the Epistle about a.d. 70--73, or even earlier, but this is scarcely the view of any living critic. There are many indications in the Epistle which render such a date impossible, but we do not propose to go into the argument minutely, for it is generally admitted that, whilst there is a clear limit further back than which the Epistle cannot be set,(1) there is little or no certainty how far into the second century its composition may not reasonably be advanced. Critics are divided upon the point; a few are disposed to date the Epistle about the end of the first or beginning of the second century (2} while a still greater number assign it to the reign of Hadrian (a.d. {236} 117--138);(1) and others, not without reason, consider that it exhibits marks of a still later period.(2) It is probable that it is more or less interpolated.(3) Until the discovery of the Sinaitic MS., a portion of the "Epistle of Barnabas" was only known through an ancient Latin version, the first four and a half chapters of the Greek having been lost. The Greek text, however, is now complete, although often very corrupt. The author quotes largely from the Old Testament, and also from apocryphal works.(4) He nowhere mentions any book or writer of the New Testament, and with one asserted exception, which we shall presently examine, he quotes no passage agreeing with our Gospels. We shall refer to these, commencing at once with the most important. In the ancient Latin translation of the Epistle, the only form, as we have just said, in which until the discovery {237} of the Codex Sinaiticus the first four and a half chapters were extant, the following passage occurs: "Adtendamus ergo, ne forte, sicut scriptum est, multi vocati pauci electi inveniamur."(l) "Let us, therefore, beware lest we should be found, as it is written: Many are called, few are chosen." These words are found in our first Gospel (xxii. 14), and as the formula by which they are here introduced--"it is written," is generally understood to indicate a quotation from Holy Scripture, it was and is argued by some that here we have a passage from one of our Gospels quoted in a manner which shows that, at the time the Epistle of Barnabas was written, the "Gospel according to Matthew was already considered Holy Scripture."(3) Whilst this portion of the text existed only in the Latin version, it was argued that the "sicut scriptum est," at least, must be an interpolation, and in any case that it could not be deliberately applied, at that date, to a passage in any writings of the New Testament. On the discovery of the Sinaitic MS., however, the words were found in the Greek text in that Codex: [--Greek--]. The question, therefore, is so far modified that, however much we may suspect the Greek text of interpolation, it must be accepted as the basis of discussion that this passage, whatever its value, exists in the oldest, and indeed only (and this point must not be forgotten) complete MS. of the Greek Epistle.