Epistle of Barnabas 19.11

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.

Summary: Give without grumbling; keep the teaching unaltered; judge justly.

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Greek text · Lake, LCL 24:404

οὐ διστάσεις δοῦναι οὐδὲ διδοὺς γογγύσεις· γνώσῃ δέ, τίς ὁ τοῦ μισθοῦ καλὸς ἀνταποδότης. φυλάξεις ἃ παρέλαβες, μήτε προστιθεὶς μήτε ἀφαιρῶν. εἰς τέλος μισήσεις τὸ πονηρόν. κρινεῖς δικαίως.

English · Claude translation

You shall not hesitate to give, nor grumble when giving; but you shall know who is the good paymaster of the reward. You shall keep what you have received, neither adding nor taking away. You shall utterly hate evil. You shall judge justly.

About this passage

Source
Lake, LCL 24:404 · 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
Topics
Ethics

Cite this passage

Barn. 19.11 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/barnabas/19/11/).

Plain text
Barn. 19.11 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/barnabas/19/11/).

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