Sophia Scriptura

Epistle of Barnabas 4.6

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: Do not say that the covenant belongs to both Jews and Christians.

Greek text · Lake, LCL 24:350

συνιέναι οὖν ὀφείλετε. ἔτι δὲ καὶ τοῦτο ἐρωτῶ ὑμᾶς ὡς εἶς ἐξ ὑμῶν ὤν, ἰδίως δὲ καὶ πάντας ἀγαπῶν ὑπὲρ τὴν ψυχήν μου, προσέχειν νῦν ἑαυτοῖς καὶ μὴ ὁμοιοῦσθαί τισιν ἐπισωρεύοντας ταῖς ἁμαρτίαις ὑμῶν λέγοντας, ὅτι ἡ διαθήκη ἐκείνων καὶ ἡμῶν.

English · Claude translation

You ought, then, to understand. And I ask you this also, as one who is one of you and who loves you all individually more than my own life: take heed to yourselves now, and do not be like some, heaping up your sins and saying that the covenant is both theirs and ours.

About this passage

Source
Lake, LCL 24:350 · 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)

Notes

Translation notes

  • A key text for the letter's view that the covenant belongs to Christians only, not to the Jewish people; see 4.7–8. This view was not shared by all early Christian writers.

Cite this passage

Barn. 4.6 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/barnabas/4/6/).

Plain text
Barn. 4.6 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/barnabas/4/6/).

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