Sophia Scriptura

Epistle of Barnabas 19.12

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.

Summary: Make peace, confess sins, and pray with a clean conscience.

Greek text · Lake, LCL 24:404–406

οὐ ποιήσεις σχίσμα, εἰρηνεύσεις δὲ μαχομένους συναγαγών. ἐξομολογήσῃ ἐπὶ ἁμαρτίαις σου. οὐ προσήξεις ἐπὶ προσευχὴν ἐν συνειδήσει πονηρᾷ. αὕτη ἐστὶν ἡ ὁδὸς τοῦ φωτός.

English · Claude translation

You shall not cause division, but you shall make peace by bringing together those who quarrel. You shall confess your sins. You shall not come to prayer with an evil conscience. This is the way of light.

About this passage

Source
Lake, LCL 24:404–406 · 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
Prayer, Ethics

Notes

Notes on the original text

  • Digital text corrected (punctuation slip in the digital text): ἡ ὁδὸς, τοῦ φωτός → ἡ ὁδὸς τοῦ φωτός.

Cite this passage

Barn. 19.12 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/barnabas/19/12/).

Plain text
Barn. 19.12 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/barnabas/19/12/).

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