Epistle of Barnabas 19.8

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.

Summary: Share everything; guard the tongue; keep pure.

Greek text · Lake, LCL 24:404

κοινωνήσεις ἐν πᾶσιν τῷ πλησίον σου καὶ οὐκ ἐρεῖς ἴδια εἶναι· εἰ γὰρ ἐν τῷ ἀφθάρτῳ κοινωνοί ἐστε, πόσῳ μᾶλλον ἐν τοῖς φθαρτοῖς; οὐκ ἔσῃ πρόγλωσσος· παγὶς γὰρ τὸ στόμα θανάτου. ὅσον δύνασαι, ὑπὲρ τῆς ψυχῆς σου ἁγνεύσεις.

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

Acts 4:32 · echo, medium confidence
Prov 21:6 · echo, low confidence

Topics

Ethics

Cite this passage

Barn. 19.8 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/barnabas/19/8/).

Plain text

Barn. 19.8 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/barnabas/19/8/).

Greek text · Lake, LCL 24:404

English · Claude translation

About this passage

Cite this passage