The Shepherd of Hermas

“ Therefore, if they find your house to be pure, they will remain with you; but if any defilement, even a little, befall it, they will immediately withdraw from your house. For these virgins do not at all like any defilement." I said to him, "I hope, sir, that I will please them, so that they may always be willing to inhabit my house. And as he to whom you entrusted me has no complaint against me, so neither will they have." He said to the Shepherd, "I see that the servant of God wishes to live, and to keep these commandments, and will place these virgins in a pure habitation." ”

“ CHAPTER II And he said to me, "Do you see this shepherd?" "I see him, sir," I said. "This," he answered, "is the angel of luxury and deceit: he wears out the souls of the servants of God, and perverts them from the truth, deceiving them with wicked desires, through which they will perish; for they forget the commandments of the living God, and walk in deceits and empty luxuries; and they are ruined by the angel, some being brought to death, others to corruption:" I said to him, "Sir, I do not know the meaning of these words, 'to death, and to corruption.'" "Listen," he said. ”

“ Though thou be one of the wise men, this shall be no hindrance to thee. Only let thy coming be to honour and adore, with trembling joy, the Son of God, to whose name be glory, on this His birthday, and forever and forever."
The soul of Hermas did not answer to the musician's touch. The strings of his heart were slack and soundless; there was no response within him. He was neither shepherd, nor king, nor wise man, only an unhappy, dissatisfied, questioning youth. He was out of sympathy with the eager preacher, the joyous hearers. ”

“ And the Spirit carried me away, and took me through a pathless place, through which a man could not travel, for it was situated in the midst of rocks; it was rugged and impassible on account of water. Having passed over this river, I came to a plain. I then bent down on my knees, and began to pray to the Lord and to confess my sins. And as I prayed, the heavens were opened, and I see the woman whom I had desired saluting me from the sky, and saying, "Hail, Hermas!" ”

“ These have been perverted from the truth: among them there is the hope of repentance, by which it is possible to live. Corruption, then, has a hope of a kind of renewal, but death has everlasting ruin." Again I went forward a little way, and he showed me a tall shepherd, somewhat savage in his appearance, clothed in a white goatskin, and having a wallet on his shoulders, and a very hard staff with branches, and a large whip. ”

“ Hermas sees that mere repentance is not enough to meet the backsliding condition in which so many Christians then were, owing to the recoil of inveterate habits of worldliness [4] entrenched in society around and within. It is, after all, too negative a thing to stand by itself or to satisfy God. “Cease, Hermas,” says the Church, “to pray all about thy sins. Ask for righteousness also” (Vis. iii. 1. 6) . The positive Christian ideal which “the saints” should attain, “the Lord enabling,” it is the business of the Shepherd to set forth. ”

“ They will not be believed, for the thing is incredible that a shepherd could suffer from his flock; rather will he be punished on account of his falsehood. And I myself am a shepherd, and I am under a most stringent necessity of rendering an account of you.
CHAPTER XXXII. "Heal yourselves, therefore, while the tower is still building. The Lord dwells in men that love peace, because He loved peace ”

“ The argument for borrowing is obviously weakened by the admission that Hermas did not borrow from the extant "Poimandres" but from an assumed earlier form of the text; and, further, it is by no means clear why the figure of the shepherd, familiar in the Old Testament and in the Gospel parables, should be a foreign type in Christian literature. Nor is the case materially strengthened by the argument that a later mention of a mountain in Arcadia, in the "Shepherd," implies an acquaintance with the "Poimandres" where no mention of Arcadia, but simply of descent from a mountain, is made. ”

“ Paul’s arguments in his Epistle to the Romans were personally appropriate, yet in the West, generally, it was not so: hence the greater diffusion of The Shepherd written in Greek, through the Greek churches. There, too, the Montanists were a raging pestilence long before the West really felt the contagion through the influence of the brilliant Tertullian. ”

