The scene is laid partly in the house of Hermas in Rome, partly in the country where he abides (Vis. iii. 1), and once in Arcadia (Sim. ix. 1). Mention is made of the road to Cumse, the Cam- paniau Way, and the river Tiber, in which Hermas sees Rhoda bathing (Vis. i. 1).
To the question who Hermas was there are three possible answers. (1) He may, as Origen supposes in his Commentary on Romans (X. 31 [p. 683]), have been the Scriptural character mentioned by St. Paul as a member of the Roman Church c. A.D. 58 (Ro le*'*). (2) According to the Muratorian fragment (c. A.D. 180), he was brother of Pope Pius I. during his Episcopate (c. A.D. 140-155). (3) He may have been an otherwise unknown person who was a contemporary of Pope Clement (c. A.D. 90-lOU). This theory involves the identification of the Church official mentioned in Vis. ii. 4 with the Bisliop of Rome. ' Thou shalt therefore write two little books, and shalt send one to Clement. ... So Clement shall send to the foreign cities, for this is his duty.' Of these views Lightfoot with some diffi- dence prefers the second, while G.Salmon, Zahn, and others accept the third (see J. B. Liglitfoot, Apos- tolic Fathers, 294; G. Salmon, Introduction to the NT', 46, 534).
2. Date and nse by the Church.- Whether the work was written in the beginning or in the middle of the 2nd cent., there is evidence of its wide circu- lation soon after the latter date. Irenaeus, Bishop of Lyons in A.D. 177, accepted it and spoke of it as Scripture. 'Well did the Scripture speak, saying, etc' (ap. Euseb. HE v. 8). Clem. Alex, quotes it several times (e.g. Strom. I. xxix. 181), while Origen in the passage above referred to speaks of it as a very useful, and, as he thinks, Divinely-inspiied wriang. Tertullian approved of it in his pre- Montanist days, but afterwards condemned it (de Pndic. 10). The author of the Muratorian Canon, while seeking to deprecate the public reading of the Shepherd in church, commends it for private use.
562 HERMAS, SHEPHERD OF
HERxMAS, SHEPHERD OF
' But the " Shepherd " was written quite latelj' in our times by Hennas, while his brother Pius, the bishop, was sitting' in the chair of the Church of the city of Rome ; and therefore it ought indeed to be read, but it cannot to the end of lime be publicly read in the Church to the people, either among the prophets, who are complete in number, or amonp^ the Apostles.'
3. Contents.— The book is divided up into five Visions, twelve Mandates or Commandments, and ten Similitudes or Parables. The Visions form the introduction to tlie rest, the Shepherd not appearing until the last of these. The following outline will give an idea of the purport of the work as a whole.
(1) Visions. — In the first Vision Hennas tells how, while journeying to Cumae, he saw in the opened heavens Khoda, his former owner, whom he had recently met again, and whom he had begun to esteem as a sister. She rebukes him for an unchaste thought towards herself, and leaves him aghast at the strictness of God's judg- ment. Then he sees a great white chair of snow- white wool upon which an aged lady in shining raiment seats herself. She tells Hermas that what God is real!}- wroth about is his lack of strictness with his familj' whereby his children have become corrupt. She then reads from a book the glories of God, but Hermas can only remember the last words, for the rest is too terrible to bear. She rises, the chair is carried away towards the east by four young men, and two other men assist her to depart in the same direction. As she goes, she smiles and says, 'Play the man, Hermas.'
The second Vision takes place a year later, and in thesame locality. The aged lady again appears, and gives him a little book that he may copy its contents and report them to the elect of God. He copies it letter for letter, for he cannot make out the syllables, and when he has finished, the book is snatched away by an unseen hand. After fifteen days the meaning is revealed to Hermas, who is directed to rebuke his children for their wickedness, and his wife for her faults of the tongue, as well as to exhort the rulers of the Church. A great tribu- lation is at hand, with danger of apostasy by Christians. One Maximus, in particular, is to be warned against a second denial. Th^ it is re- vealed that the aged woman is not, as Hermas supposes, the Sibyl, but the Church, created before all things. He is directed by her to write two copies of the book, after the revelation is finished, and send one to Clement that he may send it to the foreign cities, and one to Grapte that she may instruct the widows and the orphans. Hermas is to read it to the city along with the elders that preside over the Church.
The main part of the third Vision is the revela- tion by the lady of the Church under the image of a tower being built by angels upon the waters of baptism. The stones of various degrees of suita- bility (some of them castaway), are explained to mean difierent kinds of members of the Church, among whom are 'apostles and bishops and teachers and deacons,' and 'they that suffered for the name of the Lord.' The tower is supported by seven women. Faith, Continence, Simplicity, Knowledge, Guilelessness, Reverence, and Love. Hermas is next commissioned to rebuke the self-indulgence of the well-to-do and the ignorance and divisions of the rulers of the Church. He inquires why the lady was aged and weak in the first Vision, more youthful and joyous in the second, and still more so in the third, and learns that these api)ear- ances were the reflexion of his own changing spiritual state.