Hermas
HERMAS
A Christian at Rome, 1Ch 16:14 ; supposed by some to have been the writer of the ancient work called “The Shepherd of Hermas”-a singular mixture of truth and piety with folly and superstition.
Fuente: American Tract Society Bible Dictionary
Hermas
(, Rom 16:14)
Hermas is a Greek name, a contracted form of several names such as Hermagoras, Hermeros, Hermodorus, Hermogenes, etc., common among members of the Imperial household (J. B. Lightfoot, Philippians4, 1878, p. 176), It is the last of a group of five names (all Greek) of persons, and the brethren with them, saluted by St. Paul. Nothing is known of any member of the group. It is conjectured that together they formed a separate or church, the locality of which we shall suppose to have been Rome or Ephesus, according to our view of the destination of these salutations. Cf. Rom 16:5; Rom 16:15 and perhaps Rom 16:11, and 1Co 16:19 and perhaps Act 20:20. Possibly these five men were heads of five separate household churches, or leaders or office-bearers in the Church.
T. B. Allworthy.
Fuente: Dictionary of the Apostolic Church
Hermas
(First or second century), author of the book called “The Shepherd” (Poimen, Pastor), a work which had great authority in ancient times and was ranked with Holy Scripture. Eusebius tells us that it was publicly read in the churches, and that while some denied it to be canonical, others “considered it most necessary”. St. Athanasius speaks of it, together with the Didache, in connection with the deuterocanonical books of the Old Testament, as uncanonical yet recommended by the ancients for the reading of catechumens. Elsewhere he calls it a most profitable book. Rufinus similarly says that the ancients wished it to be read, but not to be used as an authority as to the Faith. It is found with the Epistle of Barnabas at the end of the New Testament in the great Siniatic Bible Aleph (fourth century), and between the Acts of the Apostles and the Acts of Paul in the stichometrical list of the Codex Claromontanus. In accordance with this conflicting evidence, we find two lines of opinion among the earlier Fathers. St. Irenaeus and Tertullian (in his Catholic days) cite the “Shepherd” as Scripture. Clement of Alexandria constantly quotes it with reverence, and so does Origen, who held that the author was the Hermas mentioned by St. Paul, Rom., xvi, 14. He says the work seems to him to be very useful, and Divinely inspired; yet he repeatedly apologizes, when he has occasion to quote it, on the ground that “many people despise it”. Tertullian, when a Montanist, implies that Pope St. Callistus had quoted it as an authority (though evidently not as Scripture), 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 and false.” And again, he says that the Epistle of Barnabas is “more received among the Churches than that apocryphal Shepherd” (De pudic., 10 and 20). Tertullian was no doubt right, that the book had been excluded at Rome from the Bible Instrumentum, but he is exaggerating in referring to “every council” and to a total rejection, for the teaching of the “Pastor” was in direct contradiction with his own rigid views as to penance. His earlier use of it is paralleled by the Acts of Sts. Perpetua and Felicitas, before the end of the second century, but there is no trace of it in St. Cyprian, so that it would seem to have gone out of use in Africa during the early decades of the third century. Somewhat later it is quoted by the author of the pseudo-Cyprianic tract “Adv. aleatores” as “Scriptura divina”, but in St. Jerome’s day it was “almost unknown to the Latins”. Curiously, it went out of fashion in the East, so that the Greek MSS. of it are but two in number, whereas in the West it became better known and was frequently copied in the Middle Ages.
