218 Dimensions of Baptism
hope of the Jews (16.2) and to hope produced in others (11.8) or with its
object specified as 'life' (1.4,6), as God (6.3), as Jesus (11.11), and as the
faith of Jesus (4.8). The fruit produced 'in its season' is eschatologically
the future 'reward' to the righteous,^44 but 'for the present' the tree pro-
duces other converts. The baptized believer becomes the instrument for the
conversion of others. The leaves of the tree are the words^45 spoken in faith
and love that produce conversion and hope in others.^46 The word spoken
through the mouth connects this passage with 16.9, where the 'mouth' is
the opening of the door of the spiritual temple.^47
The quotation in Barn. 11.9 does not correspond exactly to any known
text, so it may be a composite or an interpretative quotation.^48 There is a
longer discussion of the land in 6.8-19, which moves from the land repre-
senting humanity assumed by Christ in the incarnation to Christians (the
Church) as the new creation brought into the good land^49 to the hope for
the promised inheritance of the eschatological paradise.^50 That sequence
offers a parallel to the development in 11.9-11. The shift from 'land' to
'vessel' was easy because a [pottery] vessel was made of earth.^51 The
phrase 'vessel of the Spirit' occurs also in 7.3, where the reference is to
the body of the Son of God offered as a 'sacrifice for our sins'.^52 The
'vessel' in 11.9, however, would seem to refer to the body of those who- 'Probably the resurrection' according to Paget, The Epistle of Barnabas, p. 156.
- In the interpretation in Barn. 11.8 the singular 'leaf of the quotation in 11.6
becomes plural. Kraft, Barnabas and the Didache, p. 117, notes that b. Sukka 2 lb also
interprets 'leaf as words, namely the conversation of scholars, and compares Od. Sol.
12.2. - Faith, love, and hope appear together also in 1.4.
- Is that opening an allusion to preaching (teaching) or to a confession of faith?
- 2 Barn. 61.7 is close, but the wording can be accounted for from the canonical
references given in the translation. Prostmeier, Der Barnabasbrief, p. 427, notes other
passages that may lie behind the wording 'praised above every land'. - Tertullian, De res. 26.11-13, rebukes the Jews for considering the soil of Judaea
as holy land, whereas the land ought to be interpreted as the flesh of Christ and as those
who put on Christ, who are now holy by the indwelling of the Holy Spirit and truly
flow with milk and honey. - Prostmeier, Der Barnabasbrief pp. 258-81: the christological interpretation
(6.9), the soteriological and ecclesiological interpretation (6.10-16), and the eschato-
logical interpretation (6.17-18); Wengst, Tradition und Theologie, pp. 27-29, is similar:
Christology (6.9-10), ecclesiology (6.11-16), and eschatolgy (6.17-19). - A OKEUOS, of course, could be made of other materials, but clay was the most
common. Human beings were made from the earth—Gen. 2.7; 3.19. - Cf. Barn. 21.8 for 'vessel' as a reference to the human body.