It is evident, as Valesius (with whom Lardnei and Hefele agree) has remarked, that Eusebius uses the term v6Oa, not in the strict sense of spurious, but as synonymous with civr(Xe-yOkteva, i.e., disputed, controverted, and applies it to writings which were received by some, but rejected by others. The term apocryphal also, used by Jerome, was applied both by Jews and Christians to works which (though the authors were known) were not considered cano nical. The use of these terms, therefore, in refe rence to the Epistle before us, cannot be deemed as absolutely decisive against its genuineness. The following considerations, however, omitting some of less weight which have been urged by different writers, will, it is believed, go far to prove that Barnabas was not the author of this Epistle.
r. Though the exact date of the death of Bar nabas cannot be ascertained, yet from the particu lars already stated respecting his nephew, it is highly probable that that event took place before the martyrdom of Paul, A. D. 64. But a passage in the Epistle (ch. xvi.) speaks of the temple at Jeru salem as already destroyed : it was consequently written after the year 70.
2. Several passages have been adduced to shew that the writer (as well as the persons addressed) belonged to the Gentile section of the Church ; but waiving this point, the whole tone of the Epistle is different from what the knowledge we possess of the character of Barnabas would lead us to ex pect, if it proceeded from his pen. From the hints given in the Acts he appears to have been a man of strong attachments, keenly alive to the ties of kindred and fatherland; we find that on both his missionary tours his native island and the Jewish synagogues claimed his first attention. But through out the Epistle there is a total absence of sympa thetic regard for the Jewish nation : all is cold and distant, if not contemptuous. ' It remains yet that I speak to you (the i6th chapter begins) concerning the temple ; how those miserable men, being de ceived, have put their trust in the house.' How unlike the friend and fellow-labourer of him who had great heaviness and continual sorrow in his heart for his brethren, his kindred according to the flesh' (Rom, ix. 2).
3. Barnabas was not only a Jew by birth, but a Levite ; from this circumstance, combined with what is recorded in the Acts, of the active part he took in the settlement of the points at issue between the Jewish and the Gentile converts, we might reasonably expect to find, in a composition bearing his name, an accurate acquaintance with the Mosaic ritual—a clear conception of the nature of the Old Economy, and its relation to the New Dispensation, and a freedom from that addiction to allegorical interpretation which marked the Christians of the Alexandrian school in the second and succeeding centuries. But the following specimens will suffice
to shew that exactly the contrary may be affirmed of the writer of this Epistle ; that he makes un authorized additions to various parts of the Jewish Cultus ; that his views of the Old Economy are confused and erroneous ; and that he adopts a mode of interpretation countenanced by none cf the inspired writers, and to the last degree puerile and absurd. The inference is unavoidable, that Bamabas, 'the Son of Prophecy,' the Man hill of the Holy Spirit and of faith,' was not the author of this Epistle.
(I.) The writer denies that circumcision was a sign of the covenant. You will say the Jews were circumcised for a sign, and so are all the Syrians and Arabians, and all the idolatrous priests.' He rodotus ii. 104, indeed, says 'the Phoenicians and Syrians of Palestine acknowledge that they learned this custom from the Egyptians;' but Josephus, both in his Antiquities and Treatise against Apion, remarks that he must have alluded to the Jews, because they were the only nation in Palestine who were circumcised .(-4 /dig. viii. To, sec. 3 ; Contr. Apicm. i. 22). 'How,' says Hug, 'could Barnabas, who travelled with Paul through the southern pro vinces of Asia Minor, make such an assertion respecting the heathen priests ?' (2.) Referring to the goat (chap viL), either that mentioned in Num. xix. or Lev. xvi., he says, All the priests, and they only, shall eat the unwashed entrails with vinegar.' Of this direction, in itself highly improbable, not a trace can be found in the Bible, or even in the Talmud.
(3.) 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 person appointed to convey the goat into the wilderness 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.