Introduction
In early Christianity, churches were largely isolated from one another, each one based in its own city. By the final quarter of the first century CE, a handful of Paul’s letters were in circulation (along with a few forgeries), and the first (known) Gospels were being written. It could take days, weeks, or even months for the churches to correspond with each other through letters, and it could take longer for entire books to be copied and shared with the next church.
This church in Syria might have some of Paul’s letters and the Gospel of Mark, while that church in Greece might have some of Paul’s other letters, the Gospel of Luke, and the letter of James. Because there was no formal, agreed-upon New Testament — and wouldn’t be for another few centuries — different communities had different collections of texts they considered ‘authoritative’. Several of them used books that, as time went on and churches communicated more frequently, are no longer recognized as ‘divinely inspired’.
One such book is titled the Shepherd of Hermas.
A Christian apocalypse, the Shepherd of Hermas, emerged from the same period [the decades around 100 C.E.] and rivaled Revelation for both popularity and acceptance well into the fourth century.1
This book is difficult for the average student of the Bible. Few Christians care to spend time on the Revelation of John because of its arcane symbols; less so on a book they don’t even consider ‘canonical’. Hermas is about three times longer than the Revelation, most of its message are buried beneath many layers of symbolism, and it can be a bit dry.
Here I will provide a summary of the Shepherd of Hermas’ contents, as well as some of its more unusual features.
The Shepherd of Hermas belongs to the apocalyptic genre, which developed in the middle of Second Temple Judaism. Apocalypses typically fell into one of two categories: cosmological, where the author intended to reveal the nature of the world, and eschatological, revelations about the end of the world. The biblical books of Daniel and Revelation belong to the latter category, where dense symbolism was extremely common. The authors of eschatological apocalypses wrote in response to an ongoing crisis during their own time period, and expected astute readers to catch their meaning in the symbolism, though many of them depict an angel interpreting some of the symbolism just in case it was too opaque.
The book is organized into three sections: five visions, twelve commands, and ten parables. These sections are intentional, given by the text itself. Although the Shepherd of Hermas has a lot of traits normal in eschatological apocalypses, the book also represents a push into a third direction: sapiential.
Both the author of the Apocalypse and the author of the Shepherd of Hermas regarded themselves as confronted with a crisis […] for Hermas it was moral laxity which must now cease upon a second and final opportunity to repent.2
Hermas begins with an ‘end times’ focus that moves into the background, as the author shifts to dispensing wisdom about Christian ethics and salvation.
Author
Within the book, Hermas requires his visions to be explained to him by an angelic guide. This was a typical feature in apocalyptic literature, but the book takes it a step further by regularly disparaging Hermas for being so slow to understand the symbolism on his own. Despite his shortcomings, Hermas is spiritually elevated by the book’s end.
If anything, one might argue that Hermas actually demonstrates some growth during the process of his revelation. […] Hermas's growth apparently culminates in Similitude 9, as he assists in constructing a tower, another figure for the church. Here, Hermas actually participates in his own vision.3
Outside the biographical information provided by the book — Hermas was a former slave, lived in Rome, was married and had children — we know little about the author. This has led to a variety of theories as to who he was, when he lived, and even if the whole book came from one person.
On the very fringes of scholarship are those who think Hermas is the man mentioned in Rom 16.14, and the Clement mentioned in Vision 2 of the Shepherd of Hermas is the one from Php 4.3, which would require the Shepherd of Hermas be written in the final couple of decades of the first century CE. This is extremely unlikely, due to the author’s use of the Revelation (described below), which itself was not completed until 95–100 CE. Still, Hermas cannot have been written very far into the second century. One manuscript we have of Hermas dates to the late second century, which is remarkably early.
The Muratorian Fragment — a list from the late second century that lays out which Christian texts are ‘authoritative’ and which are not — attributes the Shepherd of Hermas to the brother of Pius, who was the bishop of Rome’s church in the middle of the second century. This seems equally unlikely: ‘Hermas’ is a Greek name where ‘Pius’ is a Latin name, and Hermas never indicates the author had a brother in a position of power in the Church.
For many years there was little agreement whether the Shepherd of Hermas had just one author, or a few different writers who appended their contributions to an earlier text. The latter certainly wouldn’t be unusual among apocalyptic texts; Daniel, 1 Enoch, Revelation, 4 Ezra, and the Sibylline Oracles were also expanded over multiple stages by multiple authors. Today, scholars are largely in agreement that Hermas wrote the whole book over the course of a few decades,
Sections
The Visions
The Commands
Traditionally called ‘Mandates’.
