The Shepherd of Hermas

The Shepherd of Hermas (Greek: Ποιμὴν τοῦ Ἑρμᾶ, Poimēn tou Herma; Latin: Pastor Hermae), sometimes just called The Shepherd, is a Christian literary work of the late first half of the second century, considered a valuable book by many Christians, and considered canonical scripture by some of the early Church fathers such as Irenaeus.^[1] The Shepherd was popular amongst Christians in the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th centuries.^[2] It is found in the Codex Sinaiticus.^[3][4]

Language and translation

The book was originally written in Rome in Koine Greek.^[5] A first Latin translation, the Vulgata (common language),^[6] was made very shortly afterwards. A second Latin translation, the Palatina, was made at the beginning of the fifth century. Of the Greek version, the last fifth or so is missing. The Vulgata is therefore the earliest translation and the most complete witness.

The Shepherd was also translated at least twice into the Coptic (Egyptian) language and fragments of translations in both the Sahidic and Akhmimic dialects survive. Three translations into Ge'ez (Ethiopic) were also made, but none survives complete. The sole surviving Georgian translation seems to have been made from an Arabic version, but no Arabic translation has been preserved. There does not appear to have been a Syriac translation and no Syriac author shows any awareness of the Shepherd.^[7] It was always more popular in the Western Roman Empire and in Alexandria than in the rest of the east. There was a Middle Persian translation made for a Manichaean readership which survives in a single fragmentary manuscript found at Turfan in what is now China.^[8]

Contents

 

The Shepherd of Hermas, or the Good Shepherd, 3rd century, Catacombs of Rome.

The book consists of five visions granted to Hermas, a former slave. This is followed by twelve mandates or commandments, and ten similitudes (aka parables). It commences abruptly in the first person: "He who brought me up sold me to a certain Rhoda, who was at Rome. After many years I met her again, and began to love her as a sister." As Hermas is on the road to Cumae, he has a vision of Rhoda. She tells him that she is now his accuser in heaven, on account of unchaste and impure thoughts the (now) married narrator once had regarding her. He is to repent and pray for forgiveness, for himself and all his house. He is consoled by a vision of the Church in the form of an aged woman, weak and helpless from the sins of her unfaithful children, who tells him to bear fruits of repentance and to correct the sins of his children. Subsequently, after his repentance he sees her made younger, yet still wrinkled and with white hair; then again, later she appears as quite young but still with white hair; and lastly, she shows herself as a glorious Bride.

This allegorical language continues through the other parts of the work. In the second vision she gives Hermas a book, which she later takes back in order to add to it. The fifth vision, which is represented as taking place 20 days after the fourth, introduces "the Angel (Messenger) of repentance" in the guise of a shepherd, from whom the whole work takes its name. He delivers to Hermas a series of precepts (mandata, entolai), which form an interesting development of early Christian ethics. One point which deserves special mention is the instruction of a Christian husband's obligation to forgive and take back an adulterous wife upon her repentance.^[3] The eleventh mandate, on humility, is concerned with false prophets who desire to occupy the primary, or best seats (that is to say, among the presbyters). Some have seen here a reference to Marcion, who came to Rome c. 140 and desired to be admitted among the priests (or possibly even to become bishop of Rome).^[9]

After the mandates come ten similitudes (parabolai) in the form of visions, which are explained by the angel. The longest of these (Similitude 9) is an elaboration of the parable of the building of a tower, which had formed the matter of the third vision. The tower is the Church, and the stones of which it is built are the faithful. In the third vision it looks as though only the holy are a part of the true Church; in Similitude 9 it is clearly pointed out that all the baptized are included, though they may be cast out for grave sins, and can be readmitted only after repentance.^[3]

Authorship and date

Textual criticism, the nature of the theology, and the author's apparent familiarity with the Book of Revelation and other Johannine texts are thought to set the date of composition in the 2nd century. However, several ancient witnesses support an early dating and there is internal evidence for the place and date of this work in the language and theology of the work. The reference to an unknown Clement is presumed by some to be Clement of Rome; if this is that Clement, it would suggest a date c. 90 for at least the historicised setting of the first two visions. Since Paul sent greetings to a Hermas, a Christian of Rome (Romans 16:14), a minority have followed Origen of Alexandria's opinion that he was the author of this religious allegory.^[10]

Three ancient witnesses claim to identify the author of this writing. These authorities may be citing the same source, perhaps Hegesippus,^[11] whose lost history of the early Church provided material for Eusebius of Caesarea. The witnesses are the Muratorian fragment, the Liberian Catalogue of Popes (a record that was later used in the writing of the Liber Pontificalis) and a poem written by "Pseudo-Tertullian" against Marcion in the 3rd or 4th century AD.

