What is the Shepherd of Hermas and should it be in the Bible?

Hermas is said to be the Hermas mentioned by Paul in the Epistle to the Romans (but this is really very doubtful), and said to have written a treatise called the "Shepherd of Hermas." It was so highly esteemed by many that it was judged to be inspired. Irenaeus quotes it as scripture; Clemens Alexandrinus and Origen as "divine," and it was read in the churches. It is a sort of allegory, and has often been compared with Bunyan's "Pilgrim's Progress." But some of it is really foolish, and some scarcely decent.*

A Christian to whom Paul sent salutations in his epistle to the Romans. Rom. 16:14. Some have judged him to be one of the Apostolic Fathers, and the writer of a treatise called "THE SHEPHERD OF HERMAS," which was highly esteemed in the early church. It is a sort of allegory, and has been compared to Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress. Parts of it are very trivial, and some scarcely decent. It is found attached to the Greek manuscript of the N.T., known as the Codex Sinaiticus, and exists in several ancient Latin copies.

The immoral asceticism, to which I have alluded, I have, on the whole, decided to leave out. It is a fact well known by readers of ecclesiastical history, under the title of pareisaktai, or subintroductae. The only importance of introducing it here was the public sanction given to a most vile and abominable practice; for Hermas was read in the churches. This Hermas was brother to Pope Pius I (of old he was thought to be he of whom Paul speaks), and he lived about forty to sixty years after the death of the apostle John.

Now, I have already given the very best things that are said in Barnabas, Clement, and Polycarp, and the other two, if good can be spoken of in Ignatius and Hermas. Some of old rejected Barnabas; the others have hardly been called into question as to genuineness. Some call Hermas inspired, as Origen; Irenaeus quotes it as scripture. Now, genuine or not, Hermas and Clement were read in the churches, not in result put in the canon, still were added at the end of the manuscripts of the New Testament, as Barnabas and Hermas in the Sinaitic, Clement in the Alexandrian, and so on. I do not know that Ignatius' epistles ever were; he was a martyr, and eager for martyrdom. Nor do I know that Polycarp's was; but in the early church it was a question as to most of them whether they were scripture or not. They were of the next highest authority, and some unquestionably constantly read in the churches. If Ignatius' Latin or Greek ones are spurious, the Syriac are there, and quite enough: nobody doubts that he wrote epistles — seven, it is said; nobody doubts that the primitive church teemed with forgeries and falsifications to prop up the system I refer to, and other foolish or evil things.

In Hermas, in the treatise called "The Pastor," we find largely developed views on the subject of the Church. I apprehend it is pretty generally agreed that he was brother to Pius II, A.D. 164. He is, it appears, quoted by Irenaeus. His writings were read in many churches, though not exactly as scripture; yet almost quoted as such by some writers, though not of weight on such a point, as Origen, who says he considers him inspired. But the acceptance of "The Pastor" will shew whereabouts the primitive Church was. The modern professing church speaks of the earlier Christians being a guide to truth, inasmuch as they were nearer the apostolic source, because it believes as little in the need of the Holy Ghost's power and of His working as the early Church did, or less. Paul had the power of the Spirit of God: he knew by it that after his decease grievous wolves would enter, yea, and that within the Church perverse men would arise. The incapacity of the early Church to discern is plain from the reading of these visions, etc., of Hermas, and the respect in which they were held. I have little doubt that they were well-intentioned, and that there was a personal desire of godliness in the writer's soul. But they are ill-conditioned and unseemly fables, fostering the most disgraceful practices of commencing superstition and asceticism, and teaching doctrine heretical in itself, and unworthy of all the dignity of divine things. But we shall get historically a then accepted view of the Church by their means. Passing over the unseemly introduction, the Church is for him simply a building in the world. It begins by forgiveness, not repentance (Command. 3). After that repentance is allowed once. The name of the Son of God is necessary, but all depends on conduct afterwards (Sim. 9:13-14), yet he allows people to be saved who are rejected from the Church (Vis. 3:8). But this is contradicted (Sim. 9:14). He speaks of the Church's becoming one body when purified, and the evil ones cast out. But there are one understanding, one opinion, one faith, and the same charity. The nations have believed and received the seal of the Son of God (baptism), they have all been made partakers of the same understanding and knowledge; and their faith and charity have been the same. And they have carried the spirits of certain virgins of whom he speaks, that is, of different graces, together with His name. After they agreed thus in one mind, there began to be one body of them all; however, some of them polluted themselves, and were cast off from the kind of the righteous, and again returned to their former state and became worse than they were before. Angels build the Church.