Contents
The book consists of five visions, twelve mandates, or commandments, and ten similitudes, or 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 was on the road to Cumae, he had a vision of Rhoda, who was presumably dead. She told him that she was his accuser in heaven, on account of an unchaste thought he had once had concerning her, though only in passing; he was to 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 the faithful, who tells him to do penance and to correct the sins of his children. Subsequently he sees her made younger through penance, yet wrinkled and with white hair; then again, as quite young but still with white hair — this is the Church of the forgiven. Lastly, she shows herself all glorious as a Bride — this is the Church of the end of the days. In the second vision she gives Hermas a book, which she afterwards takes back in order to add to it. He is to give this writing to the presbyters, who will read it to the people; another copy is for “Grapte”, who will communicate it to the widows; and a third is to be sent by Clement to the foreign Churches, “for this is his office”. We see here the constitution of the Roman Church: the presbyters set over different parishes; Grapte (no doubt a deaconess) who is connected with the widows; Clement, the pope, who is the organ of communication between Rome and the rest of the Church in the second century is well known to us from other sources. The fifth vision, which is represented as taking place twenty days after the fourth, introduces “the Angel 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) as to the belief in one God, simplicity, truthfulness, chastity, long-suffering, faith, fear, continence, confidence, cheerfulness, humility, good desires. These form an interesting development of early Christian ethics. The only point which needs special mention is the assertion of a husband’s obligation to take back an adulterous wife on her repentance. The eleventh mandate, on humility, is concerned with false prophets who desire to occupy the first seats (that is to say, among the presbyters). It is possible that we have here a reference to Marcion, who came to Rome about 142-4 and desired to be admitted among the priests (or possibly even to become pope). After the mandata come ten similitudes (parabolai) in the form of visions, which are explained by the angel. The longest of these (ix) 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. But in Vis. iii it looked as though only the holy are a part of the Church; in Sim. ix 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 penance.
The whole book is thus concerned with the Christian virtues and their exercise. It is an ethical, not a theological, work. The intention is above all to preach repentance. A single chance of restoration after fall is given to Christians, and this opportunity is spoken of as something new, which had never been clearly published before. The writer is pained by the sins of the faithful and is sincerely anxious for their conversion and return to good works. As a layman, Hermas avoids dogma, and, when incidentally it comes in, it is vague or incorrect. It has been thought with some reason that he did not distinguish the Son from the Holy Ghost, or that he held that the Holy Ghost became the Son by His Incarnation. But his words are not clear, and his ideas on the subject may have been rather misty and confused than definitely erroneous.
Authorship and Date
It is not easy to decide whether the writer has given us a genuine fragment of autobiography and a true account of visions which he saw or imagined that he saw, or whether the entire work is fictitious both in form and in setting. Three dates are suggested by the variety of evidence available. The reference to St. Clement as pope would give the date 89-99 for at least the first two visions. On the other hand, if the writer is identified with the Hermas mentioned by St. Paul, an earlier date becomes probable, unless he wrote as a very old man. But three ancient witnesses, one of whom claims to be contemporary, declare that he was the brother of Pope St. Pius I, who was not earlier than 140-55. These three are (a) the Muratorian fragment; (b) the Liberian catalogue of popes, in a portion which dates from 235 (Hippolytus?); (c) the poem of Pseudo-Tertullian against Marcion, of the third or fourth century. (a) “Pastorem uero nuperrime temporibus nostris in urbe Roma Herma conscripsit, sedente cathedra urbis Romae ecclesiae Pio episcopo fratre ejus. Et ideo legi eum quidem oportet, se publicare uero in ecclesia populo neque inter prophetas completos numero, neque inter apostolos in fine temporum, potest” — “And very recently, in our own times, in the city of Rome, Herma wrote the Pastor, when his brother Pius, the bishop, sat upon the chair of the Church of the city of Rome. And therefore that [book] ought to be perused, but it cannot be publicly read to the people assembled in church, neither among the Prophets, whose number is complete, nor among the Apostles [who came] in the end of times.” (b) “Sub hujus [Pii] episcopatu frater ejus Ermes librum scripsit, in quo mandatum continetur quae [quod] praecepit ei angelus, cum venit ad illum in habitu Pastoris” — “Under his [Pius’s] episcopate, his brother Ermes wrote a book in which are contained the precepts which the angel delivered to him, coming to him in the guise of a Shepherd.” (c) “Post hunc deinde Pius, Hermas cui germine frater angelicus Pastor, quia tradita verba locutus.” — “Then, after him, Pius, whose brother according to the flesh was Hermas, the angelic shepherd, because he spoke the words given to him.” The three authorities are probably citing the same papal catalogue (of Hegesippus?). As (c) quotes some details from this list which are absent from (b), it would seem that he is independent of (b). (a) has added the inference that the “Pastor” may be read publicly, provided it be not numbered among the fourteen prophets, nor among the Apostolic writings. The statement that Hermas wrote during his brother’s pontificate may similarly be an inference from the fact that it was in a list of popes, against the name of Pius, that the writer found the information that Hermas was that pope’s brother. He may have been an elder brother of the pope, who was probably an old man in 140. Hence it is quite possible that Hermas might have been past thirty when Clement died, at the time of his first and second visions. But because this is possible, it does not follow that it is very probable.
