Epistle of Barnabas 8.3

Anonymous · Epistle of Barnabas · ca. 70–135 (often ca. 130) · place unknown · Read in context

Summary: The sprinkling children are the twelve apostles.

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Greek text · Lake, LCL 24:368

οἱ ῥαντίζοντες παῖδες οἱ εὐαγγελισάμενοι ἡμῖν τὴν ἄφεσιν τῶν ἁμαρτιῶν καὶ τὸν ἁγνισμὸν τῆς καρδίας, οἷς ἔδωκεν τοῦ εὐαγγελίου τὴν ἐξουσίαν ʽοὖσιν δεκάδυο εἰς μαρτύριον τῶν φυλῶν ὅτι δεκάδυο φυλαὶ τοῦ Ἰσραήλʼ, εἰς τὸ κηρύσσειν.

English · Claude translation

The children who sprinkle are those who preached to us the forgiveness of sins and the purification of the heart, to whom he gave authority over the gospel to preach (they were twelve, as a testimony to the tribes, because there are twelve tribes of Israel).

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.

Cite this passage

Barn. 8.3 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/barnabas/8/3/).

Plain text

Barn. 8.3 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/barnabas/8/3/).

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