Epistle of Barnabas 4.8

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.

Greek text · Lake, LCL 24:350

ἀλλὰ ἐπιστραφέντες ἐπὶ τὰ εἴδωλα ἀπώλεσαν αὐτήν. λέγει γὰρ οὕτως κύριος· Μωϋσῆ Μωϋσῆ, κατάβηθι τὸ τάχος, ὅτι ἠνόμησεν ὁ λαός σου, οὓς ἐξήγαγες ἐκ γῆς Αἰγύπτου, καὶ συνῆκεν Μωϋσῆς καὶ ἔριψεν τὰς δύο πλάκας ἐκ τῶν χειρῶν αὐτοῦ· καὶ συνετρίβη αὐτῶν ἡ διαθήκη, ἵνα ἡ τοῦ ἠγαπημένου Ἰησοῦ ἐγκατασφραγισθῇ εἰς τὴν καρδίαν ἡμῶν ἐν ἐλπίδι τῆς πίστεως αὐτοῦ.

English · Claude translation

But turning to idols they lost it. For the Lord says thus: “Moses, Moses, go down quickly, for your people whom you brought out of the land of Egypt have acted lawlessly.” And Moses understood, and threw the two tablets out of his hands; and their covenant was broken, so that the covenant of the Beloved, Jesus, might be sealed in our hearts in the hope of faith in him.

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)

Scripture

Exod 32:7 · allusion, high confidence
Exod 32:19 · allusion, high confidence
Deut 9:12 · allusion, medium confidence

Notes

Notes on the original text

Digital text corrected (punctuation slip in the digital text (a quotation follows)): λέγει γὰρ οὕτως κύριος. Μωϋσῆ → λέγει γὰρ οὕτως κύριος· Μωϋσῆ.

Cite this passage

Barn. 4.8 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/barnabas/4/8/).

Plain text

Barn. 4.8 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/barnabas/4/8/).