Older critics unanimously attributed the authorship to the Hermas of Rom., xvi, 14 — Bellarmine, Cave, Le Nourry, Remi Ceillier, Lardner, etc., with Baronius, who strangely thought the same Hermas might have been brother to Pius I. In the middle of the eighteenth century Mosheim and Schroeck preferred the testimony of the Muratorian Canon, which was published in 1740; but Gallandi and Lumper adhered to the earlier view. Zahn, in an early work (1868), stood by the references to St. Clement and imagined a Hermas, neither known to St. Paul nor brother to St. Pius, but writing in the last decade of the first century. He was followed by Peters and Caspari. But Hefele had been teaching that we cannot refuse the contemporary witness of the Muratorian Fragment, and this view has in the end prevailed amongst scholars, being now almost universally received. The question remains how we are to explain the mention of St. Clement. It was suggested above that Hermas may have been older than his brother Pius. But Harnack, holding that monepiscopacy was unknown in Rome until Anicetus, the successor of Pius, has no difficulty in holding that Clement really lived into the beginning of the second century, and that Pius was the most prominent among the priests at Rome even before 140. He therefore dates part of Visio ii, the kernel of the whole, before 110, and the final redaction not earlier than 135, nor later than 145. It is indeed true that the book itself describes the various parts as having been written down successively, and the process may well have taken three or four years, but hardly a decade or two. Perhaps the most probable view is that the historical data in the book are fictitious; the author was really the brother of Pope Pius, and wrote during his brother’s pontificate. The evils of the Church in his day which he describes are not impossible in the first century, but they certainly suit the second better. There is a possible reference to Marcion’s visit to Rome about 142, and there is a probable reference to Gnostic theories in Simil. viii, ix. The writer wished to be thought to belong to the preceding generation — hence the name of Clement, the most famous of earlier popes, instead of the name Pius. We cannot even be sure that the writer’s name was really Hermas. It is a suitable name for a slave, being a shortened form of Hermogenes, Hermodorous, or some such word. Dr. Rendel Harris has urged in an interesting essay that where Hermas describes twelve mountains in Arcadia (Simil. ix, 1), the description of the locality is taken from Pausanias. Dr. Armitage Robinson thought that we must even suppose that Hermas knew the place himself, and had been brought up in Arcadia. But all this is inconclusive, though plausible. The notion of De Champagny (who was followed by Dom Gueranger), that the “Shepherd” is made up of two works, the one (Vis. i-iv) by the disciple of St. Paul, the remainder by the brother of Pope Pius, is sufficiently refuted by the unity of style and matter, as Baumgaertner has shown. The same is to be said of Hilgenfeld’s opinion, that we have before us a fusion of works by three authors. Spitta has brought into patristic study the method he has applied to the Acts of the Apostles and the Apocalypse, and he finds in Hermas traces of a Christian enlargement of a Jewish writing, as Voelter had said of the Apocalypse. It is natural that Voelter should have approved this theory, but Spitta has not been followed by patristic scholars. Haussleiter formerly attributed only Vis. v-Simil. x to the brother of Pius, regarding Vis. i-iv as an addition made at the end of the second century in order to recommend the book as the work of Hermas, disciple of St. Paul. But that personage is not even mentioned.
