Red-Letter Day
Apostle & Encourager
June 11
also known as Barnabas, Joseph Barnabas, Son of Encouragement, Joses
Barnabas was a Levite of Cyprus, not one of the original Twelve, whose gift for encouragement made him one of the most important men in the early church. The apostles gave him his name, which means "son of encouragement," and he earned it: he gave away his property, he vouched for the convert Saul when everyone else was afraid of him, and he gave a second chance to the young John Mark after others had given up on him. His feast is June 11.
British (Received Pronunciation): Theodorus /ˌθiːəˈdɔːrəs/
Barnabas was a Levite from the island of Cyprus, and his name was not always Barnabas. He was born Joseph, and it was the apostles who renamed him, because everything they saw in him pointed the same way: they called him Barnabas, which means son of encouragement. He earned the name at once. Where others held on to what they had, Joseph the Levite sold a field that belonged to him and laid the money at the apostles' feet, and from that first act to his last he spent himself building other people up.
His bravest act of encouragement was a risk no one else would take. The convert Saul of Tarsus had come to Jerusalem, the same Saul who had hunted Christians and stood by at the stoning of Stephen, and the disciples wanted nothing to do with him: they were all afraid of him, and could not believe he was really one of them. One man crossed the room. Barnabas took him and brought him to the apostles and told them how Saul had seen the Lord on the road and had preached boldly in his name. The whole future of the church turned on that introduction. Without Barnabas vouching for him, the man we know as the Apostle Paul might have been left standing outside the door.
Barnabas kept handing his own standing to other people. When the church at Antioch began to grow, the apostles sent Barnabas to lead it, and rather than keep the work for himself he went and found Saul and brought him in to share it. They taught there together for a year, and in Antioch the disciples were first called Christians. They went out together on the first missionary journey through Cyprus and Asia Minor; at Lystra the crowd took them for gods come down, and tellingly it was the older man they took for the chief of the gods, for Barnabas they called Zeus, and Paul, Hermes, because he was the chief speaker. Then the partnership broke. There was a young man named John Mark who had deserted them once on the road, and when Paul refused to take him again, Barnabas would not give up on him; the disagreement was so sharp that the two friends parted, and Barnabas sailed off to Cyprus with Mark to give him another chance.
It looked, at the time, like a sad ending, two great men quarreling over a third. But the encourager was proved right. Years later, near the end of his life, Paul sent for the very man he had once rejected: Get Mark and bring him with you, for he is very useful to me. The young man Barnabas refused to abandon became useful to the apostle who had abandoned him, and the church received a Gospel under Mark's name. Tradition says Barnabas went home to Cyprus and died a martyr there, far from the center of things. He had spent his whole life giving his place away to others, and the church he encouraged into being still keeps his name, the son of encouragement who believed in people before they had earned it.
How we know Barnabas is almost entirely from the Acts of the Apostles, where Luke is the primary witness, supplemented by a few passing mentions in Paul's own letters, which confirm that Barnabas was a real co-worker and that Mark was his cousin. He is called an apostle in the wider sense of a commissioned missionary rather than as one of the Twelve. Everything beyond the New Testament comes from later tradition and should be read as such. His martyrdom by stoning at Salamis on Cyprus is told in the apocryphal Acts of Barnabas, a work of about the fifth century; the discovery of his relics there in 488, with a copy of Matthew's Gospel on his breast, is reported by the sixth-century historian Theodorus Lector and was used by the Church of Cyprus to defend its independence. One ancient writing carries his name and has a real claim on the church's memory: the Epistle of Barnabas, an early Christian letter of perhaps the late first or early second century. It was honored in the ancient church. Clement of Alexandria quoted it as the words of the apostle Barnabas, Origen called it a catholic epistle, and it stands after the Book of Revelation in the fourth-century Codex Sinaiticus, copied in among the Scriptures themselves. Whether the apostle's own hand wrote it is uncertain. Eusebius placed it among the disputed books, and most modern scholars assign it to an unknown teacher of the generation after the apostles; but many of the fathers received it with honor, and it remains a precious early witness whether or not it is his. The much later Gospel of Barnabas is a separate matter, a medieval work with no genuine claim on him at all.
Barnabas is honored as an apostle across the church, East and West, with a red-letter feast on June 11 and the liturgical color red, the color of the apostles and martyrs. The Church of Cyprus venerates him as its founder and first leader, and the tradition of his martyrdom on the island, burial with Matthew's Gospel, and the rediscovery of his tomb is the charter of Cypriot Christianity; it was on that basis that Cyprus won recognition as an independent church. In art he is often shown as an older, bearded apostle, sometimes holding the Gospel of Matthew or the olive branch. The collect appointed for his day asks that the church may follow the example of one who sought not his own renown but the good of others, which is the truest summary of the man: the saint whose whole vocation was to make room for somebody else.