It is said that they read Clement in the churches of old, and Hermas too?

But then I do not admit that the church has authority in that. As for Hermas, what is the account you get there? It is that God took counsel with His Son, and with the holy angels, to put a pure spirit into a body, and then sent His servant - Christ - to set up stakes, and stake out a vineyard, &c., that is, apostles, and so on, in the church; but he did a great deal more than he was told, for he set to work to pull up the weeds, that is, take away their sins; and then God takes counsel with His Son, the Holy Ghost, His angels, what shall we do to Him for this, and they agree to make Him a joint-heir with the Son. Now, if the church authenticated that, then I get the epistle is authenticated, but the church itself unauthenticated. Origen said that that thing of Hermas I have quoted was inspired, but that does not make it inspired. Irenaeus too.

But there is no small descent when we turn next to Hermas, an author probably of the latter half of the same second century. Much of his reputation was derived from the singular confusion which led many in early days to regard him as the Christian saluted in Romans 16:14; for most probably (Muratori, Ant. Ital. med. aevi, iii. 853) he was brother of the Pius who was Bishop of Rome, after Hyginus died, A.D. 157. Here too we have only a Latin version of the "Shepherd," as even the recent discoveries of Tischendorf do not give us the Greek original* beyond the fourth ἐντολὴ (i.e. mandatum or command) of the second book. I quote from the third book, and the sixteenth section of the ninth similitude (Cotelerii Patres Apost. I. 118, ed. 1698): — "Quoniam hi Apostoli et doctores, qui praedicaverunt nomen Filii Dei, cum habentes fidem ejus et potestatem defuncti essent, praedicaverunt his qui ante obierunt, et ipsi dederunt eis illud signum. Descenderunt igitur in aquam cum illis, et iterum ascenderunt," etc. Thus, Hermas is distinctly committed to the absurd doctrine that the apostles preached to the dead and baptised them. This is a further and a desperate step in superstition, and of course without a shred of support from scripture; but it seems to be the not unnatural complement of the notion that the Lord went down after death to preach in hades to the spirits there. Is it not melancholy to think that such a production as this, immeasurably inferior in every point of view to Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress, though doubted by some and even declared apocryphal by certain synods, was extensively read in the public Christian assemblies, and was evidently incorporated with the scriptures in the Sinai MS., as Clement of Rome's epistles were in the Alexandrian copy?

68 I add, as a sad but useful appendix, some facts as to the boasted primitive Church. First, as to doctrine, the statements which I have given from Hermas, whose book was read in many churches - quoted by Irenaeus and believed by Origen to be inspired - is the plainest possible proof of the gross ignorance of the primitive Church, and utter incompetency to judge of doctrine.

Hermas, who is presented as an apostolic Father, tells us, in his Similitudes, that the Son (seen in his vision) was the Holy Ghost; and that God took counsel with the angels what to do with Him; and He made a pure body, and put Him into it, and that was the Christ. Yet this book, we are assured, was read in the churches.

"Salute Asyncritus, Phlegon, Hermes, Patrobas, Hermas, and the brethren with them. Salute Philologus, and Julia, Nereus and his sister, and Olympas, and all the saints with them." (Ver. 14, 15.) The names of these Christians follow without specific notice, and among them one to whom many have attributed the allegory of the "Shepherd," read in the assemblies of the third and fourth centuries. But Origen and Eusebius err in their identification; for Hermas the author wrote about a century after the Epistle to the Romans was written, his brother Pius being then bishop of Rome.

We have seen that other epistles were placed along with the scripture; but besides this there is proof from the early fathers that Clement's epistles were read in most of the churches on the Lord's day, and that they were universally received. And also that the Shepherd of Hermas was read in many churches.

But the question becomes more serious if we appeal to the early church; for it is no longer a question of a few epistles, which we hope to prove to be spurious, but as to whether some of the real epistles are scripture or not: for while some received the spurious, they refused some parts of what we hold and maintain to be inspired.