“ Lord God, Vat. ↑ The Vatican has: "Here ends the Book of the Shepherd, the disciple of the blessed apostle Paul. Thanks be to God." The Æthiopia has: "May the name of him who wrote this book be written on a pillar of gold. With thanksgiving to Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, this book of the prophet Hermas has been finished. Amen. Finished are the visions, and commandments, and similitudes of the prophet Hermas, who is Paul, in the year 191 of mercy, 23d night and 22d day of the month," etc. The writer goes on to show that Hermas is Paul, appealing to Acts xiii. 12. ”

“ The sheep which you saw merry and leaping about, are those which have tom themselves away from God for ever, and have delivered themselves over to luxuries and deceits [of this world. Among them there is no return to life through repentance, because they have added to their other sins, and blasphemed the name of the Lord. Such men therefore, are appointed unto death. And the sheep which you saw not leaping, but feeding in one place, are they who have delivered themselves over to luxury and deceit] , but have committed no blasphemy against the Lord. ”

“ For, lying upon the ground, it produces bad fruit, because it is not suspended upon the elm.”↑ The Vatican here makes Hermas interrupt the Shepherd, and ask, “How greater than the vine?”↑ [Based on Jas. i. 9–11, 27, and ii. 1–9: introducing the heathen world to just ideas of human brotherhood, and the mutual relations of the poor and the rich.] ↑ The translation of the text is based on the Palatine. Lips. Reads: “When the rich man fills out upon the poor.” Hilgenfeld amends this: “When the rich man recovers breath upon the poor.” ”

“ It reminds me of the physician of Corinth, who boasted that he was cleverer than any of his colleagues, for that not one of his patients had ever died. And the man was right, for neither man nor beast had ever trusted to his healing arts. Let Hermas try his young strength, and even if he be no priest, but a valiant warrior like his forefathers, even so he may honestly serve God. ”

“ They whose branches were half-withered to the same extent are the wavering; for they neither live, nor are they dead. And they who have them half-withered and cracked are both waverers and slanderers, [railing against the absent,] and never at peace with one another, but always at variance. And yet to these also,” he continued, “repentance is possible. You see,” he said, “that some of them have repented, and there is still remaining in them,” he continued, “a hope of repentance. And as many of them,” he added, “as have repented, shall have their dwelling in the tower. ”

“ Happy ye who endure the great tribulation that is coming on, and happy they who shall not deny their own life. [47] For the Lord hath sworn by His Son, that those who denied their Lord have abandoned their life in despair, for even now these are to deny Him in the days that are coming. [48] To those who denied in earlier times, God became [49] gracious, on account of His exceeding tender mercy.”
Chap. III.
“But as for you, Hermas, remember not the wrongs done to you by your children, nor neglect your sister, that they may be cleansed from their former sins. ”

“ And because the hermit was so pious, an angel of God, visible to his eyes, went up with him, counted his steps, and when the work was completed, brought him his food, even as the prophet of old was by God’s command fed by the raven. When the hermit in his piety had already reached a great age, it happened that he once saw from afar a poor sinner being taken to the gallows. ”

“ This gave great umbrage to the hermit before mentioned; "Oh heaven," said he to himself, "seest thou this deed? the innocent suffers for the guilty: why permittest thou such things? If thus injustice triumph, why do I remain here? I will again enter the world, and do as other men do."
With these feelings he quitted his hermitage, and returned into the world; but God willed not that he should be lost: an angel in the form of a man was commissioned to join him. Accordingly, crossing the hermit's path, he thus accosted him—"My friend, where are you going?" ”

“ And as many as do not repent at all, but abide in their deeds, shall utterly perish. And they who gave in their branches green and cracked were always faithful and good, though emulous of each other about the foremost places, and about fame: [90] now all these are foolish, in indulging in such a rivalry. Yet they also, being naturally good, [91] on hearing my commandments, purified themselves, and soon repented. Their dwelling, accordingly, was in the tower. But if any one relapse into strife, he will be east out of the tower, and will lose his life. ”

