NOTES ON THE ORIGINS OF THE GOSPEL OF BARNABAS
©Copyright, R. Blackhirst 2015
I wrote the following account of the origins of the Gospel of Barnabas many years ago after the first phase of my research. In this account I suppose that the work was constructed or compiled by Cardinal Santori. This is most likely incorrect, but these notes remain useful and join together many of the dots in the Barnabas puzzle. An annotated version of this article is available upon request.
The origins and purpose of the medieval Gospel of Barnabas has been an inpeneterable mystery for nearly four hundred years. After ten years of investigation, the present author managed to dispel a major part of the mystery by establishing the identity of the "Fra Marino" who is supposed to have stolen the Gospel of Barnabas from the "Pope's Library", and by then further unravelling some of the significance of this identification. The story of "Fra Marino" is told in a Preface prefixed to the Spanish version of the work but lacking in the Italian. The identity of this person, and why his name would be attached to such a work, as well as the exact purpose of the Preface, no less than the bizarre work it prefaces, had never been explained.
Even during the period that the Spanish version was lost, the story in the Preface was known from George Sale's celebrated introduction to the Koran. He describes the Gospel of Barnabas, known to him only in the Spanish, thus:
The book is a moderate quarto, in Spanish, written in a very legible hand, but a little damaged towards the latter end. It contains two hundred and twenty-two chapters of unequal length, and four hundred and twenty pages; and is said, in the front, to be translated from the Italian by a Mustafa de Aranda. There is a preface prefixed to it, wherein the discoverer of the original MS., who was a Christian monk, called Fra Marino, tells us that having accidentally met with a writing of Irenaeus (among others), wherein he speaks against St. Paul, alleging, for his authority, the Gospel of Barnabas, he became exceeding[ly] desirous to find this gospel; and that God, of His mercy, having made him very intimate with Pope Sixtus V, one day, as they were together in that Pope’s library, his Holiness fell asleep, and he, to employ himself, reaching down a book to read, the first he laid his hand on proved to be the very gospel he wanted: overjoyed at the discovery, he scrupled not to hide his prize in his sleeve, and on the Pope’s waking, took leave of him, carrying with him that celestial treasure, by reading of which he became a convert to Mohammedanism.
[1]Sale G. Alkoran of Muhammad, London & NY, Frederick Warne & Co., n.a., p. ix,x.
Neither Sale nor anyone else since has been able to identity "Fra Marino" and explain the notices that preface this very strange work.
The purpose of the present paper is to report on the discovery of Marino's identity and to sketch a plausible account of the Gospel of Barnabas, what it is, why it is, when, where and who, in light of the identification, as a step towards a comprehensive solution to the entire mystery. Inevitably a large amount of speculation is involved. It is unlikely that any solution to the mysteries of the Gospel of Barnabas will ever be found that is not in large measure speculative. Given the nature of the work it is also inevitable that we are dealing with a patchwork of influences. But, having established the identity of Marino, we are at least in a position to place the work in some sort of context and to start drawing up scenarios that fit the facts. No detailed argumentation will be supplied here. The objective is simply to show in one sweep exactly what the Gospel of Barnabas is and from what strange, dark corner of heresy it has been born. The Preface is the key to the work, as it always promised to be.
The "Fra Marino" who is the supposed author of the Gospel of Barnabas is Cardinal Marcantonio Colonna.[1] A Jesuit, he was trained by Felice Peretti who was later to become Pope Sixtus V. Colonna, in fact, was Peretti's protege, and when Peretti became Pope he made Colonna head of the commission to revise the Vulgate Bible. An antiquarian and manuscript collector, Colonna contributed his manuscripts to Sixtus V's refurbished Vatican library, and in 1592 was made head librarian of the Roman Catholic Church by Pope Clement VIII.