There is but one direct quotation in the “Shepherd”, and that is from the apocryphal book of “Eldad and Modat, who prophesied to the people in the wilderness”, and the reference is apparently ironical. But there are many indirect citations from the Old Testament. According to Swete, Hermas never cites the Septuagint, but he uses a version of Daniel akin to that of Theodotion. He shows acquaintance with one or other of the Synoptic Gospels, and, since he also uses that of St. John, he probably knew all three. He appears to employ Ephesians and other Epistles, including perhaps I Peter and Hebrews. But the books he most certainly and most often uses are the Epistle of St. James and the Apocalypse. His matter is rather dull to us moderns, and the simplicity of his manner has been characterized as childish. But the admiration of Origen was not given to a work without depth or value; and, even with regard to the style, Westcott has reason to say (“On the Canon”, pt. I, ch. ii): “The beauty of the language and conception in many parts has never been sufficiently appreciated. Much of it may be compared with the ‘Pilgrim’s Progress’ and higher praise than this cannot be given to a book of its kind.” There is indeed some resemblance between the intensity and directness of the ancient Roman Catholic and that of the persecuted Puritan, however antipodean the antithesis between the individualism of the one and the conception of a Universal Church which dominate the whole thought of the other.
The “Shepherd” was first printed in Latin by Faber Stapulensis (Lefevre d’Etaples) in “Liber trium virorum et trium spiritualium virginum” (Paris, 1513); better edition by Fell (Oxford, 1685), and especially by Hilgenfeld (Leipzig, 1873), and von Gebhardt (Leipzig, 1877). This version, which is contained in many MSS., and has been frequently reprinted in the editions of the Apostolic Fathers, is known as the Vulgate. It was certainly known to the author of the “Adversus aleatores” (third or fourth cent.), and possibly to Tertullian, and the translation was probably made in the second century. Another version is contained in a single MS. (Vat. Palat. 150, saec. xiv), and has been printed by Dressel, “Patres Apost.” (Leipzig, 1857 and 1863), and von Gebhardt and Harnack (“Patres Apost.”, Leipzig, 1877). It is of the fifth century, according to Harnack, and the translator has used the Vulgate version as an aid. Haussleiter’s attempt to show that the Palatine is the older is rejected by Harnack and Funk. An Ethiopic version was discovered in 1847 by d’Abbadie; it has unfortunately a few lacunae and accidental omissions. It seems to have been made in the year 543. The Greek original was first known from a fourteenth-century MS. on Mount Athos. The well-known forger Simonides stole four of the leaves and copied the rest. But he sold to the library of the University of Leipzig a Greek version which he had composed himself. This was published in 1856 by Rudolf Anger, with preface and index by Dindorf. The fraud was soon discovered. The four leaves and Simonides’ copy were procured by the library, and the true readings were published by Anger in the “Leipziger Repertorium der deutschen und auslaendischen Literatur”, III (1856), 138. Since then the six leaves which remain on Mount Athos have been collated by J. Armitage Robinson. The Codex Sinaiticus discovered by Tischendorf and published by him in 1862, contains the “Pastor”, but in both MSS. the end is wanting. Two fragments of the book are found on a papyrus leaf from the Fayoum, now at Berlin.
