Epistle of Barnabas 11.8

Summary: The tree and the water in Psalm 1 are the cross and baptism.

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Greek text · Lake, LCL 24:380

αἰσθάνεσθε, πῶς τὸ ὕδωρ καὶ τὸν σταυρὸν ἐπὶ τὸ αὐτὸ ὥρισεν. τοῦτο γὰρ λέγει· μακάριοι, οἳ ἐπὶ τὸν σταυρὸν ἐλπίσαντες κατέβησαν εἰς τὸ ὕδωρ, ὅτι τὸν μὲν μισθὸν λέγει ἐν καιρῷ αὐτοῦ· τότε, φησίν, ἀποδώσω. νῦν δὲ ὃ λέγει· τὰ φύλλα οὐκ ἀπορυήσεται, τοῦτο λέγει· ὅτι πᾶν ῥῆμα, ὃ ἐὰν ἐξελεύσεται ἐξ ὑμῶν διὰ τοῦ στόματος ὑμῶν ἐν πίστει καὶ ἀγάπῃ, ἔσται εἰς ἐπιστροφὴν καὶ ἐλπίδα πολλοῖς.

English · Claude translation

Notice how he described the water and the cross together. For he means this: blessed are those who, having hoped on the cross, went down into the water; for he speaks of the reward “in its season”: then, he says, I will repay. But now, when he says, “its leaves will not fall off,” he means this: that every word that comes out of your mouth in faith and love will bring conversion and hope to many.

About this passage

Source
Lake, LCL 24:380 · Kirsopp Lake, ed. and trans., The Apostolic Fathers, vol. 1, LCL 24 (London: Heinemann; New York: Macmillan, 1912), 340–407 · Greek text: K. Lake, The Apostolic Fathers (LCL, 1912), digitized by the Perseus Digital Library and published by the First Thousand Years of Greek project (Open Greek and Latin), CC BY-SA 4.0
Translation
Claude translation (claude-opus-5-5), 2026-09-26 · Translated by Claude from the Greek text of Lake (LCL 24, 1912); made independently of existing English translations.
Topics
Baptism, Christology

Notes

Notes on the original text

  • Digital text corrected (digitization slip against Lake's printed text (wrong accent)): μακάριοι, οἲ ἐπὶ → μακάριοι, οἳ ἐπὶ; νῦν δὲ ὅ λέγει → νῦν δὲ ὃ λέγει.

Cite this passage

Barn. 11.8 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/barnabas/11/8/).

Plain text
Barn. 11.8 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/barnabas/11/8/).

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