"(4.) In the same chapter, he says of the scape-goat that all the congregation were commanded to spit upon it, and put scarlet wool about its head; and that the
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person appointed to convey the goat into the wilder- ness took away the scarlet wool and put it on a thorn- bush, whose young sprouts, when we find them in the field, we are wont to eat; so the fruit of that thorn only is sweet. On all these particulars the Scriptures are silent.
"(5.) In ch. viii the author's fancy seems to grow more fruitful and luxuriant. In referring to the red heifer (Num. xi.x), he says that men in whom sins are come to perfection (ii' oig ufiapriai riXfiai) were to bring the heifer and kill it ; that three youths were to t.ike up the ashes and put them in vessels ; then to tie a piece of scarlet wool and h3'ssop upon a stick, and so sprinkle even' one of the people. ' This heifer is Jesus Christ ; the wicked men that were to offer it are those sinners that brought him to death ; the young men signify those to whom the Lord gave authority to preach his gospel, being at the beginning twelve, because there were twelve tribes of Israel.' But why (he asks) were there three young men appointed to sprinkle ? To denote Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. And why was wool put upon a stick ? Because the kingdom of Jesus was founded upon the cross, etc.
" (6.) He interprets the distinction of clean and un- clean animals in a spiritual sense. ' Is it not CAria ci'K — see Dr. Hefele's valuable note, p. 85) the com- mand of God that they should not eat these things ? (Yes.) But Moses spoke in spirit (tv nveufiaTi). He named the swine in order to say, " Thou shalt not join those men who are like swine, who, while they live in pleasure, forget their Lord," ' etc. He adds, 'Neither shalt thou eat of the hyena ; that is, thou shalt not be an adulterer.' If these were the views entertained by Barnabas, how must he have been astonished at the want of spiritual discernment in the apostle Peter, when he heard from his own lips the account of the symbolic vision at Joppa, and his reply to the com- mand, 'Arise, Peter, slay and eat. But I said, Not so, Lord, for nothing common or unclean hath at any time entered into my mouth' (Acts xi, 8).
"(7.) In ch. ix he attempts to show that Abraham, in circumcising his servants, had an especial reference to Christ and his crucifixion: 'Learn, my children, that Abraham, who first circumcised in spirit, having a regard to the Son (in Jesum, Lat. Vers), circumcised, applying the mystic sense of the three letters (Xajlujv tiuCjv ypafUfiaTwv BoyfxaTa — den geheimen Sinn dreier Buchstaben anwendend, Hefele). For the Scripture says that Abraham circumcised 318 men of his house. "What, then, was the deeper insight (yvSiciQ) imparted to him ? Mark first the 18, and next the 300. The numeral letters of 18 are I (Iota) and H (Eta), I = 10, H = 8; here you have Jesus, 'lHffovv; and because the cross in the T (Tau) must express the grace ("of our re- demption), he names 300 ; therefore lie signified Jesus by two letters, and the cross by one.' It will be ob- served that the writer hastily assumes (from Gen. xiv, 11) that Abraham circumcised only 318 persons, that being the number of 'the servants born in his own house,' whom he armed against the four kings ; but he circumcised his household nearly twenty j'ears later, including not only those born in his house (with the addition of Ishmael), but ' all that were bought with money' (Gen. xvii, 23). The writer evidently was un- acquainted with the Hebrew Scriptures, and has com- mitted the blunder of supposing that Abraham was familiar with the Greek alphabet some centuries before it existed."
The probable opinion is that this epistle existed an- onymously in the Alexandrian Church, and was igno- rantly attributed to Barnabas. It was probably writ- ten by a Jewish Christian, who had studied Philo, and who handled the O. T. in an allegorical way in behalf of his view of Christianity. Its date is assigned to the first centurj' bv Hilgenfeld, Die App. Vater (Halle, 1853); Reuss, Geschichte d. Schriften d, N. T. i, 233; Lwald. Gesch. d. Volls Israel, vii, 13G ; and to the ear-
j ly part of the 2d century by Dressel, Patres Apost.
' Proleg., and Kitsch], Entstehung d. Altkath. Kirche, 294. Volkmar gives the date as 119, or later, in Ha- drian's time. Hefele puts it between 107 and 120. Weizsacker, in his treatise Zur Kritik d<:s Barnabas-
\ briefes am dem Codex Sinaiticus (Tubingen, 1801), seeks to prove that the epistle was written shortly after the destruction of Jerusalem, and not under Hadrian. See also Weizsacker in d. Jahrbuclier fur Deutsche Theologie, 18G5, p. 391.
3. Contents and Object of the Epistle. —The first part of the epistle (ch. i-xvii) is directed against the Ju- daizing party, and aims to show that the abolition of Judaism, by means of the spiritual institutions of Christianity, is foretold in the O. T., so that the true covenant people of God arc the Christians, not the Jews. The four remaining chapters are ethical, con- taining practical advices and exhortations for walking "in the way of light," and avoiding "the way of dark- ness." "The names and residence of the persons to whom it is addressed are not mentioned, on which account, probably, it was called by Origen a Catholic epistle (Origen contr. Cels. lib. i, p. 49). But if by this title he meant an epistle addressed to the general body of Christians, the propriety of its application is doubtful, for we meet with several expressions which imply a personal knowledge of the parties. It has been disputed whether the persons addressed were Jewish or Gentile Christians. Dr. Hefele strenuously contends that they were of the former class. His chief argument appears to be, that it would be unnecessary to insist so earnestly on the abolition of the Mosaic economy in writing to Gentile converts. But the EpiS-