A clear, scholarly introduction to the Shepherd of Hermas — the long, vivid second-century Christian apocalyptic-allegorical work composed in Rome between AD 90 and AD 150 by a freedman named Hermas. It is the single best window we have into ordinary Christian life and pastoral concern in the church of Rome a generation after the apostles.
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Bible Sundays study guide
The Shepherd of Hermas is a long, vivid second-century Christian apocalyptic-allegorical work composed in Rome, probably between AD 90 and AD 150, by a freedman named Hermas. It has three parts: five Visions, twelve Mandates (commandments), and ten Similitudes (parables), all delivered to Hermas by an angelic figure who first appears in the form of an old woman (the Church) and then in the form of a young shepherd — from whom the whole book takes its name. Its main concern is repentance, specifically whether serious sins committed after baptism can be forgiven.
The Shepherd was one of the most popular Christian books of the second and third centuries. Irenaeus, Clement of Alexandria, Origen, and Tertullian all knew it; it is bound into the great fourth-century biblical manuscript Codex Sinaiticus immediately after the Book of Revelation. The Muratorian Fragment (c. AD 170–200) explicitly recommends it 'to be read' though not in public worship. By the late fourth century the church had clearly distinguished it from Scripture, but it remained universally respected.
The Shepherd is the single best window we have into ordinary Christian life and pastoral concern in the church of Rome a generation after the apostles. Its central question — whether serious sins committed after baptism can be forgiven, and how — drove much of the early church's developing theology of repentance, confession, and discipline. The book's portrait of the Church as a tower being built, and as an elderly woman who grows young again, has shaped Christian imagery from the second century to the present.
A Roman freedman named Hermas. The Muratorian Fragment identifies him as a brother of Pius, bishop of Rome around AD 140–155, dating the book to that period. Origen had identified him with the Hermas greeted by Paul in Romans 16:14, but most modern scholars accept the later second-century date.
It was widely read in the early church but ultimately not included in the New Testament because it was written too late to be apostolic and is the known work of a second-century Roman Christian, not an apostle or apostolic companion.
From the angelic figure who delivers most of the Mandates and Similitudes, who appears to Hermas in the form of a shepherd. The same figure has earlier appeared as an old woman (the Church).
The five Visions are Hermas's initial revelatory experiences. The twelve Mandates are practical commandments for Christian living. The ten Similitudes are extended allegorical parables — most famously the great tower being built out of stones from twelve mountains.
Codex Sinaiticus is the great fourth-century Greek Bible discovered at the Monastery of Saint Catherine in Sinai. It includes both the Shepherd of Hermas and the Epistle of Barnabas in its New Testament section — a sign that some fourth-century Christians regarded them as borderline Scripture.
Roughly the length of Paul's letters to the Romans and 1 Corinthians together — about 100 pages in English. It is by far the longest of the Apostolic Fathers.
The full text in the Roberts–Donaldson nineteenth-century English translation is in the public domain and freely available at the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (ccel.org) and Early Christian Writings (earlychristianwritings.com).
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Every name below appears in the King James Bible. Each page gives the meaning, the verse it appears in, and who carried it in Scripture.
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