Barnabas

Time Period: 1st Century
Position: Paul's companion on his 1st Missionary Journey
Location: Speculated to have an Alexandrian origin
Important works: Letter of Barnabas (either A.D. 70/79 or 117/132)
Language: Greek

The Letter is actually a theological tract and it does not give us information as to whether Barnabas is the authentic author.

Here are a couple of selections I would like to share with you:

And when He chose His own Apostles, who were about to preach His gospel, He chose men who were the worst kind of sinners in order to show that He came not to call the righteous but sinners (Mark 2:17)--and then He showed Himself to be the Son of God.

Check this out...I love this...

If He had not come in the flesh, there would be no way in which men could be saved by beholding Him: for even when they look at the sun, a work of His hands and a thing destined to perish, are they able to gaze straight into its rays?

For this reason, then, the Son of Man came in the flesh: to fill to the brim the measure of the sins of those who persecuted His prophets to death.

The author of this tract, like Clement, also gives the exhortation:

You shall not make a schism; but you shall pacify and bring together those who are quarreling. You shall confess your sins. You shall not go up to pray in the consciousness of having done evil. This is the way of light.

My notes:

It occurred to me in reading this that the method of by which our Lord educates us is through relationship. Relationship with Him and now relationship with Him through the Church: you and me. If the pillar of Protestantism, Sola Scriptura, were true, then I would think Jesus Christ would have spent His time writing, instead of hanging out with His disciples so much. Just a thought. Makes sense to me.

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