Epistle of Barnabas 7
The Two Goats, and Scarlet Wool Set on a Thorn Bush
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The Fast and the Vinegar Foreshown
7:1Understand, then, children of gladness, that the good Lord showed us everything beforehand so that we might know. Giving Him thanks in all things, we ought to praise Him.
7:2If the Son of God, who is Lord and will judge the living and the dead, suffered so that His wound might give us life, let us believe that the Son of God could not have suffered except for our sake.
7:3When crucified, He was also given vinegar and gall to drink. Hear how the temple priests have disclosed this. Since the commandment was written, “Whoever does not keep the fast shall be destroyed by death,” the Lord commanded it because He Himself was to offer the vessel of the Spirit as a sacrifice for our sins, so that the figure shown in Isaac, who was offered upon the altar, might also be fulfilled.
7:4What, then, does He say in the prophet? “Let them eat from the goat offered during the fast for all sins.” Attend carefully: “Let the priests alone, all of them, eat the unwashed innards with vinegar.”
7:5Why? “Because you are going to give Me gall with vinegar to drink when I offer My flesh for the sins of My new people, you alone shall eat, while the people fast and beat their breasts in sackcloth and ashes.” This was to show that He must suffer at their hands.
The Two Goats
7:6Attend to what He commanded: “Take two fine goats, alike, and present them; and let the priest take one as a whole burnt offering for sins.”
7:7But what are they to do with the other? “The other,” He says, “is accursed.” Attend to how the figure of Jesus is revealed:
7:8“All of you spit upon it and pierce it, and put the scarlet wool around its head, and thus let it be cast into the wilderness.” When this has been done, the one who carries the goat leads it into the wilderness, removes the wool and places it on the shrub called Rachēl, whose shoots we are accustomed to eat when we find them in the countryside. Only the fruit of this thornbush is sweet in this way.
7:9What, then, does this mean? Attend: one goes upon the altar, while the other is accursed. And why is the accursed one crowned? Because on that day they will see Him wearing the scarlet robe reaching to His feet around His flesh, and say: “Is this not the One we once crucified, despising, piercing and spitting upon Him? Truly this was the One who then said He was the Son of God.”
7:10For how is He like that goat? For this reason the goats were alike, fine and equal, so that when they see Him coming then, they may be astonished at the likeness of the goat. See, therefore, the figure of Jesus who was to suffer.
7:11And why do they place the wool among thorns? It is a figure of Jesus set before the Church: whoever wishes to take the scarlet wool must suffer greatly, because the thorn is fearsome, and gain possession of it through affliction. “In this way,” He says, “those who wish to see Me and lay hold of My kingdom must receive Me through affliction and suffering.”
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Saints Translation · Liturgical reading edition · V1 · working draft awaiting specialist review.