He is called "Fra Marino" because this was Peretti's familiar name for him. It refers to the Colonna ancestral stronghold at Comune di Marino about 15km south of Rome in the Castilli di Roma district.[1] A later Marcantonio Colonna was made first Duke of Marino in 1606. Marcantonio's namesake, Don Marcantonio I was famous for leading the papal fleet at the Battle of Lepanto in 1571, saving Christendom from the Turks. His victory is commemorated at Marino where a fountain (the Fountain of the Moors) stands in the square of St Barnabas, patron saint of Marino. Marino is a family name among the Colonna. Buildings at Marino are still adorned with the Colonna coat of arms.
The other people named in the Preface are all associates of Cardinal Colonna. The Preface relates that two people, a gentleman of the Ursini (Orsini)[1] family and a lady of the Colonna family, turned over heretical manuscripts to Fra Marino. These people are Fulvio Orsini[2] and Constanza Colonna di Caravaggio.[3] Orsini was a co-worker with Marcantonio. His speciality was Greek manuscripts. Sixtus V. appointed him to make a a revision of the Septuagint which he completed in 1587.
Constanza Colonna, whose husband Francesco Sforza di Carravagio had left her a widow, travelled with her two thuggish sons Muzio and Fabrizio, who are also alluded to in the Preface. She was related to Cardinal Colonna and, says the Preface, handed him heretical texts found during an inventory made of her deceased husband's belongings. The books Orsini is supposed to have surrended were errant commentaries on Old Testament prophets. The books the lady Colonna is supposed to have surrendered were a collection of Ignatian literature which, by their description, would have been of special interest to the Jesuit Colonna.
The occasion that provoked the construction of the Gospel of Barnabas came in 1592. This was two years after the death of Sixtus V. The Preface alludes to this as the two years "Fra Marino" meditated before apostacizing to Islam.[4] He found the Gospel of Barnabas during the papacy of Sixtus V, supposedly, but two years later he betrayed Christianity, gave his "celestial treasure"[5] to the Infidels and converted. Pope Innocent IV died on December 30, 1591 and the conclave to elect a new pope took place a month later in late January 1592.
The two short-lived popes between Sixtus V and this conclave had both been supporters of the Spanish King Philip II. Now Philip put his weight behind Cardinal Santorio (1532-1602), bishop of San Severina, (popularly, Santori) who went into the conclave confident of victory. During the Papacy of Sixtus V. Philip had campaigned to have Marcantonio's uncle, Ascanio Colonna, an educated Spanish-speaker, elevated to cardinal. The traditionally Ghiberline Colonna were generally pro-Spanish in Church affairs. Marcantonio had worked for Philip. Ascanio was himself half-Spanish. Santorio, therefore, believed he could count on the votes of the Colonna.
During the conclave, however, the Colonna betrayed him. The conclave was one of the most heated in history, with cardinals coming to fisticuffs. After many ballots Santori was the only candidate remaining but could not secure the necessary majority. The deciding vote came down to Ascanio Colonna who had refereed between the warring factions.
What occured next is mysterious but recorded in the archives of the conclave. As the moment to vote arrived Marcantonio walked over and handed a note to Ascanio. Ascanio read the note and immediately and emphatically declared that he would not vote for Santori. He declared that if God would not have Santori as Pope, neither would he. The contents of the note given to Ascanio by Marcantonio have never been disclosed. Whatever they were, Ascanio's mind was immediately fixed. He would not have Santori as pope. Other cardinals broke ranks.[1] Santori's support collapsed. The Italian Aldobrandini, who had stood out as a possible candidate earlier in the conclave, was elected as a compromise.
Philip II took this reversal of fortunes in his stride. It did not amount to a great set back for him. The Colonna had not turned against the Spanish but only against Santori. Most likely the note Marcantonio slipped to Ascanio contained words somehow freeing him of his obligations to Philip.[1] But Santori was understandably furious and bitter. Ambitious, he had stood for pope before and had been narrowly defeated. On this occasion he had placed himself as the lead contender. The Colonna had cheated him of the papacy. A lawyer among theologians he was normally a ruthless tactician. Marcantonio Colonna had, at the last moment, out-manouvered him with a surprise item of intelligence that had denied him the papacy. Santori counted it treachery. What had Marcantonio written to Ascanio that had so swayed him? What item of intelligence had the watchful Santori overlooked?
