about as if in innocence, watch and look around for someone to strip because of their greed; just as these birds alone do not provide food for themselves, but sit idle and seek how they may devour the flesh of others, being pests in their wickedness.

About this passage

Source

Lake, LCL 24:374 · Kirsopp Lake, ed. and trans., The Apostolic Fathers, vol. 1, LCL 24 (London: Heinemann; New York: Macmillan, 1912), 340–407 · Greek text: K. Lake, The Apostolic Fathers (LCL, 1912), digitized by the Perseus Digital Library and published by the First Thousand Years of Greek project (Open Greek and Latin), CC BY-SA 4.0

Text

As printed in Lake, LCL 24. Manuscript variants and the editor's apparatus are not reproduced; no textual problem is noted in this passage.

Translation

Claude translation (claude-opus-5-5), 2026-09-26 · Translated by Claude from the Greek text of Lake (LCL 24, 1912); made independently of existing English translations.

Compare

Ante-Nicene Fathers, vol. 1 (1885) (an older public-domain English translation, whole volume at CCEL; checked against ours only after ours was made)

Scripture

Lev 11:13 · allusion, high confidence
Lev 11:14 · allusion, medium confidence
Lev 11:15 · allusion, medium confidence

Topics

Ethics

Notes

Notes on the original text

Digital text corrected (digitization slip against Lake's printed text (letters transposed)): οὐ προίζει → οὐ πορίζει.

Cite this passage

Barn. 10.4 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/barnabas/10/4/).

Plain text

Barn. 10.4 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/barnabas/10/4/).