“Among the spurious must be numbered both the books called, ‘The Acts of Paul,’ and that called, ‘Pastor,’ and ‘The Revelation of Peter.’ Besides these the books called ‘The Epistle of Barnabas,’ and what are called, ‘The Institutions of the Apostles.’”[477]
Sir Wm. Domville speaks as follows:—
“But the epistle was not written by Barnabas; it was not merely unworthy of him,—it would be a disgrace to him, and what is of much more consequence, it would be a disgrace to the Christian religion, as being the production of one of the authorized teachers of that religion in the times of the apostles, which circumstance would seriously damage the evidence of its divine origin. Not being the epistle of Barnabas, the document is, as regards the Sabbath question, nothing more than the testimony of some unknown writer to the practice of Sunday observance by some Christians of some unknown community, at some uncertain period of the Christian era, with no sufficient ground for believing that period to have been the first century.”[478]
Coleman bears the following testimony:—
“The epistle of Barnabas, bearing the honored name of the companion of Paul in his missionary labors, is evidently spurious. It abounds in fabulous narratives, mystic, allegorical interpretations of the Old Testament, and fanciful conceits, and is generally agreed by the learned to be of no authority.”[479]
As a specimen of the unreasonable and absurd things contained in this epistle, the following passage is quoted:—
“Neither shalt thou eat of the hyena: that is, again, be not an adulterer; nor a corrupter of others; neither be like to such. And wherefore so? Because that creature every year changes its kind, and is sometimes male, and sometimes female.”[480]
Thus first-day historians being allowed to decide the case, we are authorized to treat this epistle as a forgery. And whoever will read its ninth chapter—for it will not bear quoting—will acknowledge the justice of this conclusion. This epistle is the only writing purporting to come from the first century except the New Testament, in which the first day is even referred to. That this furnishes no support for Sunday observance, even Mosheim acknowledges.
The next document that claims our attention is the letter of Pliny, the Roman governor of Bythinia, to the emperor Trajan. It was written about A. D. 104. He says of the Christians of his province:—