It is hard to imagine a character less fit to be a Vicar of Christ than Giulio Antonio Santorio (Santori). History must surely judge that whatever the Colonna were up to they cast the right vote. Devious, cruel, feared, Santori was an expert on the legalities of torture and had made a career in the Inquisition associated with that art. The focus of his work was in the Sacred Congregation for the Propogation of the Faith. Through that body he was an expert on eastern and oriental heresies being intimately involved in the imposition of Latin orthodoxy upon susceptible communities of Slavs, Armenians, Syrians, Persians and others with whom the Spanish and Portuguese traders had made contact. He was in charge of the interrogation of eastern heretics. He also worked tirelessly on the legal arguments preventing a Protestant from taking the throne of France.
His character, though, and the ambience of the politics of the times, is revealed in the fact that he had been accused of plotting to assassinate an earlier Pope, Pius IV. He was implicated in Benedetto Accolti's plot to assassinate Pius IV whom the plotters believed to be a crypto-Protestant. Santorio was arrested and tried but found innocent of all charges by Pius V, though not everyone was convinced he had not been plotting, and most people thought it was a deed of which he was at least capable. No one doubted his zeal for the faith and his ardent detestation of Protestantism. There is no doubt he had manouvred for many years to make himself pope. People were ready to believe that he would stop at little to get there.
At first, Santori looked forward to another chance at the papacy. The last two popes had been short-lived. He might get one more chance. But Aldobrandini, Clement VIII, was youthful and turned out to be long lived so Santori never had another opportunity. As it happened, the conclave of 1592 would be his last chance. The Colonna had thwarted his ambitions forever. Had he won the papacy, though, or had another Spanish pope succeeded, or other things gone his way, Santori planned to push for an inquiry into the circumstances of the Colonna about-face in the conclave of 1592. By what treachery had he been betrayed? It was plain to all in the conclave that some secret matters had passed between the Colonna. Santori the Inquisitor was intent on inquiring.
Following the conclave, in his fury, he began preparing ways to get revenge. And to defend himself now that an enemy was unexpectedly on the throne of St Peter. As a lawyer he began preparing a legal case against Colonna - and in self-defence - to say that the Colonna circle were involved in a Turkish inspired conspiracy against him. This was the secret of the Colonna, Santori believed - through them the Turks had infiltrated and influenced the conclave. In his own self-perception, the defence of Christendom lay with zealous enforcers of orthodoxy such as himself. His defeat at the conclave, therefore, was in the interests of the enemies of Christendom, specifically the Turks. The case was prepared for a scenario in which Santori could convince a pope to conduct an inquiry into the issue or empower him to investigate.
But Clement VIII, very wisely, kept a close eye on Santori and restrained him in the years that followed. He demanded that the Sacred Congregation of which Santori was president meet in Santori's premises and report twice monthly directly to the Pope. The Pope himself attended the first meeting of the Congregation, which was unprecedented, just to assert his authority over Santori. As a member of the Spanish party Santori favoured Philip's control over Catholics in remote lands. The papacy in this period was struggling to assert the need for remote churches to obey the Bishop of Rome and to avoid the impression the Church of Rome was merely an annex to a world-wide Spanish empire. We do not know exactly what moves Santori made after the conlave, but it is clear that Aldobrandini (Clement VIII) regarded him as exceedingly dangerous. The new Pope countered this by keeping Santori busy. He directed Santori's legal and liturgical skills to other causes, keeping him away from mainstream events.
