* Another explanation is that a previous Vision may hava dropped out from the MSS which have come down to us.
564
HEEMES
HEROD
Hence his standard of Christian duty is pnt in the most practical shape : ' faith, fear of the Lord, love, concord, words of righteousness, truth, patience, ... to minister to widows, to visit the orphans and the needy, to ransom the servants of God from tlieir afflictions, to be hospitable, . . . to resist no man, to be tranquil, to show j-ourself more submissive than all men,' etc. (viii. ). The indwelling of the Spirit of God is a feature of Christian life prominently insisted on, and if in- termediate beings like Faith, Continence, Power, Longsuffering (Sim. ix. 15) seem to shape the Christian character, these are declared to be ' powers of the Son of God ' (ix. 13). God is the Creator alike of the world and of the Church. ' Be- hold, the God of Hosts, who by His invisible and mighty power and by His great wisdom created the world, and by His glorious purpose clothed His creation with comeliness, and by His strong word fixed the heaven, and founded the earth upon the waters, and by His own Avisdom and providence formed His holy Church, which also He blessed' ( Vis. ii. 3).
Hermas, who was evidently acquainted with the contents of the Didache, does not directly cite Scripture by name, but he continually uses Scriptural words and ideas, handling them with a light touch, and working them into new combina- tions. C. Taylor (The Witness of Hermas to the Four Gospels) has investigated these allusions minutely, and considers Hermas to be a valuable witness to the Canon, especially in the case of the four Gospels. He finds in the four feet of the couch in the third Vision (13), with the associated cryptic utterance ' for the world too is upheld by means of four elements,' the source of the famous saying of Irenoeus that there can be neither more nor fewer than four Gospels, because there are four regions of the world, and four catholic winds, etc. (see p. 13 ff.). There is a citation of the lost work Eldad and Medad ( Vis. ii. 3), and Segri, the name of the angel who shuts the monster's mouth in Vis. iv. 2, is a word derived from the Hebrew verb in Dn 6"^ 'shut the lions' mouths' (The Johns Hopkins University Circular, April, 1884, iii. 75).
5. Text and Versions. — There is no complete Greek text of the Shepherd. About the first quarter of it is contained in the 4th cent. Sinaitic MS (K), while the Athos MS (A) written in the 14th cent, is the authority for the rest of the work, except the concluding portion, from Sim. ix. 30 to the end, which has to be supplied from the Latin versions. These are two in number, the so- called Old Latin Version (L) found in about twenty MSS, and the Palatine Version (L2) existing in one MS of the 14th century. There is also an Ethiopic Version (E) published in 1860 witli a Latin trans- lation (see J. B. Lightfoot, Apostolic Fathers, p. 295).
LrrERATURE.— J. B. Lightfoot, The Apostolic Fathers, 1 vol., London, 1891; O. von Gebhardt and A. Harnack, Patrum Apost. Opera, Fasc. iii., Leipzig, 1877 ; F. X. Funic, Patres Apostolici, Tiibingen, 1901; C. Taylor, The Shepherd of Hermas (Translation, Introduction, and Notes), London, 1903- 1906; T. Zahn, Der Hirt des Ilermas, Gotha, 1868; A. Hilgrenfeld, Hermce Pastor, Leipzig, 1837; C. Taylor, The Witness of Ilermas to the Four Gospels, London, 1892 ; [Bp. Fell], Barnabas and Hermas, Oxford, 1085 ; G. Salmon, His- torical Introduction to NT^, London, 1891.
A. Mitchell. HERMES ('Ep/t^y, Ro 16'-*).— Hermes was a very common Greek name, being the name of the popular Greek god. Lightfoot remarks that, in the Imperial liousehold inscriptions, not less than a score of persons might be counted who bore this name about the date of Romans (Philippians*, 1878, p. 176). In the NT it is found as the third of a group of five names (all Greek) of Christians saluted by St. Paul (see Hermas). It is significant
that a Christian should have no scruple in retain- ing as his name the name of one of the gods. Another instance is Nereus (v.").
T. B. Allworthy. HERMOGENES.— See Phygelus.
HEROD. — 1. Antipas, son of Herod the Great by the Samaritan Malthace. ^Nlade tetrarch of Galilee and Pertea after the deatli of his father in 4 B.C., he ruled over these regions till A.D. 39, when, through the intrigues of Herod Agrippa and his own ambition, he incurred the disfavour of Caligula, and was banished to Lugdunum in Gaul. Capable and successful as an administrator, he is held up to reproach in the Gospels for the scandal of his private life, and his treatment of John the Baptist and Jesus (Mt 14'-i2, Lk IS^"- 23^-i2). Elsewhere in the NT there are only two references to him. The first (Ac 4^^) occurs in the thanks- giving of the early disciples over the release of Peter and John from imprisonment, and indicates their view of Herod's relation to the tragedy of Calvary. The basis of the thanksgiving is a Messianic interpretation of the 2nd Psalm and a belief in its fulfilment in Jesus. Herod and Pontius Pilate are represented as the kings and rulers of the earth who conspired (Lk 23^-) against the Lord's Anointed, and wreaked their will on Him, while all the time they were being used by God to further His purpose of redemption. The fact, however, that God over-ruled their evil intentions for good, and caused their wrath to praise Him, though it redounds to His own glory and augments the wonder of His working, is not regarded as any alleviation of their guilt. The sin of Herod, as of Pilate, in relation to Jesus, is clearly implied, and evidently seemed as heinous to the early believers as did his crime against John to the Baptist's followers, who saw in the disasters of his Arabian war (A.D. 36) a Divine retribution for his murder of their master (Jos. Ant. xviil. v.). The other reference to Herod Antipas (Ac 13^) is unimportant, though of some interest for the sidelight it casts upon the age of Manaen (q.v.), one of the leaders in the Church at Antioch, who is said to have been his foster-brother or early companion.