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The Pastor of Hermas
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Introductory Note to The Pastor of Hermas
[171] There … cure. God, who has power to heal, will provide a remedy.—Vat. [This whole passage seems to refer to the separation of penitents under canonical discipline. Tertullian, Pudicit., capp. 5, 13, and De Penitent., cap. 9. 2 Thess. iii. 14.]
[172] Bear … words. Give me a few words of explanation.—Vat.
[173] Repentance … wisdom. For he who repents obtains great intelligence. For he feels that he has sinned and acted wickedly.—Vat. [“Wisdom and understanding;” spiritual gifts here instanced as requisite to true penitence and spiritual life.]
[174] [Matt. xix. 17. Saint-Pierre, Harm. de la Nature, iii. p. 150.]
[175] [Immersion continues to be the usage, then, even in the West, at this epoch.]
[176] For … them. Since God knows the thoughts of all hearts, and the weakness of men, and the manifold wickedness of the devil which he practices in plotting against the servants of God, and in malignant designs against them.—Vat.
[177] In … life. These words occur only in Pal. [Can the following words be genuine? They reflect the very Montanism here so strictly opposed. Wake has followed a very different text. The Scriptures, it is true, use very awful language of the same kind: Heb. x. 26, 27; xii. 16, 17; 1 John iii. 9.
[178] With … live. With difficulty will he live to God.—Vat. And Pal.
[179] [1 Cor. vii. 39; Rom. vii. 3. See my note on Simil. ix. cap. 28. Here are touching illustrations of the new spirit as to the sanctity of marriage, to which the Gospel was awakening the heathen mind.]
[180] It will be noticed that space is attributed to the heart or soul, and that joy and goodness expand the heart, and produce width, while sadness and wickedness contract and straiten.
[181] But … himself. But rejoicing he will be expanded, and he will feast in the vessel in which he dwells, and he will serve the Lord joyfully in the midst of great peace.—Vat. He will serve the Lord in great gladness, having abundance of all things within himself.—Pal.
[182] For … anger, omitted in Vat.; fuller in Pal.: For the Lord dwells in calmness and greatness of mind, but anger is the devil’s house of entertainment. [Eph. iv. 26, 27.]
[183] [Jas iii. 11.]
[184] Patience if polluted. The mind is distressed.—Vat.; omitted in Pal.
[185] I … heart. I, the angel [or messenger] of righteousness, am with you, and all who depart from anger, and repent with their whole heart, will live to God.—Vat.
[186] Are justified. Are received into the number of the just by the most holy angel (or messenger).—Pal. [i.e., As the instrument of justification; but the superlative here used seems to indentify this angel with that of the covenant (Mal. iii. 1); i.e., the meritorious cause, “the Lord.”]
[187] Hear … away. “Hear now,” said he, “how great is the wickedness of anger, and how injurious, and in what way it overthrows the servants of God. For they who are full of faith receive no harm from it, for the power of God is with them; for it is the doubters and those destitute [of faith] that it overturns.”—Vat. [The philosophic difference between anger and indignation is here in view.]
[188] [Matt. xii. 45; Luke xi. 26.]
[189] You … Lord. You will be found by God in the company of purity and chastity.—Vat.
[190] And put … them. That you may live to God, and they who keep these commandments will live to God.—Vat. [The beauty of this chapter must be felt by all, especially in the eulogy on patience. A pious and learned critic remarks on the emphasis and frequent recurrence of scriptural exhortations to patience, which he thinks have been to little enlarged upon in Christian literature.]
[191] [See Tob. iii. 8, 17. The impure spirit, and the healing angel. This apocryphal book greatly influenced the Church’s ideas of angels, and may have suggested this early reference to one’s good and evil angel. The mediæval ideas on this subject are powerfully illustrated in the German legends preserved by Sir. W. Scott in The Wild Huntsman and The Fire-King.]
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