Without this saint, Paul might not have been heard

By Tony Staley
Compass Editor

	St. Barnabas When: died c. 61 Where: Middle East What: Apostle (but not one of the Twelve) Feast: June 11

We Christians owe a big debt to St. Barnabas, though most of us probably don't know it even though we hear the reason why nearly every Sunday at Mass.

Without Barnabas, we might not have had St. Paul and, without him, we would have few Second Readings, not to mention the theology he developed as a primary shaper of Christianity.

It was Barnabas who convinced Jerusalem's Christian community to accept their former archenemy after Saul's conversion and name change.

What do we know of Barnabas? Only what the Acts of the Apostles tells us. He was a Jew, born in Cyprus and named Joseph. After converting to Christianity, he sold his property and gave the proceeds to the apostles. They named him Barnabas and invited him to live in common with the fledgling Christian community in Jerusalem.

Eventually, the community sent him to Antioch, Syria, and he invited Paul to go with him. While they were in Antioch the followers of Jesus were first called "Christians."

When Barnabas and Paul returned to Jerusalem they brought back a donation from the church at Antioch to help the Jerusalem Christians during a famine. Barnabas, and his cousin, John Mark, then joined Paul on a missionary journey to Cyprus and Perga, where John Mark left them.

Barnabas and Paul continued on to Antioch in Pisidia where strong opposition by the Jews convinced them to preach instead to the Gentiles. They moved on to Iconium and Lystra, where they were called gods, before being driven from the city, and returning to Antioch in Syria.

While they were in Syria a dispute erupted over whether non-Jewish converts to Christianity had to be circumcised before they were baptized. Paul and Barnabas took the matter to the first church council in Jerusalem, which ruled that circumcision was not required.

After they returned to Antioch with the council's verdict, Barnabas wanted to take John Mark back to the cities they had been to before. Paul objected because John Mark had left them in Perga. That led to a rift between Paul and Barnabas which found them both going their separate ways. All we know for sure after that is that Barnabas and John Mark returned to Cyprus.

Tradition says Barnabas founded the Cypriot Church and preached in Alexandria and Rome. It also says he was the Bishop of Milan (he wasn't) and that he was stoned at Salamis, an island west of Athens.

Modern scholarship has determined that the apocryphal Epistle of Barnabas, long attributed to him, was actually written between 70 and 100 by a Christian in Alexandria. Nor did he write the Gospel of Barnabas, whose author was probably an Italian Christian who became a Muslim (meaning it could not have been written before the 7th century), or the Acts of Barnabas, once attributed to John Mark, but now known to have been written in the 5th century.