Apologia: Patristics (part II)
Understanding The Epistle of Barnabas Properly
Introduction
The purpose or goal of this post is to counter the objections (though being fallacious in nature at times) made against the author of Barnabas and counter the detrimental theology of the Jews infecting the Churches. The epistle of Barnabas not only contributed to having an appeal to early Christian theologians like Origen, Clement of Alexandria, and Didymus the Blind, but also it serves as an exemplar in aiding modern Christians in their understanding of the Old Testament. The epistle of Barnabas was not only very influential in the Early Church, but to the extent that it was included in the books that contained the scriptures like the Codex Sinaiticus. The epistle of Barnabas may not be the original figure in Acts, but its ties in Christian antiquity are set in the second century as the latest yet late first century if considering its earliest estimated dating.
Reviewing this Post (Italics: Tony)
FROM THE WEBSITE: So why is it important for our study of anti-Semitism among the early Church Fathers? Because here we find the earliest examples of adversos-judaeum theology, which in many cases still exists in churches today. It is the first example of the poisonous seed which slowly infected Christian churches and cultures and formed the backdrop, the murky bog from which violent, bloodthirsty and merciless monsters arose for hundreds of years.
This claim is ironic because to emphasize the Jews having a special relationship with God, whereas rendering any outsider of this specific religious and ethnic tradition as always being alienated from God by default prior to Christ can be construed as being racist, ethnocentric, or anti-Gentile. In addition, this kind of mindset also causes Christian Zionism, which unknowingly advocates for the oppression and dehumanization of Palestinian citizens and the defense of Jewish oppression. Because of this literal and historical opinion of the Old Testament, it causes a misunderstanding of God’s nature in general, which is why Barnabas and the other Fathers are essential for providing a proper framework in how one ought to read the Old Testament.
In his letter, the author warns Christians against the evil of those days. But right from chapter 2, he speaks of two groups; us and them — us being Christians and them Jews. Among the dangers threatening the Christian was “to liken yourselves to certain persons who pile up sin upon sin, saying that our covenant remains to them also.” So for the first time we see Church teachings that there is no longer any covenant between God and the Jews.
From chapter 2, Barnabas argues that God doesn’t need sacrifices due to self-sufficiency as he appeals to Old Testament prophets like Jeremiah and Isaiah (Barnabas 2.4–5). Why would Barnabas appeal to Jewish prophets if he was supposedly anti-Semitic? His argumentation is that Jesus came to abolish such practices because such were influenced by the culture and not by God Himself; hence, he makes a similar point to what Paul said by saying, “These things then He abolished in order that the new law of our Lord Jesus Christ, which is without the yoke of necessity, might not have a man-made oblation,” and “He did this by ending the system of law with its commandments and regulations. He made peace between Jews and Gentiles by creating in himself one new people from the two groups” (Barnabas 2.6; Ephesians 2:15). Christ abolished the law’s regulations to end human division caused by the Jews’ observance of the Torah, which by default is a human influence rather than a divine influence. Christ also states that the ordinances of the law would end upon the destruction of the Temple (i.e. heaven and earth) at the advent of Christ, which the Book of Hebrews (prior to the Temple’s destruction) illustrates the nigh status of the law being abolished, “In speaking of a new covenant, he makes the first one obsolete. And what is becoming obsolete and growing old is ready to vanish away” (Hebrews 8:13; Alluded to Matt 5:17–18). From a basic understanding of these Christian passages, no one would assume the Jews are still in a relationship with God through their observance of the Torah. Barnabas in Chapter 2 said nothing whether the Jews are still in a covenant relationship with God, or whether they ever were by their ritual feats.
Not only that, it is a grievous sin to even say so. The Jews are out — period! They lost the covenant at Sinai when they turned to idols (chapter 14). Jesus’s death was their final condemnation: “Therefore the Son of God came in the flesh to this end, that He might sum up the complete tale of their sins against those who persecuted and slew His prophets” (5:11). Thus substitution theology was born! Secondly, we find a peculiar way of reading the Bible, a hermeneutic style which persists in many churches today. Put brutally, the promises of the Old Testament are for the Church, the curses are for Israel.
