Chapter VI: Appendix: The Interpretation of the Shepherd of Hermas

I am glad to be allowed to quote on this subject from a letter by my friend and former pupil, Dr. F. S. Mackenzie of Montreal, who has spent much time on the study of Hermas. He says:

"In several passages Hermas speaks of a small circle of six superior angels. It is legitimate to look for a reason for his choice of this particular number, and there can be little doubt that the reason may be discovered in Sim. ix., where the Son of God, who appears as lord of the tower, is clearly thought of as the seventh angel, superior to the six who accompany him and who have charge of the building of the tower, as they in turn are superior to all lesser angels and men. Thus the number of the archangels is made complete, according to prevailing apocalyptic enumeration. The contention of some scholars, among whom Zahn is the most outstanding, that Hermas makes a fundamental distinction between the Son of God and all angels, cannot be made good. The lord of the tower in Sim. ix. is not different in kind from the six angels who accompany him in his inspection of the tower. While he is, indeed, much more glorious than the others, nevertheless he and they alike appear as 'glorious men.' They all are angels (Sim. ix. 12. 7-8). Moreover, this angelic Son of God is called Michael in Sim. viii., and is obviously identical with the most revered or glorious angel (_semnótatos ággelos_) referred to in other places. He is supreme in the angel world. He has all authority over both {138} angels and men. He is lord of the Church, and judge of its members.

"Why is the Son of God, the Christian archangel, called Michael? Michael was one of the seven Jewish archangels; and to him, according to Dan. xii. 1, was to be committed the judgement of the people of God. There are indications in apocalyptic literature that he was regarded as supreme in this angelic circle. Hermas apparently has carried over the name of this Jewish angel, and used it to designate the archangel of the Christians, who are for him, of course, the true Israel. The position of supremacy in the angel world, assigned by pre-Christian righteous men to Michael, is really held by the Son of God. He is in fact the true Michael; and in him all that is foretold of Michael in valid prophecy will be fulfilled. If Hermas regarded the prediction of Dan. xii. 1 as authoritative at all, he must obviously have seen in it a reference to the Christian judgement to be executed by the Son of God. And I consider it highly probable that this may explain the apparent identification of the Son of God with the Jewish angel. Hermas has simply made use of the name to connect his ideas with the Danielic prophecy, and to show how, in his opinion, that prophecy is to be fulfilled. If this be so, then the Son of God is not, strictly speaking, identified with the Jewish Michael, but he may nevertheless be given the name on occasion, because of the fact that in him all that the prophets foretold of the archangel of the people of God will come to pass.

"The term Son of God is used by Hermas in a double sense. On the one hand, it is used of the pre-existent counsellor of God, who may also be called the Holy Spirit, and on the other of the glorified and exalted Jesus, the elect servant, who _became_ the Son of God (Sim. v. 6), or in whom, as is said in Sim. ix. 12, the pre-existent Son became manifest. Because Jesus alone of all men preserved the indwelling Spirit pure, therefore he is the only perfect manifestation of the Spirit or Son of God. And he was rewarded for his fidelity by being adopted into the family of God as joint heir with the Son. {139} Nevertheless he is not, and never can be, one with the pre-existent Son or Spirit.

"One is tempted to argue that this distinction is observed in Similitudes v., viii., and ix., and that the Son of the master of the vineyard, the great spreading tree, and the ancient rock respectively represent the pre-existent Son, while the elect servant, the angel Michael, and the lord of the tower represent the exalted Jesus. Thus all the angelic representations of the Son of God would refer only to the latter. Moreover, there are features in the angelology of Hermas which strengthen such an argument. From Vis. ii. 2. 7, Sim. ix. 24. 4, 25. 2, 27. 3, it seems clear that Christians are believed to become angels at their death. Their rank, however, in the angel world will not be uniform, but will vary according to the excellence of their life on earth. Jesus therefore, because of his unique purity of life, must necessarily be the most highly exalted of all such angels. And so, in point of fact, he is. Of all angels, only he has ever been admitted to a position of co-equality with the pre-existent Son.

