Sophia Scriptura

Epistle of Barnabas 5.10

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: Christ came in the flesh because no one could look on his glory directly.

Greek text · Lake, LCL 24:356

εἰ γὰρ μὴ ἦλθεν ἐν σαρκί, οὐδʼ ἄν πως οἱ ἄνθρωποι ἐσώθησαν βλέποντες αὐτόν, ὅτε τὸν μέλλοντα μὴ εἶναι ἥλιον, ἔργου τῶν χειρῶν αὐτοῦ ὑπάρχοντα, ἐμβλέποντες οὐκ ἰσχύουσιν εἰς τὰς ἀκτῖνας αὐτοῦ ἀντοφθαλμῆσαι·

English · Claude translation

For if he had not come in the flesh, how could people have been saved by looking at him? For when they look at the sun, which will cease to exist and is the work of his hands, they cannot gaze directly into its rays.

About this passage

Source
Lake, LCL 24:356 · 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
Christology

Cite this passage

Barn. 5.10 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/barnabas/5/10/).

Plain text
Barn. 5.10 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/barnabas/5/10/).

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