An alternative theory of the history of Christianity
Barnabas and the Eusebian fiction postulate
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Barnabas

BARNABAS: (no dates given): Saint, a Jew; styled an
Apostle, and variously a Bishop, and wholly "traditional." "Though
nothing is recorded of Barnabas for some years, he evidently
acquired a high position in the Church"; for "a rather late
tradition recorded by Clement of Alexandria and Eusebius -- [over
200 years later] -- says he was one of the Seventy Disciples; but
Acts (iv, 36-37)" indicates the contrary. "Various traditions
represent him as the first Bishop of Milan, as preaching at
Alexandria and at Rome, whose fourth Bishop, St. Clement, he is
said to have converted, and as having suffered martyrdom in Cyprus.
The traditions are all late and untrustworthy. He is credited by
Tertullian (probably falsely) with the authorship of the Epistle to
the Hebrews, and the so-called Epistle attributed to him." (CE. ii,
300, 301.) Saint Barnabas, or his clerical counterfeiter, had some
queer notions of natural history. Expounding the reasons why Moses
banned certain animals as "unclean" and unfit for "Kosher" food,
the Saintly writer says: that Moses banned the hare, "Because the
hare multiplies, year by year, the places of its conception; for as
many years as it lives, so many it has"; and the hyena, "Wherefore?
Because that animal annually changes its sex, and is at one time
male, and at another female"; and the weasel, "For this animal
conceives by the mouth." (Epist. Barnabas, Ch. x,; ANF. i, 143.)

Perhaps from this, other holy Fathers derived the analogous idea,
to save the rather imperiled virginity of "the proliferous but ever
Virgin mother of God," Mary, that she "per aurem concepit --
conceived through her ear" -- as sung in the sacred Hymn of the
Church:

          "Gaude Virgo, mater Christi,
               Quae per aurem concepisti,
                    Gabriels nuntio."
                    (Lecky, Rationalism in Europe, 1, p. 212.)

     Thus we have, in CE. (supra) several Fathers imputed as liars,
and a suspicion suggested as to Paul's inspired Epistle to the
Hebrews (which is another forgery), and the admission of a forged
Epistle of Saint Barnabas. Poor Church of Christ!

-- extracted from Joseph Wheless,
"FORGERY IN CHRISTIANITY", 1930

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