Epistle of Barnabas 11.8

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 24:380

αἰσθάνεσθε, πῶς τὸ ὕδωρ καὶ τὸν σταυρὸν ἐπὶ τὸ αὐτὸ ὥρισεν. τοῦτο γὰρ λέγει· μακάριοι, οἳ ἐπὶ τὸν σταυρὸν ἐλπίσαντες κατέβησαν εἰς τὸ ὕδωρ, ὅτι τὸν μὲν μισθὸν λέγει ἐν καιρῷ αὐτοῦ· τότε, φησίν, ἀποδώσω. νῦν δὲ ὃ λέγει· τὰ φύλλα οὐκ ἀπορυήσεται, τοῦτο λέγει· ὅτι πᾶν ῥῆμα, ὃ ἐὰν ἐξελεύσεται ἐξ ὑμῶν διὰ τοῦ στόματος ὑμῶν ἐν πίστει καὶ ἀγάπῃ, ἔσται εἰς ἐπιστροφὴν καὶ ἐλπίδα πολλοῖς.

English · Claude translation

Notice how he described the water and the cross together. For he means this: blessed are those who, having hoped on the cross, went down into the water; for he speaks of the reward “in its season”: then, he says, I will repay. But now, when he says, “its leaves will not fall off,” he means this: that every word that comes out of your mouth in faith and love will bring conversion and hope to many.

About this passage

Source

Lake, LCL 24:380 · 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

Baptism, Christology

Notes

Notes on the original text

Digital text corrected (digitization slip against Lake's printed text (wrong accent)): μακάριοι, οἲ ἐπὶ → μακάριοι, οἳ ἐπὶ; νῦν δὲ ὅ λέγει → νῦν δὲ ὃ λέγει.

Cite this passage

Barn. 11.8 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/barnabas/11/8/).

Plain text

Barn. 11.8 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/barnabas/11/8/).