“ All of you, then, who shall remain stedfast, and be as children, [148] without doing evil, will be more honoured than all who have been previously mentioned; for all infants are honourable before God, and are the first persons with Him. [149] Blessed, then, are ye who put away wickedness from yourselves, and put on innocence. As the first of all will you live unto God.”
After he had finished the similitudes of the mountains, I said to him, “Sir, explain to me now about the stones that were taken out of the plain, and put into the building instead of the stones that were taken out of the tower ”

“ Hermes is best known to us as the messenger of the gods. When he started out to do their bidding,
{50} beneath his feet he bound on his fair sandals, golden, divine, that bare him over the waters of the sea and over the boundless land with the breathings of the wind. And he took up his wand, wherewith he entranceth the eyes of such men as he will, while others again he awaketh out of sleep. [10]
Hermes was the protector of travellers, and he was the god who took special delight in the life of the market place. ”

“ The veins, arteries, and sinews are the bonds of the soul. But when it is strong and settled down into itself, reasonings and deeds become its bonds. When cast out upon the earth, it wanders in the air like the body. Hermes is the steward of souls, and for that reason is called Hermes the Escorter, Hermes the Keeper of the Gate, and Hermes of the Underworld, since it is he who brings in the souls from their bodies both by land and sea ”

“ The soldier had an only son lying in the cradle, whom he exceedingly loved. After supper, their bed-chamber was sumptuously decorated; and the angel retired with the hermit to rest. But about the middle of the night the former got up and strangled the sleeping infant. The hermit, horror-struck at what he witnessed, said within himself, "Never can this be an angel of God: the good soldier gave us every thing that was necessary ”

“ Who should guide the ghosts down the darkling ways but the deity of the dusk; sometimes he made love to fair ghostly maids whom he attended. So easy is it to interpret all the functions of a god as reflections of elemental phenomena. The origin of Hermes remains obscure; but he is, in his poetical shape, one of the most beautiful and human of the deities. He has little commerce with the beasts; we do not find him with many animal companions, like Apollo, nor adored, like Dionysus, with a ritual in which are remnants of animal-worship. ”

“ In order, then, to sustain our spiritual life on earth and to make us strong for our daily conflicts, our heavenly Shepherd has left us a food which is none other than His own body and blood. What a prodigy of love! ”

“ For each and all of these how important it is that the Shepherd should stand at the door of the fold and bind up their wounds with His tender grace before they pass through the portals of death! Scarred and wayward children, victims of evil circumstances, creatures of vanity and of folly, they realize at the end how impotent they are, how helpless in the presence of the coldness of death to redeem or make sure the years that are fled, unless He draw near and assist them who has sustained them in life, and who is at once the author and the master of both life and death! ”

“ I see a man, and I am sore afraid lest he slay us. Shall we flee on the chariot, or shall we go near and entreat him, that he may have pity upon us?"
Then the old man was sore troubled, and his hair stood up with fear. But Hermes came near and took him by the hand and said:—
"Whither goest thou, old man, with thy horses and mules through the darkness? Hast thou no fear of these fierce Greeks, who are close at hand? If any one should see thee with all this wealth, what then? And thou art not young, nor is thy attendant young, that ye should defend yourselves against an enemy. ”

“ Hermas, saluted by Saint Paul in his epistle to the Romans, in a piece very little connected with historical recitals, thus speaks: "Such as have believed and suffered death for the name of Christ, and have endured with a ready mind, and have given up their lives with all their hearts." ”

“ Calmly and fearlessly they go down to death; joyously and with feelings of exultation they hail the coming of Him on whom their thoughts have rested throughout life, of Him whom they have ever seen by faith, whom they have loved, whom they have trusted, whom they have chosen for their own. Confident of the power and goodness of their faithful Shepherd, pain daunts them not, the enemy frets them not. The last hour for them is not one of darkness, but of light ”