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On the MSS. of the Vulgate version, see HARNACK, Gesch., I, 51; DELEHAYE in Bull. crit., 1894, p.14; EHRHARD, Altchristl. Litteratur, 104. The Palatine MS. has been carefully collated by FUNK in Zeitschr. fuer die oesterreich. Gymn., XXXVI (1885), 245. On the date and style of the Palatine version. HAUSSLEITER, De versionibus Pastoris Hermae latinis (Erlangen, 1884); IDEM in Z. fuer wiss. Theol., XXXVI (1883), 345. For the Ethiopic version, see D’ALBADIE and DILLMAN, Hermae Pastor, with Latin translation, in Abhandlungen fuer die Kunde des Morgenlandes, II (Leipzig, 1860), 1. The true Greek text appeared first in DRESSEL, Patres Apostolici (Leipzig, 1857 and 1863), and has been frequently republished in similar collections, as by HILGENFELD (1866 and 1881), GEBHARDT, and HARNACK (1877-); LIGHTFOOT and HARMER with English translation (1891), FUNK (1901). On the Athos MS., LAMBROS and ROBINSON, A Collation of the Athos Codex of the Shepherd (Cambridge, 1888); HILGENFELD in Z. Weiss. Theol., XXXII (1889), 94. The Berlin Papyrus is given in facsimile by WILCKEN, Tafeln zur aelteren griechischen Palaeogr. (Leipzig, 1891); a citation is found in a papyrus in GRENFELL and HUNT, The Oxyrhynchus papyri, I (London, 1898), 8. On both papyri see DIELS and HARNACK in Sitzungsber. der K. preussischen Akad. der Wiss. (Berlin, 1891), p. 427, and EHRHARD in Theolog. Quartalschrift, LXXIV (1892), 294. The literature dealing with Hermas is very large, and only a selection is here mentioned. The best introduction and notes, in Latin, are by FUNK, Patres Appostolici, I (Tuebingen, 1901). An excellent summary account by BARDENHEWER, Gesch. der altkirchl. Litt., I (Freiburg im Br., 1902), 557-578; see also HARNACK, Gesch. der altchr. Litt., I, 49, and Chronol., I, 257; KRUGER (who dates the book c. 100), Gesch. der altchr. Litt. (1895), 29; ZAHN, Der Hirt des Hermas untersucht (Gotha, 1868); IDEM, Gesch. des N.T. Kanons, I (1888), 326; NIRSCHL, Der Hirt des Hermas (Passau, 1879); BRUELL, Der H. des H. (Freiburg im Br., 1882); RENDEL HARRIS, Hermas in Arcadia in Journal of Soc. of Bibl. Lit. and Exeg. (1887, and reprinted, Cambridge, 1888). On Hermas’s use of the N.T. see the works of WESTCOTT, ZAHN, GREGORY, etc. on the Canon; and C. TAYLOR, The witness of Hermas to the four Gospels (London, 1892); IDEM, Hermas and the Cebes (an attempt to show that Hermas has used the pinakes of the Stoic philosopher Cebes) in Journal of Philo., XXVIII (1900), 276. On the plural authorship, DE CHAMPAGNY. Les Antonins, I (Paris, 1863); SPITTA, Zur Gesch. und Litt. des Urchristentums, II (Goettingen, 1896); VOELTER, Die Visionen des Hermas, die Sibylle, und Klemens von Rom (Berlin, 1900). For the unity, LINK, Die Einheit des Hermasbuches (Freiburg im Br., 1889); FUNK in Theol. Quartalschr., LXXXI (1899), 321; STAHL, Patrische Untersuchungen (Berlin, 1901-), gives the date as 165-70, after the appearance of Montanism; REVILLE, La valeur du temoignage historique du Pasteur d’Hermas (Paris, 1900). On the theology of the Shepherd, LINK, Christi Person und Werk im Hirten des Hermas (Marburg, 1886); BENIGNI in Bessarione, VI (1899); HEURTIER, Le dogme de la Trinite dans l’epitre de S. Clem. et le Pateur d’H. (Lyons, 1900). Further bibliography in RICHARDSON, Synopsis; CHEVALIER, Repertoire, and BARDENHEWER, loc. cit.
JOHN CHAPMAN Transcribed by Don Ross
The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume VIICopyright © 1910 by Robert Appleton CompanyOnline Edition Copyright © 2003 by K. KnightNihil Obstat, June 1, 1910. Remy Lafort, S.T.D., CensorImprimatur. +John Cardinal Farley, Archbishop of New York
Fuente: Catholic Encyclopedia
Hermas
( , from , the Greek god of gain, or Mercury), the name of a person to whom Paul sends greeting in his Epistle to the Romans (16:14), and consequently then resident in Rome and a Christian (A.D. 55); and yet the origin of the name, like that of the other four mentioned in the same verse, is Greek. However, in those days. even a Jew, like Paul himself, might acquire Roman citizenship. Ireneeus, Tertullian, and Origen agree in making him identical with the author of the Shepherd of the following article, but this is greatly disputed. He is celebrated as a saint in the Roman calendar on May 9. Smith, s.v.
