HERMAS, Saint and Martyr of Rome. — The legendary *passio* of St Hermas, inserted into that of Pope Alexander (109–16), makes him a Christian prefect of Rome, brother of a Theodora, martyred on 28 August under Hadrian and buried on the Via Salaria vetus (BHL 383). But no Hermas was prefect of the city, nor does the cemetery of Bassilla (q.v.) present such antiquity.
In 1932 two fragments in Philocalian lettering were identified in the above-ground area of this cemetery, belonging to a Damasian poem transmitted only by the Laureshamensis quarta, which G. B. De Rossi published as of uncertain provenance and thought might belong to Hippolytus of the Greek martyrs, while noting that Terribilini had suspected it referred to the Hermas of the Via Salaria vetus (Inscriptiones Christianae urbis Romae, II, Rome 1888, p. 108, no. 57). The 1932 discovery, to which a third tiny fragment was added, confirmed Terribilini’s hypothesis. Damasus follows an oral tradition: “iam dudum quod fama refert,” that is, an event of the 3rd century, as in the cases of St Agnes and St Hippolytus; the martyr, whose name betrays a non-Roman origin, came to Rome from Greece: “Te Graecia misit” but “sanguine mutasti patriam, cineremque / fraterem fecit amor legis” (A. Ferrua, Epigrammata Damasiana, Vatican City 1942, pp. 195–96).
The veneration of St Hermas is attested on 28 August by the Depositio martyrum: “V. Kal(endas) Sept(embres) Hermes ris in Bassilla, Salaria veteres”; by Damasus, who besides the cited poem decorated his tomb; and by A. Bosio (Roma sotterranea, Rome 1632, p. 506), who recognised on the cemetery area a fragment of a marble epistyle bearing on one side in Philocalian letters: Hermes; on the other: inharens (A. Ferrua, op. cit., pp. 196–97). Under the same date the martyr appears in the Hieronymian Martyrology and in the Sacramentaries. Pope Pelagius II either built or enlarged the basilica erected over his tomb (579–90; Lib. Pont., I, p. 309); under St Gregory (590–604), the oil from lamps burning over his tomb was sent to Queen Theodolinda (R. Valentini and G. Zucchetti, Codice topografico della città di Roma, II, Rome 1942, p. 43). Pilgrims’ itineraries point to the basilica with his tomb “longe sub terra” (R. Valentini and G. Zucchetti, op. cit., pp. 75, 127, 143). Pope Adrian (772–95) restored the basilica (Lib. Pont., I, p. 509). By then a Benedictine monastery had been attached, and a monk of St Hermas was buried in S. Saba.
When the basilica fell into ruin, an oratory was built whose apse was adorned with a painting also containing the image of the martyr, represented in rich vestments (E. Josi, Scoperta d’una altare e di pitture nella basilica di S. Ermete, in Riv. di arch. crist., 17 [1940], p. 206, fig. 8). The monastery and oratory survived until about 1200, for the Turin catalogue records that “cecchia sancti Hermetis extra muros non habet servitorem” (C. Huelsen, Le chiese di Roma nel medioevo, Florence 1927, p. 28, no. 34). Outside Rome, a sanctuary of St Hermas is mentioned at Anzio in the biography of Pope Boniface I (1418–22) (Lib. Pont., I, p. 27). St Gregory in 598 sends “branden” (q.v.) that had touched the tombs of St Hermas and St Hyacinth to Chrysanthus, bishop of Spoleto, for the church of S. Maria in Rieti (Gregorii I papae registrum epistolarum, IX, 15, ed. P. Ewald and L. M. Hartmann, in MGH, Epistolae, II, Berlin 1899, p. 76); the same Pope in 599 gives consent for the erection in Naples of a church in honour of the martyrs Hermas, Sebastian, Cyriacus and Pancras (loc. cit., p. 164). From the same Pope we learn of the existence at that time of a monastery of St Hermas in Sicily (Registrum, VI, 39 and 47, ed. cit., I, pp. 415 and 422) and another in Sardinia (Registrum, XIV, 2, ed. cit., II, p. 421). It is uncertain whether the St Hermas commemorated on 28 August in the Hieronymian Martyrology at Marseille is the Roman one, or that of Heraclea, or the other of Bologna, which the same Martyrology records on 31 December, 10 January and 4 January. — See pl. XXXIX.
HERMES TRISMEGISTUS (‘Ερμής ο Τρισμέγιστος, Hermes Trismegistus): see HERMETICI, LIBRI.