Eventually Santori's ambitions waned and he was kept too busy to cause the sort of trouble and weild the sort of influence he had in the past. His hour had gone. He is remembered as a liturgist and legalist, although he was involved in the eventual execution of Henry of Navarre. He was fortunate that the assasination conspiracy charges made against him were not reinitiated. But at first he harboured deep resentment and retained the hope of proving that the Colonna were guilty of treachery. Or he was prepared to make that case if further accusations about the assasination plot were made against him.
This was the context for the construction of the extant Italian and Spanish versions of the Gospel of Barnabas, as well as the Preface. Employing his resources, perhaps the resources of Philip I almost certainly resources of the Spanish and Portuguese Persian contacts, and just as certainly resources from the Congregation of Propaganda, Santori had the Gospel of Barnabas prepared to be used as evidence against the Colonna and against Marcantonio especially.
It was not prepared in order to convince the general public of the Colonna's heresy or to besmirch their name publically but to be used as evidence in Inquisitorial trials into a charge of heresy, apostacy and treason. The production of forgeries to accompany torture was common and even accepted as legitimate if it assisted in extracting confessions. This is the nature of the extant documents. Put dramatically, they are documentation prepared as adjuncts to torture. Or at least, they are supplementary to evidence supporting a charge of apostacy and treason, torturable offences. Santori ordered such material prepared to be used against the Colonna. If nothing else, he knew others around him had betrayed him too. He needed material incriminating to Colonna to use in his own investigations into the measure of loyalty among his other supporters and to fend off attacks upon him by the new Papal regime.
A charge of apostacy would be fantastically difficult to prove, however. The Colonna, contrary to Santori's case, were renowned as defenders of Christendom against the Turks since the Battle of Lepanto. Who was going to believe that the Colonna, with their great military history, were in cahoots with the Turks? Least of all Marcantonio, namesake of the great Moor-slayer. Such a perception of the Colonna would need to be countered. This was essential to Santori's plan.
He therefore cast his incriminating project as a "Gospel of Barnabas" which had been discovered and given to the Muslims by a "Fra Marino", the allusion countering the Colonna fame exactly. "Fra Marino" alludes to Comune di Marino. It is a Gospel of Barnabas, rather than a gospel of someone else, because Barnabas is the patron saint of that place. This links it directly to the Colonna. Moreover, this "Fra Marino" is the anthithesis of his namesake. Don Marcantonio I had saved Christendom - the fountain in St Barnabas square at Comune di Marino comemorates it - but Cardinal Marnantonio had sold out Christianity to the Turks, betraying his religion and in contempt of the bravery of his great ancestor.
So too had Ascanio. He appears in the Preface as "Mustafa de Aranda" who supposedly translates the Italian work into Spanish. This is why there are two versions, Italian and Spanish, and a Preface linking them. The Italian text incriminates Marcantonio. The Spanish text incriminates Ascanio.
Santori used pre-existing works as the basis for his project and made changes to press them to his purpose. A man in his position did not need to invent an heretical document from nothing. He had an ample supply of them collected through the Inquisition and the Congregatio Propaganda Fide. For his plan he needed a Muslim work (to establish apostacy) in the name of Barnabas (to connect it to the Colonna of Marino).
It also needed to be a gospel. As the Preface reminds us, Jerome set the canon of gospels. Marcantonio had been appointed by Sixtus V to work on Jerome's text. His work gave him reason to be looking at the Vatican's collection of old gospel texts. An old gospel as opposed to some other type of literature would incriminate Colonna further. And Santori knew well that Muslims, not unlike Syrian heretics, claimed there was but one gospel not four. In this respect there were not just Moorish and Turkish traditions upon which to draw, but also Persian traditions becoming known through the anti-Turkish overtures of Abbas the Great, Shah of Persia since 1586. There were anti-Turkish allies among the Muslims. The work took shape as the long lost "Injil" of the Muslim "Prophet Isa" which the dastardly turn-coat Colonna had leaked to his friends the Turks.
