Note 1 — THE “TEACHING OF THE TWELVE APOSTLES”

On a first study, we found reasons1 for deciding that the Epistle of Barnabas, which in part closely coincides with the “Teaching,” borrows from it, and not the converse. That view, though naturally opposed by many orthodox scholars, who want to date the Teaching as late as possible, was from the first, we find, put by Farrar and by Zahn, and is convincingly maintained by the American editors, though of course they take the conventional view that the document is of Christian origin. Yet its Græco-Jewish origin, we feel certain, will be plain to every open-minded reader at the first perusal. That view was maintained by the Rev. Dr. C. Taylor, of St. John’s College, Cambridge, in two lectures given at the Royal Institution in 1886; and it has been accepted by Dr. Salmon in his Introduction to the Study of the New Testament. It was admitted to be probable by the Rev. A. Gordon, in the Modern Review, July, 1884, but rejected by the American editors (1885).