The Parables
Traditionally called ‘Similitudes’.
Blurred Identities
Hermas’ theology is well-defined in itself, but his presentation can leave readers lost. His depiction of God is standard, but his discussion of Jesus and the holy spirit requires untangling. The most likely reason for this confusion is because Hermas doesn’t really distinguish the holy spirit as a ‘person’ the way later trinitarian theology does. He has this in common with Paul and most New Testament texts, where the ‘holy spirit’ is the active presence of God in the world (cf. Matt 12.28 and Luke 11.20), or of Jesus among his followers (Rom 8.9; Gal 4.6). According to Hermas, a person who has this spirit can unintentionally reduce its power in them through inappropriate thoughts or actions.
Command 10
When the doubting man attempts any deed, and fails in it on account of his doubt, this grief enters into the man, and grieves the holy spirit, and crushes him out.
Something I skimmed over in the summaries above is the way Hermas personifies abstracts. The global Church is symbolized not only as a tower under construction, but as a morphing woman who partially helps to explain the symbolism of Hermas’ visions. Repentance, punishment, and other divine acts of God are embodied as angels.
Additionally, the virgins who are assigned to live in Hermas’ household at the end of the book are not human women, but the personifications of divine virtues mentioned throughout the book (patience, simplicity, truth, etc.). On the other side of the coin, though, are sins (distrust, unrestraint, grief, etc.), which take the form of women dressed in black. In this regard, the holy spirit is just one of the many personifications found in the book, and can be overwhelmed by the presence of the black-dressed ‘women’.
Command 10
He said ‘Remove grief from yourself, for she is the sister of doubt and anger.’
I said, ‘Lord, how is she the sister of these? For anger, doubt, and grief seem to be quite different from each other.’
‘You are senseless, O man. Do you not perceive that grief is more wicked than all the spirits, and most terrible to the servants of God, and more than all other spirits destroys man and crushes out the holy spirit, and yet, on the other hand, she saves him?’
One of the more enigmatic components of these personifications is the way Hermas blurs divine identities. This is most prominent in Parable 9, which seeks to round up much of the book’s symbolism and theology.
Parable 9
After I had written down the commands and parables from the shepherd (who is the angel of repentance), he came to me and said, ‘I wish to explain to you what the holy spirit that spoke with you in the form of the Church showed you, for that spirit is the son of God.’
Further, to be ‘clothed with the holy spirit of these virgins’ is the same thing as ‘receiving the holy spirit’.
Parable 9
‘And these virgins, who are they?’
‘They are holy spirits, and men cannot otherwise be found in the kingdom of God unless these have put their clothing upon them […] For these virgins are the powers of the son of God […] Everyone who bears the son of God’s name ought to bear their names, for the son himself bears the names of these virgins […] So also those who have believed in the Lord through his son and are clothed with these spirits shall become one spirit’
In Hermas’ theology, Jesus (the son of God) is the holy spirit, and the Church/woman, and the virtues/virgins. Some even think the angel Michael is identified with the ‘son of God’ in Parable 8.
A very similar personification of divine attributes is also found in Zoroastrian theology, which first began to influence Judean religion in the fifth century BCE. We don’t know the precise age of many Zoroastrian beliefs, so we don’t know exactly which parts of Judaism were borrowed from Zoroastrianism. Regardless, I will outline this concept for the sake of comparison. God, the Wise Lord (Ahura Mazda), has virtues, which are identified as the seven Holy Immortals (Amesha Spentas). The first of them is the Holy Spirit (Spenta Mainyu). These Holy Immortals are emanations of God’s own traits, yet also serve him as if they were created by him.
This blending of identities may seem very unusual to modern senses, but we actually see this kind of ‘angelomorphic’ theology Judean and Christian texts from the Second Temple period. The earliest clear personification of one of God’s traits is in Prov 8.22–31 and Wis 7.25–26, where his Wisdom is a female divinity that helps him create the world.
Proverbs 8
‘I, Wisdom, life with prudence, and I attain knowledge and discretion. […] Yhwh created me at the beginning of his work, the first of his acts of long ago.