Further reading. Barnabas has no early biography of his own; he is known through the Acts of the Apostles, and the best companions are sound, readable commentaries on Acts. John R. W. Stott, The Message of Acts (Bible Speaks Today, rev. 2020), is a warm, accessible exposition from a leading evangelical Anglican; Eckhard J. Schnabel, Acts (Zondervan Exegetical Commentary, 2012), gives fuller historical and geographical detail for the Cyprus and Galatia missions.
Online resources. The Epistle of Barnabas (anonymous, second century) and the apocryphal Acts of Barnabas are both in the public domain at earlychristianwritings.com and in the Ante-Nicene Fathers at New Advent and the Christian Classics Ethereal Library.
Barnabas is as much to say as the son of him that comes, or the son of consolation, or the son of a prophet, or a son concluding. He is four times said a son by four manners of expositions, he is said son in scripture by reason of generation, of erudition, of imitation, and of adoption. He was regenerate of Jesu Christ by baptism, and he was taught by the gospel and followed him by martyrdom, and adopted by heavenly reward, and this was touching himself. As touching others he was coming, comforting, prophesying and concluding. Coming, in running and preaching over all, and that appears for he was fellow of S. Paul. Comforting poor people and desolate, to poor people in giving alms, to desolate in sending epistles in the name of the apostles. Prophesying for he flowered by the spirit of prophecy. In concluding, for he concluded a great multitude of people and converted them to the faith, as it appears when he was sent to Antioch. And that says the book called the Acts of the Apostles. As to the first he was a man and manly, to the second good; as to the third, full of the Holy Ghost, and as to the fourth, true. His passion Bede compiled out of Greek into Latin.
Of S. Barnabas the Apostle.
S. Barnabas was a deacon, and was born in Cyprus, and was one of the seventy-two disciples of our Lord, and is greatly praised in the history of the Acts of the Apostles of many good things that were in him, for he was right well informed and ordinate, as well to himself as to God and to his neighbour. He was well ordinate in himself after three virtues that be in the soul, that is to say reason, desire, and strength; he had reason illumined with the clearness of very knowledge, hereof is said in the Acts of the Apostles, the thirteenth chapter. It is said that there were in the church of Antioch doctors, prophets and great masters in holy scripture among whom were Barnabas, Simon, and many other great clerks, yet had he desire well ordinate and expurged them from the dust of all worldly affection, and thereof is found in the Acts of Apostles the fourth chapter, that he sold a field that he had, and the value and price thereof he laid at the feet of the apostles. And the gloss says: S. Barnabas showed to us herein that we ought leave the things that men should not put thereon their desire ne their heart, and taught us to despise gold and silver, by that that he laid the silver at the feet of the apostles, yet had he the virtue of the soul which is called strength, well affrmed with prowess of patience, and that may we see on the great things and high that he emprised, and on the great penances that he did, and on the great torments and pains that he suffered. Great things then he emprised, and that may we see when he took upon him to convert so great a city as was Antioch. For when S. Paul came into Jerusalem anon after his conversion, and would accompany him with the disciples, they fled all away, like sheep do from wolves, but Barnabas went anon to him, and took and brought him in to the company of the apostles. After, he enforced his body with great penances that he did, for he tormented it with aspre and hard fastings, yet was S. Barnabas a man enforced to suffer pains and torments; for he and S. Paul abandoned their lives overall for the love of our Lord Jesu Christ. Secondly, he was ordained as touching to God in bearing, authority, majesty, and bounty. He bare honour and reverence unto the great authority of God, after that we find in the Acts of the Apostles the thirteenth chapter, when the Holy Ghost said: Take you to me apart, Barnabas and Paul, for to do the office that I have chosen them to. Yet S. Barnabas bare honour to the great majesty of God, for when there should be done reverence to him and sacrifice as to a God, and was called Jupiter as he that went before, and they called Paul, Mercury, as a fair and wise speaker. Anon Barnabas and Paul rent and tare their coats, and cried all on high: You people, what do you? We be mortal as you be, which warn you to turn and convert to the very God living, Jesu Christ. After, S. Barnabas bare reverence to the bounty of God, after that is found in the Acts of Apostles the fifteenth chapter. Some converts of the Jews would minish the bounty of the grace of God, and said that this grace that our Lord had done in his passion sufficed not to save us without circumcision. Against this error S. Paul and Barnabas withstood vigorously, and showed to them appertly that the grace and bounty that God has done is sufficient, without the law, to our salvation. After they sent to the apostles this question, the which they sent anon through the world in epistles against this foolish error. After, S. Barnabas was right strongly well ordained against his neighbours, for all them that were committed to his cure he nourished and fed, in word, in example and in benefits. In word, for he pronounced to them the holy word of God and the gospel. Hereof is said in the Acts of the Apostles, that Paul and Barnabas abode in Antioch preaching the word of God. That may be seen by the great multitude of people that he converted in the city of Antioch, for they converted so much people there, that the disciples lost their special name and were called christian men as the other. Yet nourished he them that he