For content, Santori reached for the most incriminating material he could procure. He sought out any anti-Colonna information that was about in order to place Colonna fingerprints upon the document. To shape a gospel his sources most likely included medieval vernacular diatesseron but they certainly included Islamic material from a Persian source. Abbas the Great did not formally send an embassy to the Roman pontiff until around 1600, but he began to approach the Spanish and Portuguese powers during a modernization program following the strategic ceding of Christian lands to the Turks in 1590 and had earlier contacts with the secular Catholics through Goa and the Malabar coast. Shah Abbas, it is important to understand, was hailed as the Last Imam and Mahdi by his followers, a Messianic role within Shi'ite Islam. This is the source of the Gospel of Barnabas' remarkable portrayal of Jesus prophecying an Islamic Messiah. Santori has employed accounts of the Persian Mahdi, Shah Abbas, with whom his Spanish sponsors had earlier and stronger contacts than did the Italian party, and who himself had a ferocious detestation of the Turks. This Persian Messianic material would serve as the basis for the single Colonna "Injil" of "Barnabas".
It is possible that a Persian Christian document, even a Persian diatesseron, served as the basic idea behind this "Muslim gospel", but that can only account for part of the extant work[1] The Gospel of Barnabas into which it has been transformed is a deeply and directly anti-Colonna work. The text is not independent of the Preface. They share the same agenda. The Colonna were an old family with a violent history and enemies aplenty over the centuries. This was not by any means the first time they had been involved in treachery. Santori knew he could use prior instances where the Colonna family were accused of heresy or treason for raw material. He searched for historical material to undermine the whole family reputation. In particular, he focused upon a period in the fourteenth century, the papacy of Boniface VIII. This pope, author of the notorious Unam Sanctum,[3] had been beaten and humiliated by James Colonna and died of the beating shortly afterwards. Santori had stood accused of attempting to assasinate a pope, but the Colonna had once beaten a pope to death! Again, Santori is motivated by fury and revenge as well as self-defense after losing the conclave of 1592.
The Gospel of Barnabas is largely made of materials concerning Pope Boniface VIII, the great enemy of the Colonna. There are few solid historical indicators in the Gospel of Barnabas text. The only conspicuous one is a reference to a Hundred Year Jubilee. This points quite specifically to the period 1300-1350. Pope Boniface VIII had declared a jubilee in Rome in 1300 citing a spurious convention of having hundred year jubilees in the Eternal City. Boniface had previously been humiliated by the Colonna and began a campaign to drive the family from their lands in the Lateran in Rome.
He declared the extraordinary Jubilee in 1300 specifically to raise funds for his war on the Colonna. The Colonna family, along with Saracens and Jews and those who traded with Saracens and Jews, were specifically excluded from the privileges of the Jubilee. The Jubilee was a great success and replenished the pope's coffers. He then conducted a savage assault on the Colonna and suceeded in stripping them of their lands and power. In 1303, however, the Colonna, aided by the French, had revenge. They attacked Boniface at his estate, beat and bloodied him and publicly humiliated him. He died not long afterwards.
The reference to the Hundred Year Jubilee in the text of the Gospel of Barnabas is there to point to the fouls deeds of the pope-bashing Colonna. It is also there to reinforce the association of the Colonna with Saracens. Colonna were treated as Saracens in the Hundred Year Jubilee. Only four groups of outcasts did not attend Boniface's great Jubilee of 1300: Saracens, Jews, those that trade with Saracens and Jews, and Colonna. Santori is making the point that the Colonna have been equated with Saracens before, and in that same context they beat a pope to death! He is making a case here, in fact, that the accusations he has faced of plotting to assassinate a pope is the antithesis of the truth. In fact, the pope-hating Colonna have made it against him in allusion to their alliance with the Saracens.
