Epistle of Barnabas 10.7

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 24:376

ἀλλὰ οὐδὲ τὴν ὕαιναν φάγῃ· οὐ μή, φησίν, γένῃ μοιχὸς οὐδὲ φθορεὺς οὐδὲ ὁμοιωθήσῃ τοῖς τοιούτοις. πρὸς τί; ὅτι τὸ ζῷον τοῦτο παρʼ ἐνιαυτὸν ἀλλάσσει τὴν φύσιν καὶ ποτὲ μὲν ἄρρεν, ποτὲ δὲ θῆλυ γίνεται.

About this passage

Source

Lake, LCL 24:376 · 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)

Topics

Ethics

Notes

Translation notes

The belief that the hyena changes sex is ancient folklore.

Notes on the original text

Digital text corrected (digitization slip against Lake's printed text (missing elision mark)): παρ ἐνιαυτὸν → παρʼ ἐνιαυτὸν.

Cite this passage

Barn. 10.7 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/barnabas/10/7/).

Plain text

Barn. 10.7 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/barnabas/10/7/).