Note (return) — Chapter III

In the work entitled The Catholic Epistle of Barnabas, which was written probably by a Jew converted to the Christian faith, about the close of the first century, or certainly before the middle of the second22, I have searched in vain for any thing like the faintest trace of the invocation of saint or angel. The writer gives directions on the subject of prayer; he speaks of angels as the ministers of God; he speaks of the reward of the righteous at the day of judgment; but he suggests not the shadow of a supposition, that he either held the doctrine himself which the Church of Rome now holds, or was aware of its existence among Christians. In his very beautiful but incomplete summary of Christian duty [Sect. 18, 19. p. 50, 51, 52.], which he calls "The Way of Light," we perceive more than one most natural opening for reference to that doctrine, had it been familiar to his mind. In the midst indeed of his brief precepts of religious and moral obligation, he directs the Christian to seek out every day "the persons of the saints," but they are our fellow-believers on earth; those saints or holy ones, for administering to whose necessities, the Scripture assures us that God will not forget our work and labour of love [Heb. vi. 10.]: these the author bids the Christians search out daily, for the purposes of religious intercourse, and of encouragement by the word.