had charge of by good ensample, for his life was to all them that saw him as a mirror of holiness and the exemplar of all religion. For he was in all his works noble and hardy, and well embellished of all good works, and was full of the Holy Ghost, and enlumined and light in the faith of our Lord. All these four things be touched of him in the Acts of the Apostles, and yet nourishes he them by benefits in two manners, that is in alms temporal, is administering to the poor their necessity, and in other alms spiritual, in forgiving all rancour and evil will. The first alms did S. Barnabas, for he bare to such as were in right great poverty and misery, that as was needful for them to live, for after that we find in the Acts of the Apostles, there was a great famine in the time of Claudius the emperor, which famine had Agabus prophesied, and because the disciples that would return to their brethren into Judea, sent unto the most ancient their alms by the hands of Barnabas and Paul. The second alms did S. Barnabas when he pardoned his anger to John, surnamed Mark. For when the said John, which was one of the disciples, was departed from the company of Barnabas and of Paul, he repented him, and would return to them, and Barnabas forgave it him and took him again to his disciple, but Paul would not receive him with him; nevertheless that which was done between them both was by good intention, for in this that Barnabas took him again, we may see the sweetness of his pity, and in this that S. Paul would not receive him, is showed the great savour of right that was in him, after that the gloss says, Acts xv., because this John had been tofore the master of the law to defend the law of Jesu Christ, and had not contained him vigorously for to repress them, but had been negligent. For this reason S. Paul would not accord to receive him in to the company of the other. Nevertheless this departing that John was thus departed from the company of S. Paul and from the other, was for no vice that was in him, but for the sharpness and inspiring of the Holy Ghost, to the end that they might preach in divers places; after that it happed after. For when Barnabas was on a time in the city of Iconium, a man with a clear shining visage appeared by night to this John aforesaid, his cousin, and said to him thus: John, have in you no doubtance, but be strong and vigorous, for from henceforth you shall no more be called John, but you shall be called right high enhanced. And when he had told this to his cousin S. Barnabas, he answered and said to him: Keep you well that you tell this vision to no man, for in the same form he appeared to me that night after.
When S. Barnabas and S. Paul had long preached in the city of Antioch, the angel of God appeared to S. Paul and said to him: Go hastily in to Jerusalem, for you shall find there some of the brethren that abide you. Then Barnabas would go in to Cyprus to visit his friends and kin that were there, and S. Paul would go to Jerusalem; thus departed that one from that other by enticement of the Holy Ghost, that so had ordained it. And when S. Paul had showed to S. Barnabas this that the angel said, S. Barnabas answered to him: The will of God be done like as he has ordained it. I go now into Cyprus, and more hereafter shall I not see you, for there shall I end my life. Then he humbly kneeled down and fell to his feet weeping, and S. Paul, which had compassion of him, said unto him these words by consolation: Barnabas, weep no more, for our Lord will that it be so, our Lord has appeared to me this night, and has said to me: Let not ne give none empeshment to Barnabas for to go into Cyprus, for he shall there enlumine many folk and shall suffer there martyrdom. On a time that Barnabas and John issued out of Cyprus and found an enchanter named Elymas, which by his enchantment had taken away the sight from some and after given it to them again, he was much contrary to them and would not suffer them enter into the temple. After this, Barnabas saw on a day men and women, being all naked, running through the town, and made then great feast, whereof he was much angry and gave his malediction and curse to the temple, and suddenly a great part thereof fell down and slew a great part of the people. At the last S. Barnabas came into the city of Salome, but this enchanter aforesaid moved the people greatly against him, so much that the Jews came and took him and led him through the city with great shame, and would have delivered him to the judge of the city for to punish him and to put him to death. But when they heard say that a great and a puissant man was come in to the city, which was named Euseblus, and was of the lineage of the emperor Nero, the Jews had doubt that he would take him out of their hands and let him go, and therefore anon they bound a cord about his neck, and drew him out of the city, and there anon burnt him, but yet the felon Jews were not satisfied to martyr him so, for they took the bones of him and put them in a vessel of lead, and would have cast them into the sea, but John, his disciple, with two other of his disciples went by night into the place and took the holy bones and buried them in an holy place. Then, after that Sigbert says, they abode in that place unto the time of the emperor Zeno and Gelasius the pope, that was the year of our Lord five hundred. After that then, as S. Dorotheus said, they were found by the revelation of S. Barnabas himself, and were from thence translated in to another place, and S. Dorotheus says thus: Barnabas preached first at Rome of Christ. and was made bishop of Milan.
Isaiah 42:5–12Psalm 112Acts 11:19–30; 13:1–3Matthew 10:7–16
Grant, O God, that we may follow the example of your faithful servant Barnabas, who, seeking not his own renown but the well-being of your Church, gave generously of his life and substance for the relief of the poor, and went forth courageously in mission for the spread of the Gospel; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.