The notices of the Hundred Year Jubilee are not isolated. There is a generally feudal atmosphere in the text that is far more evocative of the fourteenth century than the sixteenth. This gospel is populated with knights and barons and domestic items that all suggest a period nearly three hundred years earlier than the Counter-Reformation context of the Preface. This medieval atmosphere is reinforced by extensive use of and allusions to Dante who was writing in that period. The Italian of the Gospel of Barnabas is distinctly Dantesque and recalls the whole time-frame of the first half of the fourteenth century. This all accompanies the allusion to the clash between Boniface and the Colonna around 1300 signalled by the Hundred Year Jubilee. This content of the work is Colonna-specific. The reason for this fourteenth century ambience is that Santori is signalling the great combat between Boniface and the rebellious Colonna. It is not ancient history in the late sixteenth century. The entire Reformation is fought over Unam Sanctum.
The basis for a large amount of the framework of the Gospel of Barnabas, and in some respects the key to the entire production, is found in Dante's portrayal of Boniface VIII. Some frames within the work are literally built on Dante. Dante writes of Boniface:
The chief of the new Pharisees meantime,
Waging his warfare near the Lateran,
Not with the Saracens or Jews (his foes
All Christians were, nor against Acre one
Had fought, nor traffick’d in the Soldan’s land)[1]
[1]Inferno, Canto XXVII.
This passage is the basis for the depiction of the False (New) Pharisees and the True (Old) Pharisees shaping a large amount of the Gospel of Barnabas. The False (New) Pharisees signify Boniface, who appears in the Gospel of Barnabas as the High Priest - "chief of the new Pharisees" as Dante says. The True (Old) Pharisees are those valiant Christians of the Holy Land dispossessed by the Saracens at the battle of Acre (1291) who fled in exile because hypocritical and corrupt popes fought Christians instead of Muslims. Boniface was "waging his warfare near the Lateran" against the Colonna, good Christians, instead of defending Christendom as was his duty. In the Gospel of Barnabas the True Pharisees are the Carmelites, expelled from the Holy Land after Acre. Santori has employed Carmelite material throughout. It is intended to render the work anti-Boniface VIII.
We can see Boniface VIII himself in the procession of the High Priest and his foes in chapter 91 of the Gospel of Barnabas. The allusion is to the coronation of Boniface where he and his enemies, Orsini and Colonna, walked in procession as one. The reference to the High Priest being adorned in his crown specifically alludes to changes Boniface made to the papal crown. The Biblical allusions in the passage, as in others, refer to the idea of the early fourteenth century. being the 'Babylonian Captivity'.
One of Santori's problems is that the great Dante himself helps establish the Colonna reputation. For a credible case of apostacy and treason Santori must undermine the traditional positive portrayals of the Colonna. To highlight the past crimes of the Colonna against the pope he must counter Dante. In Dante, Boniface is the enemy throughout while "his foes all Christians were". Santori's object is to show that Dante is wrong about this judgement of the Colonna. The Gospel of Barnabas quotes Dante verbatim twice.These quotes take us to Virgil's speech where Virgil proclaims he lives in a city of "false and lying gods" though he sings of Aeneas. The connection with the Colonna is intimate. The family traced their ancestry back to Aeneas. The name Ascanio means 'Aeneas'. These are Colonna fingerprints that Santori has spread throughout the text.
Most fundamentally, Dante also compares Boniface to Simon Magus the Samaritan Messiah. This is the basis for the appearance of Samaritan material in the Gospel of Barnabas text. It all alludes to this hostile depiction of Boniface VIII. Santori draws upon Samaritan materials, and especially materials concerning Simon Magus, here. This accounts for a great many things in the Gospel of Barnabas. Santori seeks to counter Dante's Colonna-friendly portrayal of Boniface as comparable to Simon Magus. The document incriminating the pope-killing Colonna, therefore, is compiled from the Samaritan and related heresies. Just as the Colonna, not Santori, were pope killers, they, not Boniface, were associated with the Simon Magus family of heretics. We can identify much of the basis of the Gospel of Barnabas in texts familiar to Inquisitors and experts on the legalities of heresy, such as this description of Simon Magus in Epiphanius, contra Heresies ii. 1-6.
