spiritual, a perfect temple unto God” (iv. 11); and that not only by theoretic insight, but also by practical wisdom of life. In order to enforce this moral, he passes to “another sort of gnosis and instruction” (xviii. i), viz. the precepts of the “Two Ways,” cited in a slightly different form from that found in the first part of the Teaching of the Apostles. The modifications, however, are all in a more spiritual direction, in keeping with the genuinely evangelic spirit which underlies and pervades even the allegorical ingenuities of the epistle.
Its opening shows it to have been addressed to a Church, or rather a group of Churches, recently visited by the writer, who, while not wishing to write as an authoritative “teacher” so much as one who has come to love them as a friend (i. 8, cf. ix. 9), yet belongs to the class of “teachers” with a recognized spiritual gift (charisma), referred to e.g. in the Didachē. He evidently feels in a position to give his gnosis with some claim to a deferential hearing. This being so, the epistle was probably written, not to Alexandria, but rather by a “teacher” of the Alexandrine Church to some body of Christians in Lower Egypt among whom he had recently been visiting. This would explain the absence of specific address, so that it appears as in form a “general epistle,” as Origen styles it. Its date has been much debated. But Lightfoot’s reading of the apocalyptic passage in ch. iv.—with a slight modification suggested by Sir W. M. Ramsay—is really conclusive for the reign of Vespasian (A.D. 70–79). The main counter-view, in favour of a date about A.D. 130, can give no natural account of this passage, while it misconstrues the reference in ch. xvi. to the building of the spiritual temple, the Christian Church. Thus this epistle is the earliest of the Apostolic Fathers, and as such of special interest. Its central problem, the relation of Judaism and Christianity—of the Old and the New forms of a Covenant which, as Divine, must in a sense abide the same—was one which gave the early Church much trouble; nor, in absence of a due theory of the education of the race by gradual development, was it able to solve it satisfactorily.
Literature.—Besides collected editions of the Apostolic Fathers, see O. Braunsberger, Der Apostel Barnabas, ... u. der ihm beigelegte Brief (Mainz, 1876); W. Cunningham, Epistle of Barnabas (1877); sections in J. Donaldson, The Apostolic Fathers; E. Reuss, Théologie chrétienne, vol. ii., and in M. von Engelhardt, Das Christenthum Justins des Martyrers; and Lightfoot’s fragmentary essay in his Clement of Rome, ii. 503-512. See also Apocryphal Literature, section “New Testament.”
Gospel of Barnabas.—We read in antiquity, e.g. in the Decretum Gelasii, of an apocryphal Gospel of Barnabas (see Apocryphal Literature), but we have no knowledge of its contents. There exists, however, in a single MS. in Italian a longish gospel with this title, written from a Mahommedan standpoint, but probably embodying materials partly Gnostic in character and origin. The Italian MS. was found by the Deist, John Toland, in a private collection at Amsterdam (see his Nazarenus, 1718); subsequently it came into the possession of Prince Eugene of Savoy, and finally was obtained with Eugene’s library by the imperial library at Vienna. It has been edited, with an English translation (1907) by (Rev.) Lonsdale and Laura Ragg, who hold that it was the work of a Christian renegade to Mahommedanism about the 13th-16th century. See also preliminary notice in the Journal of Theol. Studies, vi. 424 ff. The old view held by Toland and others that the Italian was a translation from the Arabic is demonstrably wrong. The Arabic marginal notes are apparently partly pious ejaculations, partly notes for the aid of Arabic students. The work is highly imaginative and often grotesque, but it is pervaded by an unusually high ethical enthusiasm. (J. V. B.)
BARNACLE, a name applied to Crustacea of the division Cirripedia or Thyrostraca. Originally, the name was given to the stalked barnacles (Lepadidae of C. Darwin), which attach themselves in great numbers to drift-wood and other objects floating in the sea and are one of the chief agents in the fouling of ships’ bottoms during long voyages. The sessile barnacles (Balanidae of Darwin) or “acorn-shells” are found in myriads, encrusting the rocks between tide-marks on all coasts. One of the most extraordinary and persistent myths of medieval natural history, dating back to the 12th century at least, was the cause of transferring to these organisms the name of the barnack or bernacle goose (Bernicla branta). This bird is a winter visitor to Britain, and its Arctic nesting-places being then unknown, it was fabled to originate within the shell-like fruit of a tree growing by the sea-shore. In some variants of the story this shell is said to grow as a kind of mushroom on rotting timber in the sea, and is obviously one of the barnacles of the genus Lepas.
|
| 1. Scalpellum rostratum, Darwin, Philippine Islands. 2. Pollicipes cornucopiae, Leach, European seas. 3. Tubicinella trachealis, Shaw, attached to whales. 4. Acasta sulcata, Lamk., in sponges, New South Wales; (4′), tergum; (4″), scutum. 5. Balanus tintinnabulum, Linn., Atlantic. 5′. Section of Balanus, Linn. 6. Coronula diadema, Linn., attached to whales. |
Even after the scientific study of zoology had replaced the fabulous tales of medieval writers, it was a long time before the true affinities of the barnacles were appreciated, and they were at first classed with the Mollusca, some of which they closely resemble in external appearance. It was not till Vaughan Thompson demonstrated, in 1830, their development from a free-swimming and typically Crustacean larva that it came to be recognized that, in Huxley’s graphic phrase, “a barnacle may be said to be a Crustacean fixed by its head and kicking the food into its mouth with its legs.” For a systematic account of the barnacles and their allies, see the article Thyrostraca. (W. T. Ca.)
BARNARD, LADY ANNE (1750–1825), author of the ballad “Auld Robin Gray,” the eldest daughter of James Lindsay, 5th earl of Balcarres, was born at Balcarres House, Fife, on the 12th of December 1750. She was married in 1793 to Andrew Barnard, a son of the bishop of Limerick, for whom she obtained from Henry Dundas (1st Viscount Melville) an appointment as colonial secretary at the Cape of Good Hope. Thither the Barnards went in March 1797, Lady Anne remaining at the Cape until January 1802. A remarkable series of letters written by Lady Anne thence to Dundas, then secretary for war and the colonies, was published in 1901 under the title South Africa a Century Ago. In 1806, on the reconquest of the Cape by the British, Barnard was reappointed colonial secretary, but Lady Anne did not accompany him thither, where he died in 1807. The rest of her life was passed in London, where she died on the 6th of May 1825. “Auld Robin Gray” was written by her in 1772, to music by the Rev. William Leeves (1748–1828), as he admitted in 1812. It was published anonymously in 1783, Lady Anne only acknowledging the authorship of the words two years before her death in a letter to Sir Walter Scott, who subsequently edited it for the Bannatyne Club with two continuations.
See the memoir by W. H. Wilkins, together with the original text of “Auld Robin Gray,” prefixed to South Africa a Century Ago.
BARNARD, FREDERICK AUGUSTUS PORTER (1809–1889), American scientist and educationalist, was born in Sheffield, Massachusetts, on the 5th of May 1809. In 1828 he graduated, second on the honour list, at Yale. He was then in turn a tutor at Yale, a teacher (1831–1832) in the American Asylum for the
