RELIGIOUS ENCYCLOPEDIA
Barlaam and Josaphat Barnabites
whence the Lystrans regarded him as Hermes, Barnabas as Zeus (xiv, 12). After this journey follows a long stay in Antioch (xiv, 26-28) until they became involved in a controversy with the Judaizers and were sent to the Apostolic Council at Jerusalem, where the matter was settled (xv, 1-29; Gal. ii, 1-10; see Apostolic Council at Jerusalem). According to Gal. ii, 9-10 Barnabas was included with Paul in the agreement made between them, on the one hand, and James, Peter, and John, on the other, that the two former should in the future preach to the heathen, not forgetting the poor at Jerusalem. Having returned to Antioch and spent some time there (xv, 35), Paul asked Barnabas to accompany him on another journey (xv, 36). Barnabas wished to take John Mark along, but Paul did not, as he had left them on the former journey (xv, 37-38). An unhappy dissension separated the two apostles; Barnabas went with Mark to Cyprus (xv, 39) and is not again mentioned in the Acts; but from Gal. ii, 13 a little more is learned about him, and his weakness under the taunts of the Judaizers is evident; and from I Cor. ix, 6 it may be gathered that he continued to labor as missionary.
Legends begin where authentic history ends. Barnabas is brought to Rome and Alexandria. The " Clementine Recognitions " (i, 7) make him preach in Rome during Christ's lifetime, and Clement of Alexandria (Stromata, ii, Legend- 20) makes him one of the seventy ary His- disciples. Not older than the third tory. century is the tradition of the later activity and martyrdom of Barnabas in Cyprus, where his remains are said to have been discovered under the emperor Zeno (474-491). The Cyprian church claimed Barnabas as its founder in order to rid itself of the supremacy of the Antiochian bishop, just as did the Milan church afterward, to become more independent of Rome. In this connection, the question whether Barnabas was an apostle became important, and was often treated during the Middle Ages (cf. C. J. Hefele, Das Sendschreiben des Apostels Barnabas, Tubingen, 1840; O. Braunsberger, Der Apostel Barnabas, Mainz, 1876). The statements as to the year of Barnabas's death are discrepant and untrustworthy. Tertullian and other Western writers regard Barnabas as the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews. This may have been the Roman tradition — which Tertullian usually follows — and in Rome the epistle may have had its first readers. But the tradition has weighty considerations against it. According to Photius (Qucest. in Amphil., 123), Barnabas wrote the Book of Acts, and a gospel is ascribed to him (cf. T. Zahn, Geschichte des neutestamentlichen Kanons, ii, 292, Leipsic, 1890). Of more interest is the tradition which Alleged makes Barnabas author of an epistle Writings, in twenty-one chapters, contained complete in the Codex Sinaiticus at the end of the New Testament. A complete Greek manuscript was discovered by Bryennios at Constantinople, and Hilgenfeld used it for his edition in 1877. Besides this there is a very old Latin version (now in the imperial library at St.
Petersburg), in which, however, chaps, xviii-xxi are wanting. Toward the end of the second century the epistle was in great esteem in Alexandria, as the citations of Clement of Alexandria prove. It is also appealed to by Origen. Eusebius, however, objected to it and ultimately the epistle disappeared from the appendix to the New Testament, or rather the appendix disappeared with the epistle. In the West the epistle never enjoyed canonical authority (though it stands beside the epistle of James in the Latin manuscripts). The first editor of the epistle, Menardus (1645) advocated its genuineness, but the opinion to-day is, that Barnabas was not the author. It was probably written in Alexandria in 130-131, and addressed to Christian Gentiles. The author, who formerly labored in the congregation to which he writes, intends to impart to his readers the perfect gnosis that they may perceive that the Christians are the only true covenant people, and that the Jewish people had never been in a covenant with God. His polemics are, above all, directed against Judaizing Christians. In no other writing of that early time is the separation of the Gentile Christians from the patriotic Jews so clearly brought out. The Old Testament, he maintains, belongs only to the Christians. Circumcision and the whole Old Testament sacrificial and ceremonial institution are the devil's work. According to the author's conception, the Old Testament, rightly understood, contains no such injunctions. He is a thorough anti-Judaist, but by no means an antinomist. The main idea is Pauline, and the apostle's doctrine of atonement is more faithfully reproduced in this epistle than in any other postapostolic writing. The author no doubt had read Paul's epistles; he has a good knowledge of gospel-history but which of the gospels, if any, he had read, can not be asserted. He quotes IV Esdras (xii, 1) and Enoch (iv, 3; xvi, 5). The closing section (chaps, xviii-xxi), which contains a series of moral injunctions, is only loosely connected with the body of the epistle, and its true relation to the latter has given rise to much discussion.
(A. Harnack.)
Bibliography: A lnt of editions and discussions is in ANF, Bibliography, pp. 16-19. The edilio princeps, Paris, 1645, was preceded in 1642 by an edition of TJsser, Oxford, 1642, which, however, was consumed by fire in 1644, cf. J. H. Barkhouse, The Editio prineeps of the Epistle of Barnabas, Oxford, 1883; the epistle was edited also by J. G. Miiller, Leipsic, 1869; A. Hilgenfeld, ib. 1866, 2d ed., 1877 (containing the material discovered by Bryennios); W. Cunningham, London, 1877; in Patrum apostolicorum opera, ed. Gebhardt and Harnack, Leipsic, 1875, 2d ed., 1878 (contains a list of titles up to the year 1878); Funk, 1887, ANF, i, 133-149 contains an Eng. transl. and an introduction. Consult DCB, i, 260-265 (discusses the earlier literature on the subject); S. Sharpe, Epistle of Barnabas, from the Sinaitic MS, London, 1880; Volter, in JPT, xiv (1888), 106-144; J. Weiss, Der Barnabasbrief, kritisch untersucht, Berlin, 1888; Harnack, Litteratur, i, 58-62; G. Salmon, Historical Introduction to the Study of the Books of the New Testament, pp. 513-519, London, 1892; Kruger, History, pp. 18-21; (Barnabas), Brief an die Hebraer, ed. F. Blass, Halle, 1903.
BARNABITES (Clerici regulares S. Barnabm): A congregation of regular clerics founded in the city and diocese of Milan in 1530 by a nobleman of Cremona, Antonio Maria Zaccaria (b. 1502;
Barnabites Baronius