Prof. Hackett bears the following testimony:—
“The letter still extant, which was known as that of Barnabas even in the second century, cannot be defended as genuine.”[473]
Mr. Milner speaks of the reputed epistle of Barnabas as follows:—
“It is a great injury to him to apprehend the epistle, which goes by his name, to be his.”[474]
Kitto speaks of this production as,
“The so-called epistle of Barnabas, probably a forgery of the second century.”[475]
Says the Encyclopedia of Religious Knowledge, speaking of the Barnabas of the New Testament:—
“He could not be the author of a work so full of forced allegories, extravagant and unwarrantable explications of Scripture, together with stories concerning beasts, and such like conceits, as make up the first part of this epistle.”[476]
Eusebius, the earliest of church historians, places this epistle in the catalogue of spurious books. Thus he says:—