"On the other hand, it must be remembered that Hermas at times seems to think of the pre-existent Son or Spirit as an angel (Mand. vi. 2, xi. 9). Moreover, in his representation as the son of the master in the parable of Sim. v., he stands in very much the same relation to the first-created angels as does the lord of the tower in Sim. ix. And finally, there is an undoubted difficulty in supposing that the six archangels are thought of as being obliged to wait from the beginning of time until the exaltation of Jesus for their number to be completed. It still remains an open question whether the Christian archangel, the lord and judge of the Church, is the eternal or the adopted Son of God; and with the uncertainty and obscurity of the data, it may be doubted whether a final judgement in the matter can be given. Hermas does not, in fact, preserve any clear distinction between spirits and angels. He reveals throughout an undoubted fondness for hypostatisation. Even virtues and vices, emotions and passions, are described as spirits or demons as the case may be, and spoken of as if they {140} were possessed of personality. And certainly some allowance ought to be made for this tendency of the author, in the matter of determining his conception of spirits in general, and in particular of the Holy Spirit, who besides having an eternal existence with God, dwells also in every man."

{141}

ADDITIONAL NOTE TO PAGE 96

After this passage was ready for the press my friend, Mr. Robert P. Casey, sent me the following criticism: "It can hardly be said that 'we' gain through the loss of our personalities, since 'we' (a personal pronoun) _are_ our personalities. On the other hand, it is quite conceivable that that Immaterial Purpose, which works in and through our personal life, or at least some parts of it, gains by rejecting us after our usefulness is past, seeking its further completion in those who come after us, and thus maintaining a unified and eternal Life through a multiplicity and diversity of lives. That this process is a gain from the point of view of history is apparent, yet it can hardly be said to be 'our' gain if 'we' are destroyed in the process.

"Furthermore, is the archipelago a fair analogy? In the sentence 'If those islands could have thought and spoken...' the fact that they cannot destroys the analogy at its most important point. The allegory fits admirably the relation of the individual life and Immaterial Reality as a whole, but the crux of the problem of immortality from the point of the individual is the relation between (1) the unity established between the intellectual and moral elements (but not many other elements, e.g. evil) of his personal life and the sum total of Immaterial Reality, and (2) the equally real and more obvious unity presented by his own personality, including all his conscious experiences regardless of their value.

"The first unity is, if not everlasting, at least as permanent as history itself, and is by its nature eternal and immaterial. The second unity is apparently transitory, being dependent physically on the brain and nervous system, psychically on the persistence of memory. Thus, to say a man has eternal life is simply to mean that certain of his activities or experiences have the attribute of eternal or immaterial. It, however, leaves untouched the question whether the 'ego' which is conscious of these activities continues after death."

{142}

The point seems to me to be well taken, and to express a widely spread and possibly correct opinion; yet I cannot but feel that Mr. Casey is a little too much influenced by the exigencies of language. Of course in all the ordinary dealings of life that which makes me "me" is a number of factors, which, taken together, may be called personality, but the real point at issue is whether in the last analysis these factors are part of "me," or are instruments which "I" use and circumstances under which "I" live. For myself I see no reason to doubt that most of them come to an end with death. But behind all this there seems to me to be something in "me" which is Immaterial, and therefore eternal, and I believe that it is this, not that which now makes up my personality, which really makes me "me."