The very thing that Barnabas is critiquing is not the race of the Jews, but rather the religion itself that he believes was concocted merely by human invention and distortions of the divine will. Jesus’ death didn’t render Jews in general as being unable to be saved, but Barnabas is saying that the Son of God was revealed to fulfill the summary or to fulfill a re-visitation (ἀνακεφαλαιώσῃ/anakephalaióse) of when the prophets were persecuted by their own people just as Jesus was persecuted. I don’t know what Tony means by substitution theology, whether he means the atonement or replacement theology, which are neither held by me or the orthodox Fathers. The “fulfillment of the summary” when it came to their sins towards Jesus that Barnabas stated also correlates with how Barnabas understood biblical fulfillment by means of typology; for instance, he says “And he was willing to suffer thus, for it was necessary that he should suffer on a tree, for the Prophet says of him, ‘Spare my soul from the sword’ and, ‘Nail my flesh, for the synagogues of the wicked have risen against me’ ” (Barnabas 5.13). Nothing racist or untrue is being spoken towards the Jews at all as Barnabas remarks prior that Christ came to teach Israel and even chose the Disciples from their nation in the same chapter.
Allegory enabled his anti-Judaic theology to shape his exegesis. Thus “the younger shall serve the older” theme present in the stories of Esau/Jacob and Manasseh/Ephraim becomes symbolic for the teaching that God has chosen the Church over Israel. So Jacob becomes a type of the Church and Esau of Israel. He is the first to appropriate the patriarchs and make them Christian. Thus when Abraham circumcises the males in his household, the author of Barnabas writes, he is really revealing Christ and the cross (chapter 10). Moses, the prophets and the patriarchs are all Christians in the midst of an incredulous and sinful Jewish nation.
Tony’s comment on his allegoresis is not only misguided intellectually, but also downright akin to when woke activists like to slander people with words like “bigoted” or “homophobic” due to not understanding the context of semantics and enjoying the misrepresentation of others. Barnabas is trying to educate the Christians that they are primarily God’s people, and trying to sway them away from Jewish observance. Barnabas doesn’t attribute the Patriarchs as being Christians, but rather those that understood the will of God without severe confusion as many of the Jews gained from their scriptures.
For the first time, we see the manipulation of Paul’s veil theme found in 2 Corinthians 3:13–16. Here Paul affirms that a veil remains on the eyes of Jews regarding the Old Testament because they do not see Christ foreshadowed in it…But all this love and respect does not include the Jews. They have been abandoned by God and consequently by the Church as well! This means you should love your neighbor, as long as they are not Jews. They simply do not count! This horrific idea first emerges in the epistle of Barnabas.
The mindset that Barnabas is deriving this notion, that the Jews can’t fathom the symbolic representations of the Old Testament pointing to Jesus, comes from the Pauline literature. For what does Paul say, “Therefore let no one judge you by what you eat or drink, or with regard to a feast, a New Moon, or a Sabbath. For these rules are only shadows of the reality yet to come. And Christ himself is that reality,” and the author of Hebrews asserts something similar to Pauline and Barnabas’ theology, “For the law is only a shadow of the good things to come, not the realities themselves” (Colossians 2:16–17; Hebrews 10:1 a). And from this Jerusalem post, I have only seen distorted hearsay rather than actual quotations of Barnabas’ view of the Jews. To conclude that Barnabas is antisemitic without any direct or indirect evidence from his epistle is poor scholarship. It’s a shame that such a very useful and helpful epistle from the early church is not only misunderstood by an illiterate, but also that Tony refuses to learn certain things that may greatly aid his understanding of the Old Testament. Zionism in Christian politics brainwashes him to consider irrational argumentation, perhaps.
Time of Clarification
The Jerusalem Post by Tony was a genuine disaster, and even to the extent of mindlessly attacking rather than learning from the epistle of Barnabas as to why he thinks this way. The problem often associated with fundamentalists and militant atheists is this attitude of refusing to learn something, but to instead attack something as a means to cope with their distaste for an alternative paradigm. It was the tradition of the Early Church as with Paul and Hebrews to reinterpret the Old Testament in an allegorical fashion, which Christ demonstrated to the Jewish audience to confirm His actions to them. In this section of the post, I will quote from Barnabas and additional resources to demonstrate what I mean by the Early Church’s paradigm.
