Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 7.djvu/312

 HERMAS

270

HERMAS

porary witness of the Muratorian Fragment, and this view has in the end prevailed amongst scholars, being now almost universally received. The question re- mains how we are to explain the mention of St. Clem- ent. It was suggested above that Hermas may have been older than his brother Pius. But Harnack, holding that moncpiscopacy 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 centiuy, and that I^ius 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 proc- ess 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 fic- titious; 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 of 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, Her- modonts, or some such word. Dr. Rendel Harris has urged in an interesting essay that where Hermas de- scribes 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 incon- clusive, though plausible. The notion of De Cham- pagny (who was followed by Dom Gu^ranger), 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 Baumgiirtner has shown. The same is to be said of Ililgenfeld'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 .Vets of the Apostles and the Apoca- lypse, and he finds in Hermas traces of a Christian enlargement of a Jewish writing, as Volter had said of the Apocalypse. It is natural that Volter 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, di.sciple of St. Paul. But that personage is not even mentioned.

There is but one direct quotation in the "Shep- herd", and that is from the apocryphal book of "El- dad 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, includmg 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 Prog- ress' 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 in- dividualism of the one and the conception of a Univer- sal Church which dominates the whole thought of the other.

The "Shepherd" was first printed in Latin by Faber Stapulensis (Lefcvre a'Etaples) in "Liber trium virorum et trium spiritualium virginum" (Paris, 1513); better edition by Fell (Oxford, 16S5), and especially by Hilgenfeld (Leipzig, 1S73), and von Gebhardt (Leipzig, 1S77). This version, which is contained in many MSS., and has been frequently reprinted in the editions of the Apostolic leathers, is known as the Vulgate. It was certainly known to the author of the "Adversus aleatores" (third or fourth cent.), and possibly to TertuUian, and the translation was probably made in the .second centurj-. Another version is contained in a single MS. (Vat. Palat. 150, saec. xiv), and has been printed by Dres.sel, " Pat res Apost." (Leipzig, 1857 and 1S63), 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. Haus.sleiter's attempt to show that the Palatine is the older is rejected by Harnack and Funk. An Ethiopia version was discovered in 1847 I>y d'Abbadie; it has unfortunately a few lacuna> 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 Simonidcs stole four of the leaves and copied the rest. But he sold to the liljrary of the ITniversity of Leipzig a Greek version which he had composed him- self. 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 auslandischen Lit- eratur". III (1856), 138. Since then the six leaves which remain on Mount Athos have been collated by J. Armitage Robinson. The Codex Sinaiticus dis- covered by Tischendorf, and publi.«hed 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.

On the MSS. of the VulKate version, see Harnack, Gesch., I, 51: Delehaye in /ijy//. m7.. 1.H94, p. 14; Ehrhard. AUchrisU. Liticrni-ur, 104. The P.ilatine MS. has been enrefulU' collated by Fdnk mZrilKchr. fiir dir oslirn irh. Gymn.,XXX\l (18X5), 245. On the date and style of the l\'i!atine version. Hau.'^si. fixer, De versionibus Pnstoris // crmcc /a^inzs (Erlangen, 1SS4); Idem in Z. fur v-iss. T/ieoi., XXXVI (1883), 345. For the Ethiopic version, see p'Ai.badie and Dillman. HermcE Pastor, with Latin translation, in Abhandlunoen jiir die Kundedes Mflrpnilnndtit, II (Leipzig. 1860). 1. The true Greek text appeared first in Dressel, Patres Apostolici (Leipzig, 1857 and 186;i). and has been frequently rcpnl'lishcd in similar collections, as by Hil- genfeld (1866 and issl I. (Iebhardt. and Harnack (1877 — ); LlGHTFooTAND Hahmfr With English translation (1891), Funk (19ni). On the Athos MS.. Lambhi PS AND Robinson. A Collation of the Attws Codei of the Shepherd (Cambridge. ISS.K); Hilgen- feld in Z. II'iM. Theol.. XXXII (ISSO), 94. The Berlin Papyrus Ls given in facsimile by Wilcken. Tafeln zur nlteren grieehisehcn Pahiogr. (Leipzig. 1,S91): a citation is found in a papyrus in Grenfell and Hpnt, The Oxi/rhunehus papyri. I (Ixmdon, 1S9S), 8. On both papyri see Diels and Harnack in Siljtings- ber.derK. pretissisrhen Akad. der Ifisa (Berlin. 1891). p. 427. and Ehriiard in Theoloy. Quartalsehrift. 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 Apostolici, I (Tubingen, 1901), An excellent summary account by Bardenhewer, Oeseh. der altkirrhl. Lilt., I (Fre'iburg in? Br.. 1902), 557-578; see also Harnack. Geseh. der altrhr. Litt.. I, 49. and Chronol. I, 2.57; Krugeh (wiin dates* the book c. 100). Gesrh. der oltchr. Litt. (1895). 29: Zaun. Der Ilirt des Hermas untersiwht (Gotha, 1868); Idem, Getch. des N. T. Kanons, I (1888), 326; Nikschl,