Anonymous (sub-apostolic)
2nd c. · 2nd c. · 3 works
The Shepherd of Hermas is an early Christian work composed at Rome, traditionally ascribed to Hermas, a Christian of the city known only through the autobiographical details he gives within the book itself. He describes himself as a former slave who was sold in Rome and later freed, becoming a merchant who lost his property and did penance for his sins and the worldliness of his household. Eastern tradition numbers this Hermas among the Seventy disciples and identifies him with the Hermas greeted by St. Paul in Romans 16:14, an identification already proposed by Origen; modern scholarship, following the Muratorian Fragment, more often regards the author as the brother of Pope Pius I.
The work is in the form of an apocalypse and is divided into three parts. The five Visions open with revelations from an aged matron who personifies the Church, growing younger as the book proceeds, and from the figure who gives the book its name: an angel of repentance dressed as a shepherd. The twelve Mandates set out moral commandments on faith, simplicity, truthfulness, almsgiving, and the avoidance of evil, while the ten Similitudes convey ethical teaching through extended parables, most famously the building of a great tower that represents the Church.
Though cast in visionary and allegorical language, the book's purpose is thoroughly practical, and its recurring concern is the problem of sin committed after baptism. Against rigorists who allowed no forgiveness for grave post-baptismal sin, the Shepherd proclaims that God grants the faithful a further opportunity for repentance, urging believers to return to him before a coming day of tribulation closes that door. This emphasis made the work a touchstone in early debates over penance and the holiness of the Church.
The Shepherd was composed at Rome in Greek and is generally dated to the first half of the second century, with internal evidence and the Muratorian Fragment pointing toward roughly 140–155, though some place its earliest material before 110. No noncanonical writing was more popular in the pre-Nicene Church: it was read publicly in many congregations, cited as Scripture by Irenaeus, Clement of Alexandria, Tertullian, and Origen, and copied at the end of the New Testament in the fourth-century Codex Sinaiticus. Ultimately it was not received into the canon, the Muratorian Fragment judging it useful for private reading but not apostolic, and after the fourth century it gradually fell into disuse in the West while remaining esteemed for catechetical instruction.
Sources: Encyclopædia Britannica — Shepherd of Hermas · Catholic Encyclopedia (New Advent) — Hermas · Encyclopedia.com — Shepherd of Hermas