Epistle of Barnabas 4.3

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: The final trial is near, as Enoch foretold.

Show

Greek text · Lake, LCL 24:348

τὸ τέλειον σκάνδαλον ἤγγικεν, περὶ οὗ γέγραπται, ὡς Ἐνὼχ λέγει. Εἰς τοῦτο γὰρ ὁ δεσπότης συντέτμηκεν τοὺς καιροὺς καὶ τὰς ἡμέρας, ἵνα ταχύνῃ ὁ ἠγαπημένος αὐτοῦ καὶ ἐπὶ τὴν κληρονομίαν ἥξῃ,

English · Claude translation

The final stumbling block has drawn near, about which it is written, as Enoch says: “For this reason the Master has cut short the times and the days, so that his Beloved may hurry and come to his inheritance.”

About this passage

Source
Lake, LCL 24:348 · 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)
Extrabiblical texts
  • 1 En. (1 Enoch) · quotation, low confidence
Topics
Eschatology

Notes

Translation notes

  • The quotation is attributed to Enoch but is not found in the surviving books of Enoch.

Notes on the original text

  • Digital text corrected (digitization slip against Lake's printed text (wrong breathing and accent)): περὶ οὖ γέγραπται → περὶ οὗ γέγραπται.

Cite this passage

Barn. 4.3 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/barnabas/4/3/).

Plain text
Barn. 4.3 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/barnabas/4/3/).

Download citation:BibTeX ·RIS (Zotero, EndNote)

Whole work:BibTeX ·RIS ·Markdown text

Report an error in this passage