hands. Chap. 13. The preservation of the
present epistle is probably due to this its connection with the epistles
of Ignatius forwarded by him to the Philippians.

IV. THE WRITINGS OF BARNABAS AND HERMAS.

9. The writings current under the names of _Barnabas_ and _Hermas_ have
by no means the outward testimony in their favor by which the preceding
epistles of Clement, Ignatius, and Polycarp are supported; nor the
inward evidence arising from the consideration of their contents. We
will consider them briefly in the order abovenamed.

10. Until recently the first part of the _Epistle of Barnabas_ existed
only in a Latin version. But in 1859 Tischendorf discovered at Mount
Sinai the Sinai Codex (Chap. 26, No. 5), which contains the entire
epistle in the original Greek. That the writer was the Barnabas
mentioned in the New Testament as the companion of Paul in preaching the
gospel, cannot be maintained on any firm basis of evidence. As to the
date of its composition learned men differ. Hefele places it between the
years 107 and 120. Apostolic Fathers, Prolegomena, p. 15.

The writer was apparently a Hellenistic Jew of the Alexandrine school,
and he wrote for the purpose of convincing his brethren, mainly from the
Old Testament, that Jesus is the Messiah, and that in him the rites of
the Mosaic law are done away. His quotations from the Old Testament are
numerous, and his method of interpretation is allegorical and sometimes
very fanciful, as in the following passage, for the right understanding
of which the reader should know that the two Greek letters [Greek: IE],
which stand first in the name [Greek: IESOUS], JESUS, and represent that
name by abbreviation, signify as numerals, the first _ten_, the second,
_eight_; also that the Greek letter [Greek: T] (the sign of the cross)
denotes as a numeral, _three hundred_. "The Scripture says," argues
Barnabas, "that Abraham circumcised of his house _three hundred and
eighteen men_. What was the knowledge communicated to him [in this
fact]? Learn first the meaning of the _eighteen_, then of the _three
hundred_. Now the numeral letters [Greek: I], _ten_, [Greek: E],
_eight_, make _eighteen_. Here you have _Jesus_ (Greek [Greek: IESOUN],
of which the abbreviation is [Greek: IE]). And because the cross, which
lies in the letter [Greek: T], was that which should bring grace, he
says also _three hundred_." Chap. 9. The Rabbinic system of
interpretation in which the writer was educ