The Muratorian fragment, generally considered to have been written c. 170 AD (although a few scholars disagree with this dating),^[12][13] may be the earliest known canon of New Testament writings. It identifies Hermas, the author of The Shepherd, as the brother of Pius I, bishop of Rome:

But Hermas wrote The Shepherd very recently, in our times, in the city of Rome, while bishop Pius, his brother, was occupying the chair of the church of the city of Rome. And therefore it ought indeed to be read; but it cannot be read publicly to the people in church either among the Prophets, whose number is complete, or among the Apostles, for it is after their time.

Theology

In parable 5, the author mentions a Son of God, as a virtuous man filled with a holy "pre-existent spirit" and adopted as the Son.^[14] In the 2nd century, adoptionism (the view that Jesus Christ was, at least initially, only a mortal man) was one of two competing doctrines about Jesus's true nature, the other being that he pre-existed as the Word (Logos) or only-begotten Son of God and is to be identified as such from his conception; Christ's identity as the Logos (Jn 1:1), in which the Logos is further understood to be uncreated and coessentially divine with God (that is, the Father), was affirmed in 325 at the First Council of Nicaea.^[15] Bogdan G. Bucur says the document was widely accepted among orthodox Christians, yet was not criticized for apparently exhibiting an adoptionistic Christology. He says that the passage in question should be understood as Jesus making his dwelling within those who submit to his spirit, so that the adoption that takes place is not of Jesus, but of his followers.^[16]

Some believe that Hermas has a binitarian understanding of God, as it calls the Holy Spirit the Son of God. Not all, however agree that Hermas has binitarianism.^[17][18] Kelly calls the Christology of Hermas "an amalgam of binitarianism and adoptionism.^[19]

Hermas has a synergist understanding of soteriology, where both works and faith are needed to be saved.^[20] For Hermas baptism is necessary to be saved and warns those who undergo baptism by the danger of postbaptismal sins.^[21] Shepherd of Hermas possibly supports delaying baptism for practical reasons which is because of the fear of post-baptismal sins.^[22] According to Hermas, those who fall into sin after baptism, have only one chance of penance.^[23]

The book has a high emphasis on morals and the work is an indication of Jewish Christianity — still keeping the Law of Moses.^[24]

Hermas has some similarities to Montanism, such as a support of a belief in prophetic gifts and disciplinarian rigorism, however a direct connection does not exist.^[25]

The principles which Novatian formulated have their origin in the Shepherd of Hermas.^[26]

Some have argued that Hermas is the first example of pre-tribulational rapture. Though Hermas does not mention a rapture, he writes of believers that "have escaped from great tribulation on account of [their] faith" and that others could also escape "the great tribulation that is coming".^[27]

Place in Christian literature

Tertullian implies that Pope Callixtus I had quoted it as an authority (though evidently not as one of the books of the Bible), for he replies: "I would admit your argument, if the writing of The Shepherd had deserved to be included in the Divine Instrument, and if it were not judged by every council of the Churches, even of your own Churches, among the apocryphal."^[28] And again, he says that the Epistle of Barnabas, which is Tertullian's name for the New Testament Epistle to the Hebrews, is "more received among the Churches than the apocryphal epistle of the Shepherd".^[29][3]

Editions

The Greek text is edited by Gebhardt and Harnack (Leipzig, 1877), by Funk (Tübingen, 1901), and, with its English translation, by Lightfoot, Apostolic Fathers, edited by Harmon (London, 1893); the Codex Sinaiticus of Hermas was edited by Lake (Oxford, 1911). The English translation by William Wake (Archbishop of Canterbury 1716–1737) is given in W. Hone and J. Jones's Apocryphal New Testament (London, 1820). An English translation is also in volume ii of the American edition of Ante-Nicene Fathers, edited by Roberts and Donaldson (Buffalo, New York, 1886). Other English translations are by Kirsopp Lake, The Apostolic Fathers (Harvard Univ. Press, Loeb Classical Library, 1913), and Edgar J. Goodspeed, The Apostolic Fathers (NY, Harper & Bros. 1950). In general, consult:

• Cruttwell, Literary History of Early Christianity, volume ii (London, 1893).
• Krüger, History of Early Christian Literature (New York, 1897).
• Harnack, Chronologie der altchristlichen Literatur, volume i (Leipzig, 1897).
• Taylor, The Shepherd of Hermas (New York, 1901).