And he told the Samaritans he was the Father, and the Jews he was the Son, and that in undergoing the passion he had not really done so.
Evidently, Santori has drawn on Dosithean material too and a range of heresies closely connected with Simon Magus.
The key to understanding much of the text of the medieval Gospel of Barnabas is to understand that it is based upon, but with contrary interests to, Dante's portrayal of Pope Boniface VIII. It thus contains two types of heretical material, both responding to this portrayal:
1. Anti-Boniface material in which the Carmelite escapees from Acre are shown as the true, old Pharisees, as opposed to the new, false ones, who are led by the corrupt Boniface. And
2. Samaritan material to press the charge that Colonna, not Boniface, was comparable to Simon the Samaritan
Along with Islamic material relating to Shah Abbas, the Mahdi, that is used throughout to mark the gospel for apostacy, these are the main ingredients, both of them consonant with the content and agenda of the Preface. Both once more point to Cardinal Santori as the man with the motive and the probable means. The allusions to the Colonna's clash with Boniface could only be made by Santori for the allusions depend upon the idea of "pope killers", and among those with the means only he stood accused of that.
To recap. Cardinal Santori is constructing a work for anti-Colonna purposes. In response to the events of the conclave in 1592 - bringing accusations of treachery against the Colonna, as well as defending himself against renewed accusations that he plotted to murder a pope - Santori prepared the Gospel of Barnabas. The Italian and Spanish copies implicated both Cardinals. The document itself was designed to counter what Santori felt were false portrayals of the Colonna.
Specifically, he wanted to refer to their treatment of Boniface in 1303, to their history as pope-killers, and at the same time to their long association with Saracens. Not surprisingly then, this Gospel of Barnabas which Santori was planning to present against them contains the very heresies of which Dante and others accused Boniface. The Gospel of Barnabas, in fact, vindicates Boniface's judgement. The Colonna are treacherous. They are the secret Saracens seeking to undermine the Church and Christendom. The Preface implicates Marcantonio and Ascanio in stealing and translating a heretical gospel on behalf of their Turkish friends. The Gospel itself proves that the anti-Boniface Colonna are deeply akin to Islam.
For his source materials Santori has most likely reached for the heretical texts available to him through the Congregation for the Propagation of the Faith and other heretical sources to which he was privy as Inquisitor, if not also texts stirred to the surface by the work of Marcantonio Colonna and the Vulgate revision. To make this gospel Islamic, to implicate the Colonna as Turkish spies, he has used materials gleaned from the Persians while dressing the work to seem as if the Colonna planned to publish it through their Turkish friends
As far as Dante is concerned, he is the ultimate issue behind key aspects of the project. As people of the Renaissance were aware but as many modern readers fail to appreciate, Dante's Divine Comedy was deeply indebted to Islamic sources. The final key to understanding the Gospel of Barnabas is that Santori was presenting it as the "secret source" of Dante. It has been deliberately written to appear to be a proto-Dante text. Dante was to be its verification. How could Santori possibly establish the credibility of such a document? He could claim it was the text Dante had used as background for the Divine Comedy.
Hitherto the Gospel of Barnabas has been a text without a context. Now we can establish that the agenda behind the work is first and foremost anti-Colonna. It is designed to portray the Colonna as apostates and traitors. For this reason it alludes in large measure to events in the fourteenth century. For this reason too it counters and attempts to undermine Dante. For this reason it draws on Samaritan and Simon Magus traditions. Its Islamic dimension is supplied by Persian sources in the context of the Turkish menace.
It is obvious to all readers of the Gospel of Barnabas that it is a composite work drawn together from strangely diverse elements. The mixture of elements seems unaccountable. The challenge is to find a single circumstance that accounts for them coming together. The scenario presented above, while speculative and no doubt amiss in some of its details, gives us the background and context in which the Gospel of Barnabas should be studied.