Epistle of Barnabas 20.2

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 24:406

διῶκται τῶν ἀγαθῶν, μισοῦντες ἀλήθειαν, ἀγαπῶντες ψεῦδος, οὐ γινώσκοντες μισθὸν δικαιοσύνης, οὐ κολλώμενοι ἀγαθῷ, οὐ κρίσει δικαίᾳ, χήρᾳ καὶ ὀρφανῷ οὐ προσέχοντες, ἀγρυπνοῦντες οὐκ εἰς φόβον θεοῦ, ἀλλʼ ἐπὶ τὸ πονηρόν, ὧν μακρὰν καὶ πόρρω πραΰτης καὶ ὑπομονή, ἀγαπῶντες μάταια, διώκοντες ἀνταπόδομα, οὐκ ἐλεῶντες πτωχόν, οὐ πονοῦντες ἐπὶ καταπονουμένῳ, εὐχερεῖς ἐν καταλαλιᾷ, οὐ γινώσκοντες τὸν ποιήσαντα αὐτούς, φονεῖς τέκνων, φθορεῖς πλάσματος θεοῦ, ἀποστρεφόμενοι τὸν ἐνδεόμενον, καταπονοῦντες τὸν θλιβόμενον, πλουσίων παράκλητοι, πενήτων ἄνομοι κριταί, πανθαμάρτητοι.

English · Claude translation

Persecutors of the good, hating truth, loving falsehood, not knowing the reward of righteousness, not clinging to the good nor to righteous judgment, paying no attention to the widow and the orphan, lying awake not for the fear of God but for evil; from whom gentleness and endurance are far and distant; loving vain things, pursuing reward, having no pity for the poor, not toiling for the oppressed, quick to slander, not knowing the one who made them, murderers of children, destroyers of God's handiwork, turning away the needy, oppressing the afflicted, advocates of the rich, lawless judges of the poor, utterly sinful.

About this passage

Source

Lake, LCL 24:406 · 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

Ethics

Notes

Translation notes

“Murderers of children, destroyers of God's handiwork”: the same words as in Did. 5.2.

Notes on the original text

Digital text corrected (digitization slip against Lake's printed text (wrong breathing and accent)): ὦν μακρὰν → ὧν μακρὰν.

Cite this passage

Barn. 20.2 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/barnabas/20/2/).

Plain text

Barn. 20.2 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/barnabas/20/2/).