GOSPEL OP

See also:

• BARNABAS

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 if . 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 .