Fuente: Cyclopedia of Biblical, Theological and Ecclesiastical Literature
Hermas (2)
one of the so-called apostolical fathers (q.v.), the supposed author of a tract that has come down to us under the name of , The Shepherd, and generally designated by the title Pastor Hermae. The authorship. of the tract is uncertain, but it is clearly not the work of the Hermas ( ) mentioned in Rom 16:14, as Origen, Eusebius, and Jerome believed, and as the tract itself seems to pretend. The author appears to have been a layman of the 2nd century, probably a Roman tradesman who had lost his wealth through his own sins and the misdeeds of his neglected sons (Hilgenfeld; Schaff, History of the Church, 121). Others ascribe it to Hermas or Hermes, brother of Pins, bishop of Rome from A.D. 142 to 157. Of the Greek original we have nothing left but fragments, which are given in Fabricius, Cod. Apocryph. N. Test. 3, 378, and in Grabe, Spicileg. 1, 303. M. d’Abbadie claims (1860) to have discovered a third in Ethiopia, which he has transcribed and translated into Latin (Lpz. 1860); but whether the text from which it is taken is correct is a matter for further investigation. The Greek text was at an early period translated into Latin, and, since the beginning of the 15th century, often published (Paris, 1513, fol.; Strasb. 1522, 4to; Basle, 1555 and 1569, fol.; Oxford, 1685, 12mo; with additions by Le Clerc, Amst. 1698, 1724; Paris, 1715, 12mo). It is also inserted in the various collections of the fathers in Cotelier, Patres cevi apostolici (Paris, 1672, fol.), and in French in Desprez’s Bible (Paris, 1715, fol. vol. 4). It is also given in the various editions of the Apostolical Fathers (q.v.). Of late years this tract has been the subject of more editing and literary criticism than almost any relic of the early Church. In 1857 Dressel published at Leipzig a new Latin translation of the Pastor which he found in a MS. at Rome, and which differs from the other. The edition contains also a Greek text of the , revised by Tischendorf. This text, it is claimed, was found in a, convent of Mount Athos by Simonides. Tischendorf considers it, however, only as a retranslation from the Latin into Greek, and places its origin in the Middle Ages. Tischendorf himself discovered, in the Codex. Sinaiticus, the Greek text of book 1 of the Shepherd, and the first four chapters of book 2; this is given in the recent edition of Dressel, Patres Apost. (Lips. 1863); also by Hilgenfeld, who has carefully edited the Pastor Hermae in his Nov. Test. extra Canuonern receptum (fasc. 3, Lips. 1866). The Ante-Nicene Christian Library, vol. 1 (Edinb. 1867), contains a new and good translation of the Shepherd, following the text of Hilgenfeld, who makes use of the text found in the Sinaitic Codex.
The Pastor is written in the form of a dialogue, and is divided into three parts: 1 Visiones; 2. Mandata; 3. Similitudines. Hermas, in his childhood, had been brought up with a young slave. In after life, and when he was married, he met her again, and experienced for her a passion which, however pure in itself, was yet forbidden by the Church under the circumstances. Soon afterwards the young slave died. One day, as Hermas was wandering in the country, thinking of her, he sat down and fell asleep. During my sleep, says he, my mind carried me away to a steep path, which I found great difficulty in ascending on account of rocks and streams. Arriving on a piece of table-land, I knelt down to pray; and as I was praying the heavens opened, and I saw the young maiden I was wishing for, who saluted me from the sky, saying, Good day, Hermas.’ And I, looking at her, answered, What art thou doing there?’ I have been called here,’ she answered, to denounce thy sins before the Lord.’ What!’ exclaimed I, and wilt thou accuse me?’ No; but listen to me…’ etc. The conversation goes on with a blending of severity and tenderness. Pray to the Lord, says the young girl, as she disappears from his sight; he will heal thy soul, and will efface the sins of all thy house, as he has done those of all the saints. One cannot help noticing the striking similarity which exists between this Vision and the celebrated passage in the Divina Commedia where Beatrice appears to Dante. This vision is followed by three others. They are all invitations to penitence, and though in the first it appears as if the invitation was especially directed to Hermas, it clearly applies also to the Church in general. This becomes more evident in the following visions. The Mandata begin also with a vision. An angel appears to Hermas under the form of a shepherd, wearing’ a white cloak, and bearing a staff in his hand. This shepherd is the angel of penitence, and gives Hermas twelve precepts, which embrace the rules of Christian morals. They are given under the different headings:
