Epistle Of Barnabas, a work purporting to be written by St. Barnabas. It was known early in the Christian church, for it is cited several times by Clement of Alexandria and Origen, and mentioned by Eusebius and Jerome. For several centuries it was lost sight of, until Sirmond in the 17th century discovered it at the end of a manuscript of one of the epistles of Polycarp. About the same time Hugo Me-nardus discovered a Latin version of it in the abbey of Corvey. This was printed at Paris in 1645. The year before Archbishop Usher had received a copy of the MS., which he annexed to the Ignatian epistles; but a tire at Oxford destroyed all but a few pages. The work, both in Greek and in the Latin version, has been several times reprinted; among others, by Vossius in his "Ignatian Epistles" (1646); Russell, "Apostolic Fathers" (1746); Hefele, Patrum Apostolicorum Opera (1842). It has been translated into English by Wake, and several times into German. All these editions are from Sirmond's Greek text, in which were wanting the first four chapters and a part of the fifth, and from the Corvey Latin version, where the last five chapters were lacking.

But in 1859 Tischendorf brought from Mt. Sinai a Greek MS. of the entire epistle, divided into 21 chapters, which was published in his Novum Testamentum Sinaiticum (2d ed., Leipsic, 1863). The best separate edition of the epistle is that of Hilgenfeld, with the ancient Latin version, notes, and a commentary (Leipsic, 1865). An English version, from the Codex Sinaiticus, appeared in the "Journal of Sacred Literature," October, 1863; reprinted in the "American Presbyterian Review," January and July, 1864. A commentary on the epistle, by J. G. Muller, has been published as an appendix to De Wette's Bxegetisches Handbuch zum Neuen Testament (Leipsic, 1869). - Many eminent critics, as Voss, Pearson, Wake, Lard-ner, Gicseler, Black, and others, hold that this epistle was written by Barnabas, the companion of Paul; but the current of recent opinion is against its authenticity. Among the objections urged against it are: 1. It speaks of the destruction of Jerusalem, and must therefore have been written after A. D. 70; whereas there is reason to believe that Barnabas was not living in 64, the earliest date assignable for the martyrdom of Paul. 2. The work bears internal evidence of having been written by a gentile, with no sympathy for the Hebrews. 3. Barnabas was a Levite, and presumably well acquainted with the Hebrew ritual, which the writer of the epistle in many places misrepresents. 4. His mode of interpretation is puerile and absurd. 5. He shows himself wholly unacquainted with the Hebrew Scriptures, and commits the blunder of representing Abraham as familiar with the Greek alphabet, which did not exist until centuries after his death.

The most probable opinion is that it existed in the Alexandrian church at a very early period, and was written by some one who had studied Philo and adopted his allegorical mode of interpreting the Old Testament. Some critics put the probable time of its composition just after the destruction of Jerusalem; none judge it to be later than A. D. 120.