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The Pastor of Hermas
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Introductory Note to The Pastor of Hermas
[135] Comp. Rev. xi. 7, xii. 3, 4, xiii. 1, xvii. 8, xxii. 2. [The beast was “like a whale” in size and proportion. It was not a sea-monster. This whole passage is Dantesque. See Inferno, canto xxxi., and, for the colours, canto xvii. 15.]
[136] God.—Lips., Vat.
[137] The Vat. adds: with a stroke.
[138] [Those who remember the Vatican collection and other antiques, will recall the exquisite figure and veiling of the Pudicitia.]
[139] The Lord. God.—Vat.
[140] Care. Loneliness and anxiety.—Vat.
[141] God. The Lord.—Vat.
[142] [Acts iv. 12.]
[143] [Perhaps compounded from θὴρ and ἀγρεύω.] The name of this angel is variously written, Hegrin [Query. Quasi ἐγρηγορεῖν, or corrupted from (Sept.) εἲρ καὶ ἃγιος; Hir in Daniel’s Chaldee], Tegri. Some have supposed the word to be for ἄγριον, the wild; some have taken it to mean “the watchful,” as in Dan. iv. 10, 23: and some take it to be the name of a fabulous lion. [See, also, Dan. vi. 22.]
[144] The Lord. God.—Vat.
[145] Send scourges. Send you help. But woe to the doubters who.—Vat.
[148] [Very much resembling Dante, again, in many passages. Inferno, xxi. “Allor mi volsi,” etc.]
Vision Fifth. Concerning the Commandments.
[149] [This vision naturally belongs to book ii., to which it is a preface.]
[150] Keep them. That you may be able to keep them more easily by reading them from time to time.—Vat.
[151] [“The Shepherd,” then, is the “angel of repentance,” here represented as a guardian angel. This gives the work its character, as enforcing primarily the anti-Montanist principle of the value of true repentance in the sight of God.]
Commandment First. On Faith in God.
[152] [These first words are quoted by Irenæus, vol. i. p. 488, this series. Note that this book begins with the fundamental principle of faith, which is everywhere identified by Hermas (as in Vision ii. cap. 2) with faith in the Son of God. The Holy Spirit is also everywhere exhibited in this work. But the careful student will discover a very deep plan in the treatment of this subject. Repentance and faith are the great themes, and the long-suffering of God, against the Montanists. But he begins by indicating the divine character and the law of God. He treats of sin in its relations to the law and the gospel: little by little, opening the way, he reaches a point, in the Eighth Similitude, where he introduces the New Law, identifying it, indeed, with the old, but magnifying the gospel of the Son of God. Hermas takes for granted the “Son of man;” but everywhere he avoids the names of His humanity, and brings out “the Son of God” with emphasis, in the spirit of St. John’s Gospel (cap. i.) and of the Epistle to the Hebrews (cap. i.), as if he feared the familiarities even of believers in speaking of Jesus or of Christ, without recognising His eternal power and Godhead.]
[153] Contained.—Vat. and Pal. add: and who cannot be defined in words, nor conceived by the mind. [Here we have the “Incomprehensible,” so familiar in the liturgic formula improperly called the Athanasian Creed. In the Latin immensus, in the Greek ἄπειρος; i.e., “non mensurabilis, quiâ inlocalis, incircumscriptus, ubique totus, ubique prœsens, ubique potens.” Not intelligible is too frequently supposed to be the sense, but this is feeble and ambiguous. See Waterland, Works, iv. p. 320 London, 1823.]
Commandment Second. On Avoiding Evil-Speaking, and on Giving Alms in Simplicity.
[154] If … brother. [Jas. iv. 11.] And if you believe the slanderer, you will also be guilty of sin, in that you have belived one who speaks evil of your brother.—Vat. For if you give your assent to the detractor, and believe what is said of one in his absence, you also will be like to him, and acting ruinously towards your brother, and you are guilty of the same sin as the person who slanders.—Pal.
[155] For slander is ruinous.—Vat. For it is wicked to slander any one.—Pal.
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