HERMAS. - One of the Apostolic Fathers, flourishing around the middle of the 2nd century. He wrote The Shepherd, in Greek. The Muratorian Fragment attests that he was the brother of Pope Pius I and that he composed his work in Rome during the latter's pontificate (c. 140-55); the Liberian Catalogue says the same. The work provides us with other data. The author, who several times declares his name (Vis., I, 4; 2, 2; 4, 3; II, 2, 2, etc.), born a slave probably in Arcadia (Sim., IX, 1, 1-10), was sold to a Roman matron, Rhoda, whom he desired to marry (Vis., I, 1, 1-2). Having been freed, he went into business, had a wife and children (Vis., I, 3, 1; II, 3, 3; II, 6, 7). Because of his own faults, particularly his lies (Mand., II, 3), and because of those of his gossiping wife and of his children who, blasphemers and dissolute, denounced their parents in time of persecution (Vis., II, 2, 2-3), he was reduced to poverty, and he took to cultivating a small plot of land on the Via Campana, about ten stadia from the Appian Way (Vis., III, 1, 2; IV, 1, 2). He and his relatives repented of their past transgressions (Sim., VII, 4). While going toward Cumae he had his revelations (Vis., I, 1, 3; II, 1, 1), in which he was ordered to transcribe from a book received from the matron what he was to announce to the elect (Vis., V, 5-7), making two copies of it; one he was to send to Clement, evidently the bishop of Rome, who would forward it to the other cities (Vis., II, 4, 3).
Some (Bardenhewer, Bareille, Leclercq, Casamassa) consider the autobiographical data literary fictions, contradicted by the testimonies cited above and by the conditions of the Church as they are represented in the work, which bring us to the middle of the 2nd century, to which the Muratorian Fragment assigns it, and irreconcilable with the personality of the author, whom the writing shows to be an influential member of the Roman clergy. Others (Zahn, Edmundson) reject the testimony of the Fragment, adhering to the data of the work. Many (Harnack, Grosse-Binuckmann, De Champagny, Spitta, Altaper) attempt to reconcile the intrinsic and extrinsic testimonies by denying the unity of the work, whose various parts would have been written successively. Nothing proves that the author of the Shepherd is the Hermas mentioned in Rom. 16, 14, as Origen affirmed (Comm. in Rom., X, 31).
The Shepherd presents an original structure. Five Visions come first: in the first, Rhoda appears, who reproaches H. for an evil desire, then an elderly matron in a splendid robe, who manifests to him the wrath of the Lord against him and his, and urges him to penance. In the second, the matron hands him a book to copy, then reveals to him its content, which is an announcement of forgiveness and of an imminent calamity; then a young man tells him that the matron is the Church. In the third, the matron, who appears rejuvenated, shows him a tower, a figure of the Church, then a young man explains the meaning of the three aspects under which the Church has appeared. In the fourth vision he beholds a monster, which the Church then tells him is a symbol of the great impending tribulation. In the fifth vision the angel of penance appears, in the guise of a shepherd (whence the title of the book).
There follow 12 Precepts (Mandata), dictated by the angel, in which faith, fear of God, continence, simplicity, innocence, long-suffering, and prudence are inculcated, doubt and sadness are condemned, and there is talk of true and false prophets, and of good and evil desires. Finally, in ten Similitudes, the angel exhorts to the good use of riches, sets forth the conditions of the Church in this life and in the next, the merit of fasting, the necessity of penance, and the value of tribulation.
The Shepherd belongs to the literature of the apocryphal Apocalypses. The core of its preaching is penance: to Christians, much relaxed, it inculcates the duty of repenting and changing their lives, announcing the imminent persecution, which will be followed by a renewal of the Church. Especially insistent are the admonitions to the rich.
Therefore, of the doctrinal content, the most important part is that which concerns penance. H. proclaims its necessity and affirms that, after that of Baptism, there is a second penance, of an extraordinary character, which is granted only once and extends to all sins; it includes repentance and satisfaction and requires belonging to the Church. Supererogatory works are praised, and the distinction between precepts and counsels is noted; of the latter, fasting, celibacy, and martyrdom are mentioned. The Trinitarian and Christological doctrine is very confused: the Son of God seems to be identified with the Holy Spirit; the Holy Spirit became incarnate: and since the flesh in which he dwelt served the Spirit in holiness and chastity, God made it a partaker of the Holy Spirit (adoptionism); therefore one could not speak of the Trinity except after the exaltation of Jesus, a consequence of his holy life.
Of the angels, H. distinguishes six superior ones, created by God first, and many inferior ones; furthermore, good angels and evil ones; every man has with him a good angel and an evil one. In the Church he names the apostles, the bishops, the teachers, the deacons, the deaconesses, the prophets and the false prophets; to Clement, the bishop of Rome, belongs some care also of the other churches. Baptism is administered by immersion, in the name of the Lord; it remits all sins, gives life, imprints the seal of the Son of God. Marriage is indissoluble even in the case of adultery; the husband must dismiss a wife who persists in adultery, and take her back, but only the first time, if she repents; marriage is lawful, but continence is better. E. writes in a popular Greek, stuffed with Hebraisms and Latinisms, in a monotonous style, but not without color and effectiveness.
(Int. Biblioteca Vaticana)
The fortune of the Shepherd, very great in the earliest times, afterwards declined. Irenaeus (Adv. Haer., V, 20, 2), Clement of Alexandria (Strom., I, 17; VI, 14), the Catholic Tertullian (De orat., 16), the pseudo-Cyprianic Adversus aleatores (ch. 4), cite it as Scripture. Origen is inclined to believe it inspired (Comm. in Rom., X, 31), but knows that others do not acknowledge it as such (Comm. in Matth., 14, 21) and that some despise it (De princ., IV, 11); among these is the Montanist Tertullian (De pud., chs. 10 and 20). The Muratorian Fragment, while praising it, excludes it from the biblical canon. The Sinaitic Codex of the Bible has transmitted to us the 5 Visions and the first 4 Mandates.
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Michele Pellegrino