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INDEX

Abraham, 18, 53
Academics, 88, 89
Achaea, 66
Acts of the Apostles, 36, 38, 48, 61, 64, 66, 85, 86
of John, Leucian. _See_ John
Adoptionism, 100, 101, 102, 104, 106-108, 111, 117, 120, 123,
125, 128, 130-132
Age to Come, 20, 22, 25-27, 48, 49, 67, 76
Akiba, 16, 17
Allen, W. C., 54
Alexandria, 123, 125, 127, 128, 132
Alexandrians, 58
Ambrose, 9
Ammonius Saccus, 88
Animism, 2
Antioch, 38, 57-73, 102
missionaries from, 85
Antiochus Epiphanes, 7
Apocalypses, 14, 50
Apostles' Creed, 93
Apotheosis, 8, 131
Apuleius, 4, 83
Aquinas, St. Thomas, 10-12
Aristotle, 10, 88
Asia, 66, 122
Asians, 58
Astronomy, 11
Athanasius, 131
Augustine, 99

Bacon, B. W., 117
Baptism, 84-86, 88, 99, 117, 124
Barnabas, 61, 62, 64
Bartimaeus, 48
Box, G. H., 20
Burkitt, F. C., 64, 84

Caesar, cult of, 6
Caesarea, 61
Caligula, 7
Canon, Christian, 71
Censors, mediaeval, 15
Charles, R. H., 14
Christ. _See_ Jesus
Christ, pre-existent, 106
Christians, Greek, 84
Hellenistic, 81
Jewish, 98
Christianity, Adoptionist. _See_ Adoptionism
Bible, 72
Catholic, 79, 80, 130
Ephesian, 124-127
Hellenistic, 61
Jewish, 38
Roman, 120
Sabellian, 83
Sacramental, 99
Christology, 55, 90, 111, 120, 130
Docetic, 130
Logos, 130, 131, 134
pre-existent, 100-102, 104-108, 122
Church, the, 40, 91, 110, 111, 139
Cilicians, 58
Clemen, C., 63
Clement, 9, 125, 126
Epistle of, 105, 108-111, 115, 116, 120
Colossians, Epistle to the, 121, 122
Constantinople, 13
Conybeare, F. C., 101
Corinth, 38, 69, 73-97, 103, 105
Corinthians, First Epistle to, 63, 89, 90
Epistles to, 98
Cornelius, 58, 59, 87
Cornutus, 123, 124, 128
Councils, local, 6
Creation, 84
Crescens, 127
Cross, 79
Cults, Graeco-Oriental, 5, 8, 69, 74
sacramental, 4, 12, 105
Cyprian, 103
Cyrenaeans, 58
Cyrus, 53

Damascus, 57-59, 86
Daniel, 20, 50
David, 19, 47, 53, 68, 104, 105
anointed Son of, 21, 25, 27, 48, 67
kingdom of, 22
Davidic king, 21, 52, 54
Desire, 94, 95
Diaspora, Jews of the, 46, 57, 74
Docetic controversy, 91, 125, 129
Domitian, 108
Dorner, J. A., 101

Ecclesiology, 110
Eliezer ben Durdaiya, Rabbi, 28, 29
Emmet, C. W., 63
End of the Age, 22, 67, 90
Energy, 95
Enoch, Book of, 50, 52, 55
Ephesians, Epistle to the, 121, 122
Ephesus, 8, 61, 120-128
Epistles, Johannine, 125
Epistles, Pauline, 38, 85, 120
Eschatology, 23, 76, 77
Eucharist, 99, 124
Eusebius, 10, 108
Experiment, communistic, 46
Ezra, Fourth Book of, 20, 67, 68, 118

Faith, 96
Father, 86, 100, 110, 115
Fatherhood of God. _See_ God
Fourth Philosophy, 14, 29, 31

Galatians, Epistle to the, 62, 65
Galilee, 1-35, 39, 73, 86
Gentiles, 86
Gfrörer, A., 63
Gnosticism, 125
God, Fatherhood of, 81
kingdom of, 23
the Son, 81
sovereignty of, 18, 19
Spirit of, 40
supreme, 75, 80, 82, 83
working of, in the world, 34
Golden Age, the, 18
Gore, C., 93
Gospel, Fourth, 9, 81
Gospels, synoptic, 85
Grace, 83, 84
Gravitation, 80

