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The Epistle of Barnabas is believed to have been written around AD 70-9, which places it slightly earlier than the writing of the Book of Revelation, thought to have been composed around AD 80-90. The thousand-year length of the 'seventh-day' corresponds to the Book of Revelation, which speaks of the thousand-year Kingdom of God. Another consistency between the Epistle of Barnabas and the canonical Books can be seen in the reference to Christ changing 'the sun and the moon and the stars', which essentially corresponds to Jesus' own words in Matthew 24:29. These points suggest a common and accepted terminology and allegorical understanding which existed at that time. (188:1) Within the New Testament itself there is also mention of the seventh-day rest which the believers are encouraged to reach:-- If Joshua had led them into this place of rest, God would not later on have spoken so much of another day. There must still be, therefore, a place of rest reserved for God's people, the seventh-day rest, since to reach the place of rest is to rest after your work, as God did after his. We must therefore do everything we can to reach this place of rest, or some of you might copy this example of disobedience and be lost. (Epistle to the Hebrews 4:8-11, trans.: The Jerusalem Bible) (188:2) The prophetic understanding of the seven days of creation and the seventh-day rest continued to be passed down to later thinkers. Augustine, for example, writes:-- 'And God rested on the seventh day from all His works which He had made. And God blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it; because that in it He had rested from all His work which God began to make [Gen. 2:2-3].' For we shall ourselves be the seventh day, when we shall be filled and replenished with God's blessing and sanctification. (City of God 618)
(188:3)
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