See also

• Confession in the first two centuries
• Hermas of Philippopolis
• Papyrus 129
• Shoulder angel

References

1. Davidson & Leaney, Biblical Criticism: p. 230.
2. "The Pastor of Hermas was one of the most popular books, if not the most popular book, in the Christian Church during the 2nd, 3rd and 4th centuries. It occupied a position analogous in some respects to Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress in modern times." (F. Crombie, translator of Schaff, op. cit.).
3. Chapman, John. (1910). "Hermas." The Catholic Encyclopedia Vol. 7. New York: Robert Appleton Company. 27 September 2017
4. Aland, Kurt; Barbara Aland (1995). The Text of the New Testament: An Introduction to the Critical Editions and to the Theory and Practice of Modern Textual Criticism, trans. Erroll F. Rhodes. Grand Rapids, Michigan: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company. p. 107. ISBN 978-0-8028-4098-1.
5. J. B. Lightfoot, The Apostolic Fathers, Macmillan & Co., 1891, p. 160; Reprint ISBN 0-8010-5514-8
6. Christian Tornau. (2014). Paolo Cecconi (ed.), The Shepherd of Hermas in Latin: Critical Edition of the Oldest Translation Vulgata. Berlin/Boston: Walter de Gruyter.
7. Jonathan E. Soyars, The Shepherd of Hermas and the Pauline Legacy (Brill, 2019), pp. 9–10.
8. Werner Sundermann (2012 [2003]), "Hermas, The Shepherd of", in Encyclopaedia Iranica, retrieved 14 March 2020. First printed in Vol. XII, Fasc. 3, pp. 232–234. Sundermann provides an English translation of the Persian text.
9. "CATHOLIC ENCYCLOPEDIA: Hermas". www.newadvent.org. Retrieved 2022-05-03.
10. Philip Schaff wrote hopefully, "It would not be a very bold conjecture, that Hermas and his brother were elderly grandchildren of the original Hermas, the friend of St. Paul. The Shepherd, then, might be based upon personal recollections, and upon the traditions of a family which the spirit of prophecy had reproved, and who were monuments of its power." (Schaff, Fathers of the Second Century: Hermas, Tatian, Athenagoras, Theophilus, and Clement of Alexandria, introduction to "the Pastor of Hermas").
11. A suggestion made by Bunsen, Hippolyrus and His Age, vol. I, p. 315.
12. G. M. Hahneman. (2002). The Mutatorian Fragment and the Origins of the New Testament Canon in "The Canon Debate" (ed. L. M. McDonald and J. A. Sanders), pp. 405–415. Massachusetts: Hendrickson
13. Kruger, Michael J. (2013). "Ten Basics Facts about the NT Canon that Every Christian Should Memorize: "At the End of the Second Century, the Muratorian Fragment lists 22 of our 27 NT books"". canon fodder. Retrieved November 8, 2023.
14. "The Holy Pre-existent Spirit. Which created the whole creation, God made to dwell in flesh that He desired. This flesh, therefore, in which the Holy Spirit dwelt, was subject unto the Spirit, walking honorably in holiness and purity, without in any way defiling the Spirit. When then it had lived honorably in chastity, and had labored with the Spirit, and had cooperated with it in everything, behaving itself boldly and bravely, He chose it as a partner with the Holy Spirit; for the career of this flesh pleased [the Lord], seeing that, as possessing the Holy Spirit, it was not defiled upon the earth. He therefore took the son as adviser and the glorious angels also, that this flesh too, having served the Spirit unblamably, might have some place of sojourn, and might not seem to have lost the reward for its service; for all flesh, which is found undefiled and unspotted, wherein the Holy Spirit dwelt, shall receive a reward." Earlychristianwritings.com
15. "Jesus was either regarded as the man whom God hath chosen, in whom the Deity or the Spirit of God dwelt, and who, after being tested, was adopted by God and invested with dominion, (Adoptian Christology); or Jesus was regarded as a heavenly spiritual being (the highest after God) who took flesh, and again returned to heaven after the completion of his work on earth (pneumatic Christology)." Adolf von Harnack, History of Dogma, CCEL.org
16. Bogdan G. Bucur, The Son of God and the Angelomorphic Holy Spirit: A Rereading of the Shepherd's Christology
17. Lookadoo, Jonathon (2021-03-25). The Shepherd of Hermas: A Literary, Historical, and Theological Handbook. Bloomsbury Publishing. ISBN 978-0-567-69794-3.
18. Harnack, Adolf von (2021-02-04). The Letter of the Roman Church to the Corinthian Church from the Era of Domitian: 1 Clement: With a Collection of Articles on 1 Clement by Adolf von Harnack. Wipf and Stock Publishers. ISBN 978-1-7252-7378-8.
19. Papandrea, James L. (2016-03-30). The Earliest Christologies: Five Images of Christ in the Postapostolic Age. InterVarsity Press. ISBN 978-0-8308-9972-2. Kelly calls Hermas's christology an "amalgam of binitarianism and adoptionism"
20. Williams, D.H. (2006). "Justification by Faith: a Patristic Doctrine" (PDF). Journal of Ecclesiastical History. 57 (4): 649–667. doi:10.1017/S0022046906008207. S2CID 170253443 – via Cambridge University Press.
21. Kocar, Alexander (2021-07-30). Heavenly Stories: Tiered Salvation in the New Testament and Ancient Christianity. University of Pennsylvania Press. ISBN 978-0-8122-9974-8.
22. Wright, David F. (2009-11-16). Baptism: Three Views. InterVarsity Press. ISBN 978-0-8308-7819-2.
23. Luijten, Eric (2003). Sacramental Forgiveness as a Gift of God: Thomas Aquinas on the Sacrament of Penance. Peeters Publishers. ISBN 978-90-429-1305-9.
24. "Shepherd of Hermas | Description, Summary, History, Importance, & Facts | Britannica". www.britannica.com. Retrieved 2022-05-03.
25. Schaff, Philip (2019-12-18). The Complete History of the Christian Church (With Bible). e-artnow.
26. "Henry Wace: Dictionary of Christian Biography and Literature to the End of the Sixth Century A.D., with an Account of the Principal Sects and Heresies. - Christian Classics Ethereal Library". www.ccel.org. Retrieved 2022-05-03.
27. Ice, Thomas D. (2009). "Myths of the Origin of Pretribulationism". Myths of the Origin of Pretribulationism.
28. Tertullian, De pudicitia. p. 10
29. Tertullian, De pudicitia. p. 20

