The Shepherd of Hermas (Full Script)

Too lazy to read?  Watch the video!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ecp1WC-3BNo

The Shepherd of Hermas

Post-Apostolic Church

AUTHOR

Hermas was an uneducated man who lived and wrote in Rome around AD 150.  Once a slave to a woman named Rhode, it is implied that he was eventually freed. He wrote of his being reunited with her and loving her as a sister in Christ.  It was after this event that Hermas had visions, which is recorded in his work called The Shepherd, also called The Angel of Repentance.

About 20 years later, the Muratorian Fragment had this say:

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 therefore it ought indeed to be read; but it cannot be read publicly to the people in church either among the Prophets, whose number is complete, or among the Apostles, for it is after [their] time."  (Muratorian Fragment.  AD 170.  ANF, vol 5, page 604.)

Pius was bishop of Rome in the 140s and 150s.  So the dating of the Shepherd of Hermas is straightforward.

Paul mentions a Hermas in Romans 16:

Greet Asyncritus, Phlegon, Hermes, Patrobas, Hermas, and the brothers who are with them.  (Romans 16:14)

Is this the same Hermas who wrote the Shepherd?  In all likelihood, no.  If it is the same Hermas, he would have written the Shepherd around the age of 110 at the very youngest.

THE SHEPHERD

The Shepherd of Hermas is one of three works that were almost included in the New Testament canon.  Irenaeus, Origen, and Clement of Alexandria, were three prominent writers who accepted it.  But they admitted that there were many Christians who did not.  As with 1 Clement and the Letter of Barnabas, when there was enough doubt across Christendom as to the authenticity of a work, it was left out of the canon.

Early in his life, Tertullian acknowledged the value in the Shepherd, but later when he joined the Montanists, a sect of Christianity, he aggressively spoke out against it.  At one time, he called it the “apocryphal Shepherd of adulterers” among other things (Tertullian.  AD 212.  ANF, vol 4, page 97.)  The Montanists did not accept the repentance of an adulterer, while The Shepherd commanded that if an adulterous spouse repents, they should be received.

The Shepherd is allegorical.  It consists of three books: the first recounts five visions, the second lists twelve commandments, and the third shares ten parables.  Throughout the book, Hermas speaks with an angel, disguised as a shepherd, who guides him through the visions and calls him and the Church to repentance.  In many places, Hermas asks some hard questions about situations such as adultery and remarriage.  The way in which the angel answers him is similar to a Question and Answer session today.  One might say that parts of The Shepherd are like a Q&A for the church.

The book focuses on ethics and Christian living rather than on theology.  Its intention is to teach repentance.  Though the book seeks to correct the wrongs of Christians and of the Church, the book has an optimistic attitude.