Epistle of Barnabas 8.1 · Sophia Scriptura

Summary: The red heifer rite is a type of the cross.

Greek text · Lake, LCL 24:368

Τίνα δὲ δοκεῖτε τύπον εἶναι, ὅτι ἐντέταλται τῷ Ἰσραὴλ προσφέρειν δάμαλιν τοὺς ἄνδρας, ἐν οἷς εἰσὶν ἁμαρτίαι τέλειαι, καὶ σφάξαντας κατακαίειν, καὶ αἴρειν τότε τὴν σποδὸν παιδία καὶ βάλλειν εἰς ἄγγη καὶ περιτιθέναι τὸ ἔριον τὸ κόκκινον ἐπὶ ξύλον ʽἴδε πάλιν ὁ τύπος ὁ τοῦ σταυροῦ καὶ τὸ ἔριον τὸ κόκκινονʼ καὶ τὸ ὕσσωπον, καὶ οὕτως ῥαντίζειν τὰ παιδία καθʼ ἕνα τὸν λαόν, ἵνα ἁγνίζωνται ἀπὸ τῶν ἁμαρτιῶν;

English · Claude translation

And what do you think is the type in this, that Israel was commanded that men in whom sins are complete should offer a heifer, and slaughter and burn it, and that then children should take the ashes and put them into vessels, and tie the scarlet wool and the hyssop on a stick (see again the type of the cross and the scarlet wool), and so the children should sprinkle the people one by one, so that they might be purified from their sins?

About this passage

Source

Lake, LCL 24:368 · Kirsopp Lake, ed. and trans., The Apostolic Fathers, vol. 1, LCL 24 (London: Heinemann; New York: Macmillan, 1912), 340–407 · Greek text: K. Lake, The Apostolic Fathers (LCL, 1912), digitized by the Perseus Digital Library and published by the First Thousand Years of Greek project (Open Greek and Latin), CC BY-SA 4.0

Translation

Claude translation (claude-opus-5-5), 2026-09-26 · Translated by Claude from the Greek text of Lake (LCL 24, 1912); made independently of existing English translations.

Scripture

Num 19:2 · allusion, high confidence
Num 19:9 · allusion, medium confidence
Num 19:18 · allusion, medium confidence
Heb 9:13 · echo, medium confidence

Greek text · Lake, LCL 24:368

English · Claude translation

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