Epistle of Barnabas - Contents

Contents

Although the work is not gnostic in a theological sense, the author, who considers himself to be a teacher to the unidentified audience to which he writes (see e.g. 9.9), intends to impart to his readers the perfect gnosis (special knowledge), 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 (see Ebionites, Nazarenes, Judaizing teachers).

In no other writing of that early time is the separation of the Gentile Christians from observant Jews so clearly insisted upon. The covenant promises, he maintains, belong only to the Christians (e.g. 4.6-8), and circumcision, and the entire Jewish sacrificial and ceremonial system are, according to him, due to misunderstanding. According to the author's conception, Jewish scriptures, rightly understood, contain no such injunctions (chapters 9-10). He is a thorough opponent to Jewish legalism, but by no means an antinomist. At some points the Epistle seems quite Pauline, as with its concept of atonement.

The Epistle reinterprets many of the laws of the Torah. For example, the prohibition on eating pork is not to be taken literally, but rather forbids the people to live like swine, who supposedly grunt when hungry but are silent when full: likewise, the people are not to pray to God when they are in need but ignore him when they are satisfied. Similarly, the prohibition on eating rabbit means that the people are not to behave in a promiscuous manner, and the prohibition on eating weasel is actually to be interpreted as a prohibition of oral sex, based on the mistaken belief that weasels copulate via the mouth.

It is likely that, due to the resurgence of Judaism in the early 2nd century, and the tolerance of the emperor Hadrian, Christians, such as the text's author, felt a need to resist Jewish influences polemically. In this case, the author seems to aim to demonstrate that Jewish understanding of the Mosaic legislation (Torah) is completely incorrect and can now be considered superseded, since in the author's view the Jewish scriptures foreshadowed Jesus and Christianity when rightly understood.

The author quotes liberally from the Old Testament, including the apocryphal books. He quotes from the New Testament gospels twice (4:14, 5:9), and is in general agreement with the New Testament presentation of salvation-history. He quotes material resembling 4 Esdras (12.1) and 1 Enoch (4.3; 16.5), which did not become part of the Biblical canon except in some traditions (e.g. 1 Enoch is considered scriptural in the Ethiopian church). The closing Two Ways section (chapters 18-21), see also Didache, which contains a series of moral injunctions, presents "another gnosis and teaching" (18.1) in relation to the body of the epistle, and its connection to the latter has given rise to much discussion.