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[p.44]
further references to him in I Corinthians, Galatians and Colossians. Already in Acts (14: 4)
and implicitly in 1 Corinthians (9: 6) Barnabas is accorded apostolic status.
In Codex Bezae and other representatives of the ‘Western’ text of Acts 1: 23: Barnabas, one
of the two candidates put forward to take the place of Judas Iscariot, becomes Barnabas. The
Clementine Recognitions mention
‘Barnabas, who also is called Matthias, who was substituted as an apostle in the place of
Judas’3
while to make the picture even more complicated, according to Haenchen the Syriac version
of the Recognitions has Barabbas in place of Barnabas(!).4
Clement of Alexandria (Stromata II 20) appeals to Barnabas as an authority:
‘...adducing as a witness the apostolic Barnabas, and he was one of the Seventy, and a
fellow-worker of Paul...’
and to return to the Recognitions, Clement of Rome has Barnabas preaching the gospel in
Rome during the lifetime of Jesus:
‘...a certain man, standing in a most crowded place in the city (Rome), made
proclamation to the people saying:
“Hear me, O ye citizens of Rome. The Son of God is now in the regions of Judaea,
promising eternal life to everyone who will hear Him...”.
Now the man who spake these things to, the people was from the regions of the East, by
nation a Hebrew, by name Barnabas, who said that he himself was one of His
disciples....’ (Recognitions 17)
The status of Barnabas is further enhanced by attributing miracles to him; the Acts of Titus
represents him as raising Paul from the dead at the Pisidian Antioch.
III. THE GOSPEL OF BARNABAS
In the early years of the Christian church apocryphal gospels multiplied. Some fifty have been
identified. The text of a few has come down to us almost complete, while of the majority we
have only isolated passages. Of the original Gospel of Barnabas we have nothing beyond the
name. It is mentioned in the Decretum Gelasianum, which treats of ‘books which are received
and books which are not received’. In the section dealing with the books which are to be
received we have the full number of the 27 New Testament writings of our present canon. In
the section of apocryphal works there is mention of the Gospel of Barnabas. According to
Hennecke the Decree is of South Gallic origin and is dated in the sixth century.5

3 Recognitions, i, 60. 4
 Ernst Haenchen, The Acts of the Apostles, English translation by B. Noble and G. Shinn, Blackwell, London,
1971, p. 162.
5
 E. Hennecke, The New Testament Apocrypha, Lutterworth, London, 1963, Vol. 1, p. 46.