HERMAS (her'mas), (Gr. 'Epp.ds, her-mas', cury, interpreter), one of the Christians.at Rome, to whom Paul addressed special salutations in his Epistle (Rom. xvi:14).
Of his history and station in life nothing is known. By several writers, ancient and modern, he has been reputed to be the author of a work entitled The Shepherd of Hernias, which front its high antiquity and the supposed connection of the writer with St. Paul, has been usually classed with the epistles of the so-called Apostolic Fa thers. It was originally written in Greek, but we possess it only in a Latin version (as old as the time of Tertullian), a few fragments excepted, hich are found as quotations in other ancient authors. It has been divided by modern editors (for in the manuscript copies there is no such division) into three books; the first consisting of four visions, the second of twelve commands, and the third of ten similitudes. It is called the
'Shepherd' (6 llogALO, Pastor), because the Angel of Repentance (Nuntius Pcrnitentic), at whose dictation Hermas professes that he wrote the sec ond and third books, appeared in the garb of a shepherd. Impartial judges will probably agree with Mosheim, that 'The Shepherd' contains such a tnixture of folly and superstition with piety, of egregious nonsense with momentous truth, as to render it a matter of astonishment that .men of learning should ever have thought of giving it a place among the inspired writings.
The Shepherd of Hermas was first published at Paris in 1513, and is included in the editions of the Apostolic Fathers by Cctelerius, Galland, and Hefele. Fabricius also published it in his Codex Apoeryphtts, Hamburgi, 1719. Archbishop Wake's translation is well known. J. E. R.