Harnack, A. von, 64, 101
Heaven, 76, 93
Hebrews, Epistle to the, 105, 107, 117, 120
Heitmuller, W., 63
Heliogabalus, 83
Helios, 83
Hell, 76, 93
Hellenism, 46, 73
Hermas, 104, 107, 108, 110, 111, 114-119, 126, 137
Hermes, 123, 124
Herod the Great, 14
Herods, the, 13
High-priests, 12, 19, 106
Hilgenfeld, A., 63
Holtzmann, H. J., 121, 122

Ignatius, 121
Incarnation, 101, 106
_Imitatio Christi_, 80
Immortality, 84, 85, 88, 92, 108, 118
personal, 90
Irenaeus, 76, 82, 126, 131
Isaiah liii., 52, 53
Isis, 4, 82
Israel, 18, 53, 103
Italy, 125

James, the brother of the Lord, 60
Jehovah, 81, 83
Jehudah I., Rabbi, 29
Jerusalem, 7, 32, 36-56, 57, 58, 60, 61-66, 73, 74
Jesus, authority of, 41
death of, 36, 39
ethics of, 35
glorified, 91, 101, 139
as judge, 67, 70, 79, 94
life of, 37
as Lord, 68-70, 73, 75, 78, 81-86, 103, 106, 110
name of, 88
as pre-existent, 101, 104, 105, 116, 122-126
teaching of, 10, 17-35, 45, 48, 134
Jews, 12-17, 90
John, the Baptist, 84, 85
son of Zebedee, 122
Acts of, 129
First Epistle of, 129
Gospel of, 92, 120, 122, 124, 125, 129, 130
Joppa, 59, 86
Josephus, 14
Judaea, 13
Judaism, 40, 80, 87, 90
Judaistic controversy, 60
Judas of Galilee, 14, 31
Judgement, the, 76, 94
Julian, 78
Justification by Faith, 98
Justin Martyr, 116, 126-128, 130, 132
Jüngst, J., 63

King, Davidic. _See_ Davidic King
Kingdom of God, 24-26, 29, 48, 68, 69, 79, 134
of Heaven. _See_ Kingdom of God
Klausner, J., 20
Königsmann, B. L., 63

Law, the, 15, 16, 29, 46, 90, 99, 103
Life, 95, 96
eternal, 26
Logos, 9, 54, 100, 101, 123, 124, 126, 128, 130, 132
Lord, 9, 47, 68, 69, 74, 81, 82, 100, 109, 112
spirit of the, 42
Luke, Gospel of, 27, 36, 37, 48, 54, 92, 116

Maccabees, 7
Mackenzie, F. S., 137
Magic, 85
Marcion, 83, 103
Marius the Epicurean, 2
Mark, Gospel of, 27, 36-38, 40, 48, 49, 51, 52, 54, 116
end of Gospel of, 39, 92
Martin, son of Timothinus, 127
Matthew, Gospel of, 27, 36, 37, 48, 52, 54, 81, 86, 116
Messiah, 19, 22, 27, 40, 46, 47-49, 50, 67, 73
Davidic, 55, 79, 99
days of the, 26
Messianic Age, 19
Metaphysics, 95
Greek, 12
Platonic, 9
Stoic, 89
Michael, 115, 137-139
Middle Ages, 10, 119
Mind, 88
Mishna, the, 47
Mithraism, 75, 82
Mithras, 75, 83
Montefioro, C. G., 28
Moore, G. F., 48
Muratori, Canon of, 108
Mysteries, 4, 38, 88, 89
Mythology, Greek, 2, 3, 5