Closer parallels are found in an apocalyptic text written not long before Hermas. The Revelation’s seven spirits (1.4; 4.5) — possibly derived from the seven archangels tradition in Judaism, or perhaps related to the seven Holy Immortals of Zoroastrianism — are identified as the eyes of the Lamb (5.6), meaning those seven spirits are, in some way, aspects of Jesus himself. The physical appearance of Jesus as ‘one like a son of man’ in Rev 1 borrows from descriptions of both God (Ezek 1.26–28; Dan 7.9) and angels (Dan 10.5–6). Jesus also appears as the fourth (center) of seven angels that announce and execute judgment (14.6–20).
In organizing Hermas’ theology, we find God at the top of the ladder as expected. The next step down is Jesus, the son of God, who is the holy spirit.
Hermas’ Sources
Hermas shows knowledge of earlier books, but the extent of his knowledge and use of them is somewhat debated.
The author never quotes other early Christian writings. This, however, may not tell anything, since he also never quotes any part of Israel's Scripture although he knew it well. Only once does he quote anything explicitly, the lost writing Eldad and Modad (Vis. 2.3.4). Parallels to parables of the Synoptic Gospels, especially the parable of the good servant (Sim. 5.2; 5.4–7), are best explained as reflecting a knowledge of the parables of Jesus from the oral tradition.9
Still, the vision of a beast in Vision 4 may show dependence on the Revelation of John.
Vision 4
The sun shone out a little, and see, I saw a huge beast, like a sea monster, and fiery locusts came from its mouth. The beast was about one hundred feet long, and it had a head like an earthenware jar. […] And the beast had four colors on its head: black, then a fire and blood color, then gold, then white.
It appears that Hermas combines parts of Rev 6 (four colors), 9 (locusts and breathing fire), and 13 (the beast which brings the tribulation). The Revelation’s seven spirits may have also helped inspire Hermas’ personified theology described above. In contrast to Revelation, though, Hermas ‘does not call to subvert or even change the status quo’,
Hermas also seems to have made use of Paul’s letters. Per 1 Clement — a letter written by the Roman church — at least a few of Paul’s letters were available to Roman Christians by the time Hermas was written in the first half of the second century.
The Book of Eldad and Modad cited in the second vision is an interesting case.
Vision 2
The Lord is near to them who return to him, as it is written in Eldad and Modad, who prophesied to the people in the wilderness.
This book — attributed to the two prophets briefly mentioned in Num 11 — is now lost. Other traditions around Eldad and Modad are found in the Targums, where they are said to have predicted things about the end times, the same context where Hermas cites the book. This strongly suggests the Book of Eldad and Modad was a prophetic or apocalyptic text popular among some Judeans and Christians in Hermas’ time.
Hermas makes frequent use of a term, ‘double-minded’, which is found sparingly in early Christian literature. The same word is found earlier, in 1 Clement, when that author quotes an existing text.
1 Clement 23
Let what was written be far from us: ‘Wretched are they who are of a double-mind and a doubting heart, who say, “We have heard these things even in the times of our fathers, but see, we have grown old and none of them has happened to us.”’
This is remarkably similar to 2 Pet 3.2–4, yet 1 Clement was written before 2 Peter. The vocabulary in this passage from 1 Clement also has a high overlap with unusual terms used by Hermas. The same cluster of unique vocabulary is also found in the Letter of James, written maybe a decade before 1 Clement. All four of these Christian texts — James, 1 Clement, Hermas, 2 Peter — were drawing on an earlier source, the Book of Eldad and Modad.
it would seem that Eldad and Modad was especially influential in the Roman Christian circles represented by Hermas, 1 Clement and perhaps 2 Clement, and with which the letter of James may also be connected […] The resemblance between the quotation in 1 and 2 Clement and 2 Peter 3:3–4 suggests that 2 Peter, probably another product of the church of Rome, may also have been influenced by Eldad and Modad.12
Chasing down a minor reference in the Shepherd of Hermas led us to uncover a source used by New Testament texts.
Conclusion
The Shepherd of Hermas is certainly a complex book, and it’s this complexity which may have convinced early Christians to reject its authority. Despite its popularity in some communities, it met widespread resistance around the end of the second century. The Muratorian Fragment has this to say:
But Hermas wrote the Shepherd very recently, in our times, in the city of Rome, while Bishop Pius, his brother, was occupying the chair of the church of the city of Rome. And so it certainly should be read, but it can’t be read publicly in church to the people, either among the prophets (whose number is complete) or among the apostles (since it’s after their time).
Hermas was important, and even ‘authoritative’, but it wasn’t written by an apostle, and was considered too late to be counted with the Prophets of the Hebrew scriptures. Hence, it was relegated to private reading, where it eventually fell out of favor.