•   This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Herbermann, Charles, ed. (1913). "Hermas". Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton Company.

Further reading

• Carolyn Osiek, "Wealth and Poverty in the Shepherd of Hermas," Studia Patristica, Vol. 17, Pt 2, 1982, pp. 725–730.
• Carolyn Osiek, "The Genre and Function of the Shepherd of Hermas," Semeia, 36, 1986, pp. 113–121.
• U. Neymeyr, Die christliche Lehrer im zweiten Jahrhundert. Ihre Lehrtätigkeit, ihr Selbsverständnis und ihre Geschichte (Leiden, 1989) (Vigiliae Christianae. Supplements, 4), pp. 9–15.
• Carolyn Osiek, "The Second Century through the Eyes of Hermas: Continuity and Change," Biblical Theology Bulletin, 20, 1990, pp. 116–122.
• D. P. O'Brien, "The Cumaean Sibyl as the Revelation-bearer in the Shepherd of Hermas," Journal of Early Christian Studies, 5, 1997, No. 4.
• Carolyn Osiek, "The Shepherd of Hermas in Context," Acta Patristica et Byzantina, 8, 1997, pp. 115–134.
• Carolyn Osiek, "The Oral World of Early Christianity in Rome: The Case of Hermas.," in Karl P. Donfried and Peter Richardson (eds), Judaism and Christianity in First-Century Rome (Grand Rapids, 1998), pp. 151–172.
• Carolyn Osiek, Shepherd of Hermas: A Commentary (Minneapolis, 1999).
• Jörg Rüpke, "Apokalyptische Salzberge: Zum sozialen Ort und zur literarischen Strategie des 'Hirten des Hermas'," Archiv für Religionsgeschichte, 1, 1999, pp. 148–160.
• Jörg Rüpke, "Der Hirte des Hermas: Plausibilisierungs- und Legitimierungs strategien im Übergang von Antike und Christentum," Zeitschrift für antikes Christentum, 7, 2003, pp. 362–384.
• Marco Frenschkowski, "Vision als Imagination. Beobachtungen zum differenzierten Wirklichkeitsanspruch fruehchristlicher Visionsliteratur," in Nicola Hoemke, Manuel Baumbach (hrsg), Fremde Wirklichkeiten: Literarische Phantastik und antike Literatur (Heidelberg, 2006) (Studien zur griechischen und lateinischen Poesie, 6), pp. 339–366.
• Joseph Verheyden, "The Shepherd of Hermas," in Paul Foster (ed), Writings of the Apostolic Fathers (London, 2007) (T & T Clark Biblical Studies).
• Christian Tornau – Paolo Cecconi (Eds.), The Shepherd of Hermas in Latin. Critical Edition of the Oldest Translation Vulgata, Walter de Gruyter, Berlin/Boston 2014.

External links

 

Wikisource has original text related to this article:

Shepherd of Hermas

 

Wikiquote has quotations related to The Shepherd of Hermas.

• A large collection of English translations of The Shepherd of Hermas, including some in modern English.
• Greek text of The Shepherd of Hermas
• Archbishop Wake's English Translation of The Shepherd of Hermas
• The Shepherd of Hermas (English Translation) Early Christian Writings
• Shepherd of Hermas Critical Translation + Audio Dramatization Biblicalaudio
• at the Wayback Machine (archived April 1, 2008)
• Herbermann, Charles, ed. (1913). "Hermas" . Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton Company.
• Hermas' Shepherd on earlychurch.org.uk Bibliography and links to on-line articles.
• Fragments of Hermas in Amherst Papyri