Shepherd of Hermas

HERMAS, SHEPHERD OF, one of the works represent ing the Apostolic Fathers (q.v.), a hortatory writing which "holds the mirror up" to the Church in Rome during the 3rd Christian generation. This is the period indicated by the evidence of the Muratorian Canon, which assigns it to the brother of Pius, Roman bishop c. Probably it was not the fruit of a single effort of its author. Rather its contents came to him piecemeal and at various stages in his ministry as a Christian "prophet," extending over a period of years.

In its present form it falls under three heads: Visions, Man dates, Similitudes. These titles are somewhat misleading. In the four "Visions" the author appears to be transforming his per sonal religious history into a type (as Bunyan did in the Pil grim's Progress). He is deeply impressed by the sad state of religion among professing Christians in Rome, and the "Visions" set forth his personal call to a mission of repentance and the awakened conscience. But before Hermas announces his mes sage to the Roman Church, and thence to the churches abroad, there are added two Visions (iii. iv.) tending to heighten its im pressiveness. He is shown the "holy church" under the similitude of a tower in building, and the great and final tribulation under that of a devouring beast, which yet is innocuous to undoubting faith.

The personal revelation given in the "Visions" is then elabo rated in a fresh series of revelations through an angel in the guise of a Shepherd, who in a preliminary interview announces himself as the Angel of Repentance, sent to administer the special "repentance" which it was Hermas's mission to declare : "I was sent, quoth he, to show thee again all that thou sawest before, to wit the sum of the things profitable for thee. First of all write thou my mandates and similitudes; and the rest, as I will show thee, so shalt thou write." This programme is fulfilled in the xii. Mandates and Similitudes i.–viii., while Simil. ix. is "the rest" and constitutes a distinct "book" ; while Sim. x. is really an epilogue in which Hermas is "delivered" afresh to the Shepherd, for the rest of his days. He is "to continue in this ministry" of proclaiming the Shepherd's teaching, "so that they who have repented or are about to repent may have the same mind with thee," and so receive a good report before God (Sim. X. 2 2-4). Only they must "make haste to do aright," lest while they delay the tower be finished (4. 4), and the new aeon dawn (after the final tribulation: cf. Vis. iv. 3. 5). Hermas sees that mere repentance is not enough to meet the backsliding condition in which so many Christians then were, owing to the recoil of inveterate habits of worldliness entrenched in society around and within. It is, after all, too negative a thing to stand by itself or to satisfy God." "Cease, Hermas," says the Church, "to pray all about thy sins. Ask for righteousness also" (Vis. iii. 1. 6).

Value of the Work.

Here lies a great merit of Hermas's book, his insight into experimental religion and the secret of failure in Christians about him, to many of whom Christianity had come by birth rather than personal conviction. Thus they were divided in soul between spiritual goods and worldly plea sures, and were apt to doubt whether the rewards promised by God to the life of "simplicity" (all Christ meant by the childlike spirit, including generosity in giving and forgiving) and self restraint, were real or not. For while the expected "end of the age" delayed, persecutions abounded. Such "doubled-souled" persons, like Mr. Facing-both-ways, inclined to say, "The Chris tian ideal may be glorious, but is it practicable?" It is this most fatal doubt which evokes the Shepherd's sternest rebuke; and, he meets it with the ultimate religious appeal, viz., to "the glory of God." He who made man "to rule over all things under heaven," could He have given behests beyond man's ability? If only a man "bath the Lord in his heart," he "shall know that there is nothing easier nor sweeter nor gentler than these man dates" (Mand. xii. 3-4). So in the forefront of the Mandates stands the secret of all: "First of all believe that there is one God. . . . Believe therefore in Him, and fear Him, and fearing Him have self-mastery. For the fear of the Lord dwelleth in the good desire," and to "put on" this master-desire is to possess power to curb "evil desire" in all its shapes (Mand. xii. 1-2) .

Elsewhere "good desire" is analysed into the "spirits" of the several virtues, which yet are organically related, Faith being mother, and Self-mastery her daughter, and so on (Vis. iii. 8. 3, seq.; cf. Sim. ix. 15). These are the specific forms of the Holy Spirit power, without whose indwelling the mandates cannot be kept (Sim. x. 3 ; cf. ix. 13. 2, 24, 2) .

The absence of the historic names, "Jesus" and "Christ," may be due to the form of the book as purporting to quote angelic communications. This would also explain the absence of explicit scriptural citations generally, though knowledge both of the Old Testament and of several New Testament books—including the congenially symbolic Gospel of John—is clear.

Hermas faithfully reflects the Roman Church of the early 2nd century (cf. E. von Dobschiitz, "Christian Life in the Primitive Church," 1904). Indeed the prime value of the Shepherd is the light it casts on Christianity at Rome in the otherwise obscure period c. 110-14o, when it had as yet hardly felt the influences converging on it from other centres of tradition and thought. Thus Hermas's comparatively mild censures on Gnostic teachers in Sim. ix. suggest that the greater systems, like the Valentinian and Marcionite, had not yet made an impression there, as Harnack argues that they must have done by c. 145. This date, then, is a likely lower limit for Hermas's revision of his earlier prophetic memoranda, and their publication in a single homogeneous work, such as the Shepherd appears to be.

BIBLIOGRAPHY.—The chief modern edition is by O. von Gebhardt Bibliography.—The chief modern edition is by O. von Gebhardt and A. Harnack, in Fasc. iii. of their Patr. apost. opera (Leipzig, 1877) ; it is edited less fully by F. X. Funk, Patr. apost. (Tubingen, i9oi). A convenient edition, with text and translation, is contained in The Apostolic Fathers, vol. ii., by Kirsopp Lake (Loeb Classical Library). For the wide literature of the subject see the two former editions, also Harnack's Chronologie der altchr. Lit. i. 257 seq., and 0. Barden hewer, Gesch. der altkirchl. Lit. i. 557, seq.