Sophia Scriptura

Epistle of Barnabas 7.5

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: The rite foreshadows the gall and vinegar given to Christ.

Greek text · Lake, LCL 24:364

πρὸς τί; ἐπειδὴ ἐμὲ ὑπὲρ ἁμαρτιῶν μέλλοντα τοῦ λαοῦ μου τοῦ καινοῦ προσφέρειν τὴν σάρκα μου μέλλετε ποτίζειν χολὴν μετὰ ὄξους, φάγετε ὑμεῖς μόνοι, τοῦ λαοῦ νηστεύοντος καὶ κοπτομένου ἐπὶ σάκκου καὶ σποδοῦ. ἵνα δείξῃ, ὅτι δεῖ αὐτὸν παθεῖν ὑπʼ αὐτῶν.

English · Claude translation

Why? Because you are going to give me gall with vinegar to drink when I am about to offer my flesh for the sins of my new people; you alone eat, while the people fast and mourn in sackcloth and ashes; to show that he must suffer at their hands.

About this passage

Source
Lake, LCL 24:364 · 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)

Cite this passage

Barn. 7.5 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/barnabas/7/5/).

Plain text
Barn. 7.5 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/barnabas/7/5/).

Download citation:BibTeX ·RIS (Zotero, EndNote)

Whole work:BibTeX ·RIS ·Markdown text

Report an error in this passage