Note 134 — Chapter XI

Ecclesiastical history and tradition tell us more about Barnabas and Cyprus. They represent Barnabas as the Apostle of the Church of Cyprus. This idea played a prominent part in the fifth century. The ancient connection between Antioch and Cyprus was then kept up, and the patriarchs of Antioch wished to subject the Archbishop and Bishops of Cyprus to their rule. The Seventh Session of the Great Council of Ephesus, which dealt with the Nestorian controversy, was engaged with this question of Cyprus. The session was held on July 31st, 431. The Cypriote bishops claimed that they had been free from the dominion of Antioch back to apostolic times, and the Council confirmed their freedom: see Mansi's Councils, iv., 1465-1470; Hefele's Councils (T. & T. Clark's translation), vol. ii., p. 72. Forty years later the same claim was advanced by the celebrated Peter the Fuller, Patriarch of Antioch, and resisted by Anthemius, Bishop of Salamis or Constantia. The bishops of Cyprus were again successful, owing to the timely discovery of the body of Barnabas lying in a tomb with a copy of the Gospel of St. Matthew upon his heart, which, according to the opinion of the times, settled the point in dispute: see Anthemius in the Dict. Christ. Biog., vol. i., p. 118. Cave, in his Apostolici, or Lives of the Fathers, pp. 33-43, diligently collects every scrap of information about St. Barnabas. An early tradition found in the Clementine Recognitions, lib. i., cap. 7, and dating from about A.D. 200, makes him the first apostle to preach in Rome, preceding St. Peter himself, against which theory as trenching on St. Peter's prerogatives Cardinal Baronius disputes very vigorously in his Annals, A.D. 51, lii.-liv.; see also Dr. Salmon on Clementine Literature in the Dict. Christ. Biog., i., 568.