1. Defide in unum Deum;
2. Defugienda obt-rectatione, et eleemosynafacienda in simplicitate;
3. De fugiendo mendacio.;
4. De dinittenda adultera;
5. De tristitia cordis et patientia;
6. De dgnoscendis uniuscujusque hominis luobus geziis et utriusque inspirationibus;
7. De Deo timendo et daemone non timendo;
8. Declinandum est a malo et facienda bona;
9. Postulandum a Deo assidue et sine haesitatione;
10. De animi tristitia et non contristando Spiritum Dei, qui in nobis est;
11. Spiritus et prophetas probari ex operibus, et de duplici spiritu;
12. De duplici cupiditate. Dei mandata non esse impossibilia et diabolum non meetutendum credentibus.
The Similitudines, finally, are a series of parables and allegories. The vine, with its rich fruits and flexible boughs, is used to symbolize the fruitfulness of the Church. The willow is made the emblem of divine law. This latter image is made by Hermas the ground of a most graceful allegory. Similitudines 1 to 4 are short and simple images or descriptions; Simil. 5 to 9 are visions of the approaching completion of the Church, and of judgment as well as invitations to penitence on that account; Simil. 10, finally, is a sort of conclusion of the whole.
This work was perhaps the most popular book in the Christian Church of the 2nd and 3nd centuries. Yet, while it pleased the masses, it did not always satisfy the teachers. Irenmaus (adv. Haer. 4, 3), Clement of Alexandria (Strom. 1, 29), and Origen (Explan. Epist. ad Romans 16) held it in high estimation. Eusebius asserts (Hist. Ecclesiastes 3, 3) that many other ecclesiastical writers contested its authenticity. Jerome, after praising Hermas in his Chronicon, accuses him of foolishness (stultitia) in his Comment. in Habakkuk (1, 1), and Tertullian treats him no better, designating the book as apocryphal in De Pudicit. (10). The learned Duguet, in his Conferences ecclesiastiques (1, 7), even claims to find in the Pastor the germ of all heresies which troubled the Church in the 2nd century. Others among modern theologians, and especially Mosheim, have violently attacked the Pastor, and considered Hermas as an impostor. The book knows little of the Gospel, and less of justifying faith; on the contrary, it talks much of the law of Christ and of repentance, enjoins fasting and voluntary poverty, and teaches the merit, even the supererogatory merit, of good works, and the sin-atoning virtue of martyrdom (Schaff, 1. c.). See Gratz, Disquisitio in Past. Hermae (Bonn, 1820); Hefele, Patr. Apost. Prolegomena; Hilgenfeld, Apost. Vater (Halle, 1853); Cave, Hist. literaria; Fabricius, Bibl. Graeca, 7, 18; Tillemont, Memoires eccles. vol. 2, May 9th; Dom. Ceillier, Hist. des Auteurs sacrae et eccles. 1, 582; Hosheim, Comment. 1, 208-9; Neander, Ch. Hist. 1, 660, Iase, Ch. Hist. 39 and Appendix; Hoefer, Nouv. Biog. Gneral, 24, 371; Schaff, Church History, 121; Bunsen, Christianity and Mlci2mkind, 1, 182; E. Gaab, Der Hirt d. Hermas (Basel, 1866, 8vo); Zahn, Der Hirt d. Hermas untersucht (Gotha, 1868, 8vo); Alzog, Patrologie, 19; Lipsius, in Zeitsch rift J Wissenschftliche Theologie, 1865, heft 3; Hilgenfeld, Delr Hirt d. Hermcas u. sein neuester Bearbeiter, in Zeitsch f. Wiss. Theol. 1869, heft 2; Lipsius (in same journal, 1869, heft 3), Die Polenzik eines Apologeten (a severe review of Zahn’s Hernmas).
Fuente: Cyclopedia of Biblical, Theological and Ecclesiastical Literature
Hermas
Mercury, a Roman Christian to whom Paul sends greetings (Rom. 16: 14). Some suppose him to have been the author of the celebrated religious romance called The Shepherd, but it is very probable that that work is the production of a later generation.
Fuente: Easton’s Bible Dictionary
Hermas
One at Rome to whom Paul sends greeting (Rom 16:14). A Greek name. Irenaeus, Tertullian, and Origen attribute to him “The Shepherd,” supposed by some to have been written in the episcopacy of Clement I; others deny Hermas of Romans 16 to be the author. Its author appears from internal evidence to have been married and to have had children, and to have been a lay mystic. Originally in Greek, but now only in a Latin version entire. An inferior kind of Pilgrim’s Progress in three parts: the first has four visions, the second 12 spiritual precepts, the third ten similitudes shadowing forth each some truth. Each man, according to it, has a bad and a good angel, who endeavour to influence him for evil and good respectively.
