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538 Barnabas, Joses Barnacle-Goose

THE JEWISH ENCYCLOPEDIA

together, by direction of the Holy Spirit and with laying on of hands, to do missionary work for the Church (ib. xiii, 2 et neq.), Barnabas, as the elder and probably more dignified, being taken by the pagans as Zeus, and Paul, the eloquent speaker, as Hermes (ib. xiv. 12). It seems, however, that the radical views of Paul in regard to the Mosaic law caused dissension between the two, and, finally, their separation (see Gal. ii. 1, 9, 13), though the narrative in Acts xv. 39 refers "the contention" to the fact that they could not agree on taking Mark with them as companion. Barnabas takes Mark and sails for Cyprus; and nothing further is recorded of him. He is referred to once more, in Cor. ix. 6, as an apostle who, like Paul, supported himself by his own labor.

The

Barnabas with Joseph Barsahaving been counted among the seventy apostles (see Clement of Alexandria, "Stromata," ii. 20, 116; Eusebius, identification of

bas (Acts

i.

23) is probably the cause of his

"Hist. Eccl."

him

preached in

Rome and

A

Judffio-Christi&ns claimed

and spoke of him as having

Alexandria

(see

"Clementine

7-11; "Clementine Homilies," i. 9fifth-century legend speaks of him as having

Recognitions," 14).

The

12).

i.

as one of their own, i.

To Barnabas was ascribed by Tertullian and others the authorship of the Epistle to the Hebrews; and a " gospel according to Barnabas" is mentioned among the canonical writings been martyred at Cy prus.

in

the decree of Gelasius (Zahn, "Geschichte des

Kanons," ii. 292). Barnabas is also the supposed author of the " Epistle of Barnabas," a work in twenty-one chapters, a complete Greek copy of which was published in 1862 by Tischendorf (in the " Codex Sinaiticus"), only the Latin translation and a fragmentary copy of the Greek having been known previously and another

copy was discovered in Constantinople in 1875 by Bryennios. The "Epistle," regarded as canonical by Clement of Alexandria ("Stromata," ii. 6, 7) and Origen (" Contra Celsum, " i. 63), exhibits, on the one hand, an astonishing familiarity with the Jewish rites, and, on the other, shows an anti-Judaic spirit of great bitterness so that only the internal strife

between the Paulinians and the Juda:o-Christians, who still clung to the Jewish nation in its last struggle against Rome under Bar Kokba, can sufficiently account for its characteristic features. of Addressing the Christian readers as Barnabas." sons and daughters, the author declares the Jewish sacrifices to be abolished (" Epistle of Barnabas," ii.) the Jewish feasts of no value (ib. iii.); the Temple of the Jews, then recently destroyed by the heathen, to be rebuilt only in a

" Epistle



spiritual sense

by the

Christians (xvi.)

the Christhe rite especially the scapegoat, curses and pulling off of hair, (xiii.)



—

type of suffering Jesus

(vii.);

— to

be a

likewise the

Red

its

neck

which were taken up by boys, who sprinkled the people with them for purification (viii. compare Parah iii. 3). Circumcision was not to be of the flesh, which was but a delusion of the devil, but of the heart: even Abraham's circumHeifer, the ashes of



cision of the 318

men

compare with xiv. 14) referring, by a Gbmateia of the Greek alphabet, to Jesus and the cross (" Epist. of Barnabas, " ix.). The " clean" and " unclean meat

was likewise

to be taken allegorically only.

On

the other hand, the writer finds the baptismal water and the Christian cross prefigured in the Old Testament (ib. xi. and xii. ) the latter particularly

—

bronze serpent, and Jesus in Joshua the. son The Tables of the Law given by of Nun (xii.). Moses having been broken by him, the testament was to be received anew from the hands of Jesus (xiv.); and the Sabbath of Creation points to the millennium after six thousand years, when all life shall have been sanctified by the Messianic advent, whereas the Jewish Sabbath and holidays have been declared to be unacceptable. The second part of the "Epistle," corresponding (except in some Christian details) with the Didache, a Jewish manual of instruction for proselytes (or a Jewish-Christian manual of conduct), betrays an altogether different spirit, and was probably attached As to it by some copyist at a much later time. pointed out by Glidemann ("Zur Erklarungdes Barin the

nabasbriefes " in his " Religionsgeschichtliche Studien," 1876, pp. 109-131), the writer seems to have been a converted Jew whose fanatic zeal rendered him a bitter opponent of Judaism within the christian

Church. J. G. Mueller, Zur Erldiirunq cles Barnabasbrie tea, 18B9; Harnack, in Hauck's Realenenklopildie, s.v.; Hastings, Diet. Bible, s.v.; Cheyne, Enciic. Bibl. s.v.; Geb-

Bibliography:

hardt and Harnack, Patrum Apostnlorum Opera Barnabce Epistola, 1878 W.Cunningham, Dissertation on the Episof Barnabas, London, 1877; Giidemann, Reliaionsqe:



tle

schicMUche Studien,

Leipsic, 1876;

Brull,

Jahrbucher,

iii.

179, 211.

K.

T.

BARNACLE-GOOSE: A

curious notion prevailed in the Middle Ages, that this bird (Branta leucopsis) was generated from the barnacle, a shell-fish growing on a flexible stem, and adhering to loose timber, bottoms of ships, etc., a metamorphosis to which Shakespeare alludes and to which reference is made in the verses of Bishop Hall, Butler, and others, as well as in the more serious scientific works of a great number of writers in the thirteenth, fourteenth, fifteenth,

and sixteenth

centuries.

Against F.

Max

Muller's hypothesis, that the myth is Early to be derived from Hibernian geese, Belief in are the statements of Gerald of Wales the Myth, (twelfth century) and of Gervase of Tilbury (1211), the latter of whom locates these birds on the Kentish shore. It is curious to note that Gerald turns the myth to good account against "obstinate" Jews, for whose conversion he appears zealous



tians to be the true heirs of the covenant

whole atonement driven away amid and with the scarlet rope about

538

of his household (Gen. xvii. 27;

" Be wise at length, wretched Jew, be wise even though late The first generation of man from dust without male or temale [Adam] and the second from the male without the female [Eve] thou darest not deny in veneration of thy law. The third alone from male and female, because it is usual, thou approvest and afflrmest with thy hard heart [brazen face ?] But the fourth, in which alone is salvation, from female without male —that,.

with obstinate malice, thou detested to thy own destruction. Blush, wretch, blush, and at least turn to nature She is an argument for the faith, and for our conviction procreates and produces every day animals without either male or female." !

Such argument failed to convince Jews of the truth of the Immaculate Conception, though they too