“For he speaks again concerning the ears, how he circumcised our hearts; for the Lord says in the Prophet: “In the hearing of the ear they obey me.” And again he says, “They who are afar off shall hear clearly, they shall know the things that I have done,” and “Circumcise your hearts, saith the Lord”…But moreover the circumcision in which they trusted has been abolished. For he declared that circumcision was not of the flesh, but they erred because an evil angel was misleading them…But you will say, surely the people has received circumcision as a seal? Yes, but every Syrian and Arab and all priests of the idols have been circumcised; are then these also within their covenant? — indeed even the Egyptians belong to the circumcision” (Barnabas 9.1, 4, 6).
Some will argue from this passage that Barnabas is suggesting that the Jews are followers of Satan, but Barnabas isn’t claiming that they follow the name of Satan intentionally. Barnabas is suggesting that the Jew’s literal interpretation and observance of the Torah is what caused them to be misled by an evil angel, rather than naturally belonging to the Satan. Barnabas was critiquing their exegetical practice that they used by attributing to it as a work of the devil (or the work of an evil messenger), which Jesus also exemplifies in the Gospels. In the Gospels, Peter attempts to hinder Jesus from suffering and dying at the hands of the elders, but Christ rebukes him for his refusal by attributing him as the Satan (i.e. the adversary) for also adhering to a plain reading. Peter, in this moment, didn’t understand the Messiah in context of spiritual allegory and the symbolism of the Old, but rather he understood the Messiah from a contextually plain perspective of the Old Testament that Jesus rejected (Matt. 16:21–23). The plain reading of the Old was rejected by Jesus but Peter took the Hebrew scriptures according to the letter, as did the Jews; in fact, the Jews inquired of Jesus by suggesting that the Messiah ought not to die, but live continually according to the scriptures. Christ did not address their inquiry upon the Hebrew scriptures, because He knew they were correct in an exegetical perspective. Instead of appealing to their scriptures allegorically, He advised them to believe while they witness His works that they may be children of the Light, which implies Christ gave more authority to His incarnation than what the scriptures plainly stated (John 12:34–36). In other words, Jesus fulfilled the types and shadows, not the context of the Old Testament as many modern Christians wrongly believe today in contrast to what Paul said (e.g. Colossians 2:17; Hebrews 10:1). Both Jesus and Barnabas demonstrate that the plain reading of the Scriptures are distortions of God’s will to the extent of blaming the Devil for such confusion in their interpretation.
“Moreover Moses says to them in Deuteronomy, “And I will make a covenant of my ordinances with this people.” So then the ordinance of God is not abstinence from eating, but Moses spoke in the spirit. He mentioned the swine for this reason: you shall not consort, he means, with men who are like swine, that is to say, when they have plenty they forget the Lord, but when they are in want they recognize the Lord, just as the swine when it eats does not know its master, but when it is hungry it cries out, and after receiving food is again silent…Moses received three doctrines concerning food and thus spoke of them in the Spirit; but they received them as truly referring to food, owing to the lust of their flesh” (Barnabas 10.2–3, 9).
Since this epistle was translated from a few centuries ago, the term consort is being used to mean “to come into agreement with,” or “be in harmony with,” in which Barnabas allegorically interprets the law of not eating pork as not associating and becoming like those who forsake their God when in fulfillment and seek God only out of desperate necessity. Barnabas relays that these commandments were to be received spiritually, instead of being literally obeyed. This exegesis provided by Barnabas wasn’t uncommon in the Early Church since Origen, Methodius, and Gregory demonstrate it. Origen revealed that the main reason the Jews, Gnostics, and simple-minded Christians had distorted views of God, while the Jews missed the signs of the Messiah in the flesh, is due to their literal interpretive embrace of the Scriptures, as it says: “And yet, indeed, the more simple among those who profess to belong to the Church have supposed that there is no deity greater than the Demiurge, being right in so thinking, while they imagine regarding Him such things as would not be believed of the most savage and unjust of mankind. Now the cause, in all the points previously enumerated, of the false opinions, and of the impious statements or ignorant assertions about God, appears to be nothing else than the not understanding the Scripture according to its spiritual meaning, but an interpretation that agrees with the mere letter” (De Prin. IV.8–9). Methodius of Olympus comments that the customs of the Jews were human concocted, but that God used their customs to be as a means for the spiritual reading, in which is claimed that early Christians take them according to the spirit rather than the letter. He also states that while these customs came by human weakness and exposed their own ignorance, Christians (by implication) disclosed the truth to the Jews by interpreting them as allegories or as types. Methodius writes, “For the mystery of the heifer is kept in us, who keep the [law] nomos not according to the letter, but according to the spirit, not serving the shadow, or the likeness, or the image, but the truth itself according to the truth. Human weakness invented these signs, in which it placed its ignorance; but [they] received the truth from others” (De Cibis XI.1–2).