Fuente: Fausset’s Bible Dictionary
Hermas
HERMAS.A Christian at Rome, saluted in Rom 16:14. The name is a common one, especially among slaves. Origen identifies this Hermas with the celebrated author of The Shepherd, a book considered by many in the 2nd cent. to be on a level with Scripture. For the disputed date of the book, which professes to record visions seen in the episcopate of Clement (c [Note: circa, about.] . a.d. 90100), but which is said in the Muratorian Fragment (c [Note: circa, about.] . 180200?) to have been written in the episcopate of Pius (not before a.d. 139), see Salmons Introd. to the NT, Lect. xxvi. But Origens identification is very improbable, the dates being scarcely compatible, and the name so common.
A. J. Maclean.
Fuente: Hastings’ Dictionary of the Bible
Hermas
hurmas (, Hermas): An abbreviated form of several names, e.g. Hermagoras, Hermeros, Hermodorus, Hermogenes, etc.; the name of a Roman Christian to whom Paul sent greetings (Rom 16:14). Origen and some later writers have identified him with the author of The Pastor of Hermas, but without sufficient reason. According to the Canon of Muratori, the author of The Pastor wrote when his brother Pius was bishop of Rome (140-55 ad). He speaks of himself, however, as a contemporary of Clement of Rome (chapter 4) (circa 100 ad). The name Hermas is very common, and Origen’s identification is purely conjectural.
Fuente: International Standard Bible Encyclopedia
Hermas
Hermas, one of the Christians at Rome to whom Paul addressed special salutations in his Epistle (Rom 16:14). Of his history and station in life nothing is known. By several writers, ancient and modern, he has been reputed to be the author of a work entitled The Shepherd of Hermas, which, from its high antiquity and the supposed connection of the writer with St. Paul, has been usually classed with the epistles of the so-called Apostolic Fathers. It was originally written in Greek, but we possess it only in a Latin version (as old as the time of Tertullian), a few fragments excepted, which are found as quotations in other ancient authors. It has been divided by modern editors (for in the manuscript copies there is no such division) into three books; the first consisting of four visions, the second of twelve commands, and the third of ten similitudes. It is called ‘The Shepherd,’ because the Angel of Repentance, at whose dictation Hermas professes that he wrote the second and third books, appeared in the garb of a shepherd. It is doubtful whether the author really believed that he saw the visions he describes, or merely adopted the fiction to render his work more attractive. Impartial judges will probably agree with Mosheim, that ‘The Shepherd’ contains such a mixture of folly and superstition with piety, of egregious nonsense with momentous truth, as to render it a matter of astonishment that men of learning should ever have thought of giving it a place among the inspired writings.
Fuente: Popular Cyclopedia Biblical Literature
Hermas
[Her’mas]
A Christian to whom Paul sent salutations in his epistle to the Romans. Rom 16:14. Some have judged him to be one of the Apostolic Fathers, and the writer of a treatise called “THE SHEPHERD OF HERMAS,” which was highly esteemed in the early church. It is a sort of allegory, and has been compared to Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress. Parts of it are very trivial, and some scarcely decent. It is found attached to the Greek manuscript of the N.T., known as the Codex Sinaiticus, and exists in several ancient Latin copies.
Fuente: Concise Bible Dictionary
Hermas
G2057
A Christian at Rome.
Rom 16:14
Fuente: Nave’s Topical Bible
Hermas
Her’mas. (Mercury). The name of a Christian resident at Rome. To whom St. Paul sends greetings. In his Epistle to the Romans. Rom 16:14. According to tradition, he was one of the seventy disciples, and afterward, bishop of Dalmatia. (A.D. 55). Irenaeus, Tertullian and Origen agree in attributing to him the work called The Shepherd. It was never received into the canon, but yet. Was generally cited with respect. Only second to that which was paid. to the authoritative books of the New Testament.