Epistle of Barnabas 7

1Understand, therefore, children of gladness, that the good Lord revealed everything to us beforehand, so that we might know to whom we ought to give thanks and praise in all things. If, then, the Son of God, who is Lord and future Judge of the living and the dead, suffered so that his wound might give us life, let us believe that the Son of God could not have suffered except for our sake. Moreover, when he was crucified, he was given vinegar and gall to drink. Hear how the priests of the temple revealed this matter. Scripture contains a commandment: “Whoever does not observe the fast shall surely die.” Because the Lord was about to offer the vessel of his Spirit in his own person as a sacrifice for our sins, he commanded that the symbol given in Isaac, who was offered on the altar, should also be fulfilled. What, then, does he say in the prophet? “Let them eat from the goat that is offered during the fast for all their sins.” Pay careful attention: “Let the priests alone eat all the entrails, unwashed, with vinegar.” Why? “Since you are going to give me—who am about to offer my flesh for the sins of my new people—gall with vinegar to drink, you alone must eat, while the people fast and mourn in sackcloth and ashes.” This was to show that he must suffer at their hands. Pay attention to the commands he gave: “Take two goats, fair and alike, and offer them. Let the priest take one as a whole burnt offering for sins.” But what must they do with the other one? “The one is accursed,” he says. Notice how the symbol of Jesus is revealed. “All of you must spit on it and goad it, place scarlet wool around its head, and then let it be cast into the wilderness.” When this has been done, the one who takes the goat into the wilderness leads it away, removes the wool, and puts it on the branch called Rachia, the same plant whose shoots we are accustomed to eat when we find them in the countryside. The fruit of this briar alone is so sweet. What, then, does this mean? Pay attention. The one is at the altar, and the other is accursed. Moreover, the accursed one is crowned. For they will see him on that day wearing the long scarlet robe around his flesh, and they will say, “Is this not the one whom we once crucified, treated with contempt, and spat on? Truly, this was the one who then said that he was the Son of God.” For how is he like the goat? For this reason it says that the goats must be fair and alike, so that when they see him coming at that time, they may be astonished at his likeness to the goat. See, therefore, the symbol of Jesus who was to suffer. But what does it mean that they place the wool among the thorns? It is a symbol of Jesus set forth for the church, since whoever wished to remove the scarlet wool had to suffer many things because of the thorn’s terrible nature and, through affliction, gain mastery over it. Thus he says, “Those who desire to see me and to attain my kingdom must take hold of me through tribulation and affliction.”