The Allegorical Basis
The purpose of this post is to demonstrate why should we reinterpret the Old Testament from an allegoric perspective. Paul demonstrates this type of exegesis in Galatians 4:21–31 in an attempt to sway the Galatians from observing the law of Moses, and in 1st Corinthians 9:9–10 by reinterpreting a mosaic command intended for oxen to be in application for current believers. Jesus also fulfills the typology of Jonah’s story of being swallowed by a fish for three days and arising from such a tragedy (Matt. 12:40). Christ also fulfills the typology of the suffering servant in Isaiah 53 that was always understood by the Jews as being Israel according to the letter.
Another general precedent takes place in a story where God rebukes Moses’ siblings, “Then the Lord said, “Listen to my words. Suppose there is a prophet among you. I, the Lord, make myself known to them in visions. I speak to them in dreams…With Moses I speak face to face. I speak with him clearly. I do not speak in riddles” (Numbers 12:6, 8a). From this story, it is understood that when the prophet speaks, the divine will is revealed in a symbolic fashion, and thus, must be understood in an allegorical fashion. When the prophet Ezekiel perceived a temple in his visions, as an example, it must be understood in context to Christ and to allegoresis. Instead of a literal temple that Christian Zionists wish to erect in the future, this temple is actually a symbolic foreshadowing of Jesus’ Church who are called by Paul as the temples of the Lord (1st Corin. 3:16–17).
And in the book of Job, “For God may speak in one way, or in another, yet man does not perceive it” (33:14). Elihu, who is the voice in chapter 33, demonstrates that God speaks in another way that isn’t perceived by the human agent; on the contrary, the primary utterance is understood instead. In like manner, the Scriptures according to the Fathers has a twofold expression of inspiration as either sometimes being inspired upon the letter but the symbolism as being always inspired, or as the letter (i.e. plain reading) being uninspired in part, leaving room for the spiritual reading to be demonstrated by allegoresis as a means to overtake what the letter states. The Church Fathers and Paul weren’t oblivious to the notion of hidden or arcanum inspiration found within their scriptures. Unfortunately, many believers currently are ignorant of this type of reading and its essential role in biblical interpretation. Because of a modern dogma like biblical inerrancy, which they would affirm is according to the letter, they have not only fundamentally misunderstood what God’s will and nature are like, but also have proposed a dangerous theology that conflicts what Christ was trying to show to the Jews instead. In short, though a primitive culture gave those OT laws to be obeyed by the Jews, God used their customs to give a spiritual reading for a future people — the Church. However, many believers from the fundamentalist stream confuse those human customs in the plain reading as God’s benevolent will, whereas the Early Church would disagree with them, and say that the spiritual reading discloses the true nature of God’s will. Gregory of Nyssa warned some believers from stumbling into this fundamentalist understanding of the Scriptures:
“It seems right to some church leaders, however, to stand by the letter of the Holy Scriptures in all circumstances, and they do not agree that Scripture says anything for our profit by way of enigmas and below-the-surface meanings. For this reason, I judge it necessary first of all to defend my practice against those who thus charge us. In our earnest search for what is profitable in the inspired Scripture [2 Tim 3:16], there is nothing to be found that is unsuitable. Therefore, if there is profit even in the text taken for just what it says, we have what is sought right before us. On the other hand, if something is stated in a concealed manner by way of enigmas and below-the-surface meanings, and so is void of profit in its plain sense, such passages we turn over in our minds,..By all these different modes of speech and names for intellectual discernment, the apostle is pointing us to a single form of instruction: one ought not in every instance to remain with the letter (since the obvious sense of the words often does us harm when it comes to the virtuous life),…This moreover is why [St. Paul] says, “The letter kills, but the Spirit gives life” [2 Cor 3:6]” (Homilies on the Song of Songs).
