St. Barnabas 8. Early Evangelist.       Last week we talked about St. Barnabas being introduced in the Acts of the Apostles as an example of charity. A couple of years will have passed before Barnabas is again named in Acts, but we can surmise what he might have been doing from the story of the early Church told in Acts.       In the chronology of Acts, the Apostles performed many healing miracles, suffered an arrest but also enjoyed a miraculous release, were re-arrested, testified before the Sanhedrin  Council, again released at the urging of Rabban Gamaliel, and continued preaching undaunted ( Ac 5:12-42 ). The first Deacons were appointed, and eventually St. Stephen the Deacon was martyred ( Ac 6-7 ), and thereafter “a great persecution arose against the Church in Jerusalem,” instigated by Saul ( Ac 8:1, 3 ).       As both Barnabas and Stephen are traditionally considered among the 70 ( Lk 10:1-20 ), they surely w...

  Barnabas 3. Disciple of Gamaliel with Saul?       It is important for us as Christians to learn from our Christian and Jewish ancestors in the faith, so we are exploring the life of St. Barnabas mentioned in the New Testament. We’ve seen the likely possibilities that St. Barnabas (Joseph) and St. Paul (Saul) were born around the same time (about 5 AD) and were trained together as disciples under Rabban Gamaliel the Elder in Jerusalem. What might their companionship have been like?        In his novel titled, The Apostle  [1], the Jewish Polish American novelist Sholem Asch (1880-1957) imagines both Joseph and Saul as hearing some of St. Peter’s preaching during the Pentecost festival, seven weeks after Jesus’ crucifixion.       These Galileans, Asch writes, typically wear “a robe of sackcloth [with] bony, protruding arms and legs, high heads thickly covered with black curls, tangled beards, flashing eyes” and speak ...

St. Barnabas 2. The Youth.       Last week we began a series on St. Barnabas. He was “a Levite” ( Ac 4:36 ), a title which includes being born of the tribe of Levi, but more specifically designating that he was of the lowest order of Levitical priesthood. The Levites were those who cared for the service of the Temple sanctuary but did not function as priests at the altar. [1]       The 1946 mystical vision of Maria Voltorta (referenced in last week’s article) also says that as a child, Barnabas’ parents, grateful to the Lord for having him, entrusted him to relatives in Jerusalem so that he might be of service at the Temple. [2] This is plausible if Barnabas’ sister Mary’s house in Jerusalem ( Ac12:12 ; Col 4:10 ) was family property during Barnabas’ childhood. Valtorta’s same vision says that while serving in the Temple, Barnabas met Rabbi Gamaliel and became “his diligent and loved disciple.”       Both ideas are consist...