Nazarenes, synagogue of the, 40, 46
Non-resistance, 33
Norden, E., 64

Origen, 9, 94, 127-130, 132, 134, 135

Pacifism, 33
Palestine, 57
Panaetius, 9
Pantaenus, 125, 126
Paradise, 76
Parousia, 79
Pater, Walter, 2
Patriots, 13
Paul, 36, 57-60, 62, 65, 68, 82, 86, 90, 91, 98, 99, 121, 135
Pentecost, 41, 86
Personality, 96
Peter, 26, 46, 59-61, 86, 87, 107, 108
Pharisees, 13, 15, 16, 29, 32, 90
Philip, 58, 87
Philo, 6, 57
Philosophy, Greek, 3, 5, 6, 9, 99
Platonism, 88, 123
Pliny, 107
Plotinus, 88
Plutarch, 4, 5
Pontius Pilate, 101
Posidonius, 9
Priests, 32
Prophecy, 42
Prophets, 44
Proselytes, 84, 85, 87
Protestantism, 83
Psychical research, 93
Purgatory, 76

Q, 36, 37, 49, 51, 52, 70, 116

Reality, 133
immaterial, 88, 95, 129, 130
material, 129
Redeemer, 103
Redemption, 80
Reformation, the, 11, 83
Regeneration, sacramental, 77, 108
Religion, mystery, 74
Oriental, 3
Remission of sins, 117
Repentance, 27, 79, 118
Resurrection, 22, 76, 79, 85, 90, 105, 108
of the body, 90, 93, 99
Roman Empire, 79
religion in the, 2
Romans, Epistle to the, 102, 107
shorter recension of Epistle to the, 103
Rome, 12, 61, 98-120, 126, 128
cult of, 6
Rufus, 17
Rusticus, 127

Sacraments, 4, 8, 85, 90
Sadduceea, 15, 32, 90
Saints, 83
Salvation, 4, 8, 75, 77, 78, 88
Samaria, 61
Sanhedrim of the Jews, 7
Satan, 41
Saul, 47
Schleiermacher, F., 63
School, Ephesian, 129
Schwanbeck, E. A., 63
Schwartz, E., 64, 66
Schweitzer, A., 23, 24
Scribes, 13, 16, 29
Sects, Jewish, 12
Sermon on the Mount, 79
Servant, 47, 52-53
Seven, the, 59, 87
Shaoshyant, 20
Shema, 16, 17
Sheol, 21
Simon Magus, 125
Sin, 119
Solomon, Psalms of, 52, 54
Son, 86, 100, 112-114
of David, 67
of God, 47, 53, 81, 105, 106, 116, 137-139
of Man, 27, 30, 40, 47, 49-52, 55, 67, 68, 79, 99
pre-existent, 139
Sorof, M., 63
Soteriology, 131
Soul, immortality of the, 21
Spirit, the Holy, 40, 41, 43, 82, 86, 87, 89, 92, 100, 101, 113-116,
138, 140
pre-existence of, 114, 139
Spitta, F., 63
Stephen, 46, 57, 58, 61
Stoics, 9, 88, 123
Subliminal consciousness, 43
Sun, 75
Supreme God. _See_ God
Synagogue, 7, 8, 39
Syncretism, 6
Synedria, 6
Syria, 125

Talmud, 15, 32
Jerusalem, 17
Tarsus, 58, 61, 62
Tatian, 78
Temple, 32, 33
Tertullian, 10, 103
Testament, New, 71
Old, 35, 70, 71, 78, 126
Tinnius, 17
Torrey, C. C., 64
Tradition, Aramaic, 37
Trajan, 107
Trinity, doctrine of, 114
Trypho,126
Turnus, 17
Twelve, the, 89
Tyrrell, George, 12

Usener, H., 101

Valentinus, 125
Violet, B., 20

Weiss, B., 63
Weiss, J., 23, 63

Wendt, H., 63
Westcott, B. F., 93
Wisdom of Solomon, 55, 90
Literature, 6, 21, 54

Zahn, Th., 137
Zealots, 14

THE END

_Printed by_ R. & R. CLARK, LIMITED, _Edinburgh_.

THE BEGINNINGS OF CHRISTIANITY

A Series of Works by Various Authors

EDITED BY

F. J. FOAKES JACKSON, D.D.

AND

KIRSOPP LAKE, D.D.

8vo.