Epistle of Barnabas 12.10

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 24:386

ἴδε πάλιν Ἰησοῦς, οὐχὶ υἱὸς ἀνθρώπου, ἀλλὰ υἱὸς τοῦ θεοῦ, τύπῳ δὲ ἐν σαρκὶ φανερωθείς. ἐπεὶ οὖν μέλλουσιν λέγειν, ὅτι Χριστὸς υἱὸς Δαυείδ ἐστιν, αὐτὸς προφητεύει Δαυείδ, φοβούμενος καὶ συνίων τὴν πλάνην τῶν ἁμαρτωλῶν· Εἶπεν κύριος τῷ κυρίῳ μου· Κάθου ἐκ δεξιῶν μου, ἕως ἂν θῶ τοὺς ἐχθρούς σου ὑποπόδιον τῶν ποδῶν σου.

English · Claude translation

See again: Jesus, not a son of man but the Son of God, yet manifested in type in the flesh. Since, then, they are going to say that the Christ is the son of David, David himself prophesies, fearing and understanding the error of sinners: “The Lord said to my Lord, Sit at my right hand until I make your enemies a footstool for your feet.”

About this passage

Source

Lake, LCL 24:386 · 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

Ps 110:1 (109:1 LXX) · quotation, high confidence
Matt 22:44 · echo, medium confidence
Mark 12:36 · echo, medium confidence

Topics

Christology

Notes

Translation notes

“Not a son of man but the Son of God”: the author stresses Christ's divine sonship against the view that he was only David's descendant; he does not deny Christ's humanity (see 5.10–11).

Notes on the original text

Digital text corrected (digitization slip against Lake's printed text (wrong accent)): Εἷπεν κύριος τῷ κυρίῳ → Εἶπεν κύριος τῷ κυρίῳ.

Cite this passage

Barn. 12.10 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/barnabas/12/10/).

Plain text

Barn. 12.10 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/barnabas/12/10/).