Epistle of Barnabas — Chapter 9 — Hearing, circumcision and the three letters
9:1
Greek–English: Literal-Smooth (Saints Priority)
9:1 Again He speaks concerning the ears, explaining how He circumcised our heart. The Lord says through the prophet: “At the hearing of the ear they obeyed Me.” Again He says: “Those far away will hear clearly; they will know what I have done,” and: “Circumcise your hearts,” says the Lord.
Textual & reception notes
9:1 Text: Ears and circumcised hearts are connected through a chain of scriptural sayings. Obedient hearing, distant hearers, and heart circumcision remain separate steps in the argument. Reception: No later section-specific reception verified in this review.
9:2
Greek–English: Literal-Smooth (Saints Priority)
9:2 Again He says: “Hear, Israel, because thus says the Lord your God.” Again the Spirit of the Lord prophesies: “Who is the one who wishes to live forever? Let that person listen carefully to the voice of My Servant.”
Textual & reception notes
9:2 Text: The Spirit of the Lord is explicitly the prophetic speaker. The promised life is connected to attentive hearing of His Servant’s voice; no precise source for the whole composite saying is invented. Reception: No later section-specific reception verified in this review.
9:3
Greek–English: Literal-Smooth (Saints Priority)
9:3 Again He says: “Hear, heaven, and give ear, earth, because the Lord has spoken these things as a testimony.” Again He says: “Hear the word of the Lord, rulers of this people.” Again He says: “Hear, children, the voice of one crying in the wilderness.” Thus He circumcised our hearing so that we, hearing the word, might believe.
Textual & reception notes
9:3 Text: Heaven, earth, rulers, and children are addressed in sequence. The conclusion makes circumcised hearing the condition for receiving the word in faith, rather than a physical procedure on ears. Reception: No later section-specific reception verified in this review.
9:4
Greek–English: Literal-Smooth (Saints Priority)
9:4 But the circumcision in which they trust has also been abolished, for He said that circumcision should not be of the flesh. Yet they transgressed, because an evil angel instructed them.
Textual & reception notes
9:4 Text: The assertion that an evil angel instructed the other people is Barnabas’s own polemic. The translator retains both the abolition claim and its attributed explanation without endorsing them as historical findings. Reception: No later section-specific reception verified in this review.
9:5
Greek–English: Literal-Smooth (Saints Priority)
9:5 He says to them: “Thus says the Lord your God”—here I find a commandment—“Do not sow among thorns; be circumcised for your Lord.” And what does He say? “Circumcise the hardness of your heart, and do not harden your neck.” Hear again: “Look,” says the Lord, “all the nations are uncircumcised in foreskin, but this people is uncircumcised in heart.”
Textual & reception notes
9:5 Text: The sayings distinguish foreskin, hardness of heart, and stiffened neck. The parenthetical “here I find a commandment” is the author’s comment within his sequence of quotations. Reception: No later section-specific reception verified in this review.
9:6
Greek–English: Literal-Smooth (Saints Priority)
9:6 But you will say: “Yet the people have been circumcised as a seal.” So have every Syrian and Arab and all the priests of idols. Do they, then, belong to their covenant too? The Egyptians also practice circumcision.
Textual & reception notes
9:6 Text: Circumcision as a seal is raised as an objection. The writer answers with claims about other circumcised peoples; these are retained as his ancient generalizations, not independently verified ethnographic statements. Reception: No later section-specific reception verified in this review.
9:7
Greek–English: Literal-Smooth (Saints Priority)
9:7 Learn fully about everything, children of love: Abraham, who first introduced circumcision, circumcised while looking ahead in the Spirit to Jesus, having received the teachings of three letters.
Textual & reception notes
9:7 Text: Abraham’s foreknowledge is expressly “in the Spirit” and directed toward Jesus. The three letters refer to the numerical exposition in 9:8, not three unmentioned written commandments. Reception: No later section-specific reception verified in this review.
9:8
Greek–English: Literal-Smooth (Saints Priority)
9:8 For it says: “Abraham circumcised eighteen and three hundred men from his household.” What knowledge, then, was given to him? Learn that it says the eighteen first and, after a pause, the three hundred. Eighteen is iota, ten, and eta, eight: you have Jesus. Because the cross was to have grace in the letter tau, it also says three hundred. Thus it indicates Jesus by the two letters and the cross by the one.
Textual & reception notes
9:8 Text: The interpretation uses Greek numeral letters: Ι is ten, Η eight, and Τ three hundred. ΙΗ begins Iēsous, while Τ resembles the cross. Barnabas links the household number with circumcision; the separate Genesis narratives are not rewritten to match that combination. Reception: R5.
9:9
Greek–English: Literal-Smooth (Saints Priority)
9:9 The One who placed within us the deeply rooted gift of His teaching knows. No one has learned a more authentic word from me; but I know that you are worthy.
Textual & reception notes
9:9 Text: The divine giver of teaching is invoked as witness, followed by the writer’s confidence in the readers. The statement concerns this unusually valued instruction, not a claim that every reader has reached identical understanding. Reception: No later section-specific reception verified in this review.