Epistle of Barnabas 12.2

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 24:382–384

λέγει δὲ πάλιν τῷ Μωϋσῇ, πολεμουμένου τοῦ Ἰσραὴλ ὑπὸ τῶν ἀλλοφύλων, καὶ ἵνα ὑπομνήσῃ αὐτοὺς πολεμουμένους, ὅτι διὰ τὰς ἁμαρτίας αὐτῶν παρεδόθησαν εἰς θάνατον· λέγει εἰς τὴν καρδίαν Μωϋσέως τὸ πνεῦμα, ἵνα ποιήσῃ τύπον σταυροῦ καὶ τοῦ μέλλοντος πάσχειν, ὅτι, ἐὰν μή, φησίν, ἐλπίσωσιν ἐπʼ αὐτῷ, εἰς τὸν αἰῶνα πολεμηθήσονται. τίθησιν οὖν Μωϋσῆς ἓν ἐφʼ ἓν ὅπλον ἐν μέσῳ τῆς πυγμῆς, καὶ ὑψηλότερος σταθεὶς πάντων ἐξέτεινεν τὰς χεῖρας, καὶ οὕτως πάλιν ἐνίκα ὁ Ἰσραήλ. εἶτα, ὁπόταν καθεῖλεν, ἐθανατοῦντο.

English · Claude translation

And again he speaks to Moses, when Israel was being attacked by foreigners, and in order to remind them, while they were being attacked, that they had been handed over to death because of their sins: the Spirit speaks to Moses' heart, that he should make a type of the cross and of the one who was to suffer, because, he says, unless they hope in him they will be warred against forever. Moses, then, piled weapon upon weapon in the midst of the battle, and standing higher than everyone he stretched out his hands, and so Israel was again winning. Then, whenever he lowered them, they were being killed.

About this passage

Source

Lake, LCL 24:382–384 · 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

Exod 17:8 · allusion, high confidence
Exod 17:11 · allusion, high confidence
Exod 17:12 · allusion, medium confidence

Topics

Christology

Notes

Notes on the original text

Digital text corrected (digitization slip against Lake's printed text (wrong diacritic)): τῷ Μωῡσῇ → τῷ Μωϋσῇ.

Cite this passage

Barn. 12.2 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/barnabas/12/2/).

Plain text

Barn. 12.2 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/barnabas/12/2/).