Hypocrite: Who is a Hypocrite?

On the Sabbath day when Jesus entered into the Temple and began to teach the people, the people ran together to the Temple with the high priest and priests, who drew near to Jesus, saying: "O master, it has been said to us that you say evil of us; therefore beware lest some evil befall you."

Jesus said: "I only speak evil of the Hypocrites; therefore if you be hypocrites, then it against you."

Then they said: "Who is a Hypocrite? Tell us plainly."

Jesus said: "He who does a good thing in order that men may see him, even he is a hypocrite, for as much as his work penetrates not the heart which men cannot see, and so leaves therein every unclean thought and every filthy lust. Know you who is hypocrite? He who with his tongue serves God, but with his heart serves men.

O wretched man! for dying he loses all his reward. For on this matter says the prophet David: "Put not your confidence in princes, [nor] in the children of men, in whom is no salvation; for at death their thoughts perish": no, before death they find themselves deprived of reward, for "man is," as said Job the prophet of God, "unstable, so that he never continues in one stay."

So that if today he praises you, tomorrow he will abuse you, and if today he wills to reward you, tomorrow he will be fain to despoil you. Woe, then, to the hypocrites, because their reward is vain. As God lives, in whose presence I stand, the hypocrite is a robber and commits sacrilege, inasmuch as he makes use of the Law to appear good, and thieves the honour of God, to whom alone pertains praise and honour for ever.

Furthermore I say to you, that the hypocrite has not faith, for as much as if he believed that God sees all and with terrible judgment would punish wickedness, he would purify his heart, which, because he has not faith, he keeps full of iniquity.

Truly I say to you, that the hypocrite is as a sepulchre, that [on the outside] is white, but within is full of corruption and worms. So then if you, O priests, do the service of God because God has created you and asks it of you, I speak not against you, for you are servants of God; but if you do all for gain, and so buy and sell in the Temple as in a market-place, not regarding that the Temple of God is a house of prayer and not of merchandise, which you convert into a cave of robbers: if you do all to please men, and have put God out of your mind; then cry I against you that you are sons of the devil, and not sons of Abraham, who left his father's house for love of God, and was willing to slay his own son. Woe to you, priests and doctors, if you be such, for God will take away from you the priesthood!" .

Again spoke Jesus, saying: "I set before you an example. There was a householder who planted a vineyard, and made a hedge for it in order that it should not be trampled down of beasts. And in the midst of it he built a press for the wine, and thereupon let it out to husbandman.

Whereupon, when the time was come to collect the wine he sent his servants; whom when the husbandman saw, they stoned some and burned some, and others they ripped open with a knife. And this they did many times. Tell me, what will the lord of the vineyard do to the husbandmen"

Every one answered: "In evil wise will he make them to perish, and his vineyard will he give to other husbandman."

Therefore said Jesus: "Know you not that the vineyard is the House of Israel, and the husbandman are the people of Judah and Jerusalem? Woe to you; for God is wroth with you, having ripped open so many prophets of God; so that at the time of Ahab; there was not found one to bury the holy ones of God!"

And when he had said this the chief priests wished to seize him, but they feared the common people, which magnified him. Then Jesus, seeing a woman who from her birth had remained with her head bent toward the ground, said: "Raise your head, O woman, in the name of our God, in order that these may know that I speak truth, and that he wills that I announce it."

Then the woman raised herself up whole, magnifying God. The chief of the priests cried out, saying: "This man is not sent of God, seeing he keeps not the Sabbath; for today he has healed an infirm person."

Jesus answered: "Now tell me, is it not lawful to speak on the Sabbath day, and to make prayer for the salvation of others? And who is there among you who, if on the Sabbath his ass or his ox fell into the ditch, would not pull him out on the Sabbath? Assuredly none. And shall I then have broken the Sabbath day by having given health to a daughter of Israel?

Surely, here is known your hypocrisy! Oh, how many are there today that fear the smiting of a straw in another's eye, while a beam is ready to cut off their own head! Oh, how many there are that fear an ant, but reck not of an elephant!"

And saying this, Jesus went forth from the Temple. And the priests chafed with rage among themselves, because they failed to seize him and to do evil to him as their fathers have done against the holy ones of God.

The End.
Not Yet Verified.

Source: Gospel of Barnabas.