Epistle of Barnabas 7:1-30

¹Understand, then, ye children of gladness, that the good Lord has foreshown all things to us, that we might know to whom we ought for everything to render thanksgiving and praise.

²If therefore the Son of God, who is Lord [of all things], and who will judge the living and the dead, suffered, that His stroke might give us life, let us believe that the Son of God could not have suffered except for our sakes.

³Moreover, when fixed to the cross, He had given Him to drink vinegar and gall.

⁴Hearken how the priests of the people gave previous indications of this.

⁵His commandment having been written, the Lord enjoined, that whosoever did not keep the fast should be put to death, because He also Himself was to offer in sacrifice for our sins the vessel of the Spirit, in order that the type established in Isaac when he was offered upon the altar might be fully accomplished.

⁶What, then, says He in the prophet?

⁷"And let them eat of the goat which is offered, with fasting, for all their sins."

⁸Attend carefully: "And let all the priests alone eat the inwards, unwashed with vinegar."

⁹Wherefore?

¹⁰Because to me, who am to offer my flesh for the sins of my new people, ye are to give gall with vinegar to drink: eat ye alone, while the people fast and mourn in sackcloth and ashes. [These things were done] that He might show that it was necessary for Him to suffer for them.

¹¹How, then, ran the commandment?

¹²Give your attention.

¹³Take two goats of goodly aspect, and similar to each other, and offer them.

¹⁴And let the priest take one as a burnt-offering for sins.

¹⁵And what should they do with the other?

¹⁶"Accursed," says He, "is the one."

¹⁷Mark how the type of Jesus now comes out.

¹⁸"And all of you spit upon it, and pierce it, and encircle its head with scarlet wool, and thus let it be driven into the wilderness."

¹⁹And when all this has been done, he who bears the goat brings it into the desert, and takes the wool off from it, and places that upon a shrub which is called Rachia, of which also we are accustomed to eat the fruits when we find them in the field.

²⁰Of this kind of shrub alone the fruits are sweet.

²¹Why then, again, is this?

²²Give good heed. [You see] "one upon the altar, and the other accursed; "and why [do you behold] the one that is accursed crowned?

²³Because they shall see Him then in that day having a scarlet robe about his body down to his feet; and they shall say, Is not this He whom we once despised, and pierced, and mocked, and crucified?

²⁴Truly this is He who then declared Himself to be the Son of God.

²⁵For how like is He to Him!

²⁶With a view to this, [He required] the goats to be of goodly aspect, and similar, that, when they see Him then coming, they may be amazed by the likeness of the goat.

²⁷Behold, then, the type of Jesus who was to suffer.

²⁸But why is it that they place the wool in the midst of thorns?

²⁹It is a type of Jesus set before the view of the Church. [They place the wool among thorns], that any one who wishes to bear it away may find it necessary to suffer much, because the thorn is formidable, and thus obtain it only as the result of suffering.

³⁰Thus also, says He, "Those who wish to behold Me, and lay hold of My kingdom, must through tribulation and suffering obtain Me."