THE SHEPHERD OF HERMAS (1st-mid-2nd century) Two Questions about its instructions on denial and repentance

[rakovskii]

The Shepherd of Hermas was a widespread document among early Christians and it was included in the Codex Sinaiticus. It is an account by Hermas of visions of Christ in the form of a Shepherd. Origen believed that it was written during Clement’s papacy (88-99 AD), and the document says to have a “Clement” send copies abroad. But the Muratorian Fragment (c. 200 AD) says that the Shepherd of Hermas was written under the papacy of Pius I (in 140-155 AD), the brother of Hermas.

You can read the text here: The Shepherd of Hermas (Roberts-Donaldson translation)

(Question 1) In Book I:2:3, Who is Maximus and what denial is the Shepherd talking about? Is the document giving permission to Maximus to deny Christ?

Blessed are all they who practise righteousness, for they shall never be destroyed. Now you will tell Maximus: Lo! tribulation cometh on. If it seemeth good to thee, deny again. The Lord is near to them who return unto Him

Christine Trevett in her 2016 article “I Have Heard from Some Teachers” (Studies in Church History vol 40) proposes that Maximus was someone who had denied the faith.

Maximus means “greatest”, and the ancient highest Roman pagan priest was called the Pontifex Maximus. Bp. Maximus of Jerusalem served as bishop in the late 2nd c. and Eusebius claimed that he wrote about the origin of evil and free will. Tertullian used this title for the Pope of Rome sarcastically. ("The ‘Pontifex Maximus,’ that is the ‘bishop of bishops,’ issues an edict: "I remit, to such as have discharged repentance, the sins both of adultery and of fornication.” On Modesty, c. 220 AD)
Eusebius in Church History VI:43 wrote that Maximus (whom Cyprian had called a persecuted Confessor in Epistula 50) had only temporarily left the Church with the 3rd c. antipope Novatian, who refused communion to Christians who lapsed and repented. Maximus was Pope of Alexandria in 264-282. Some consider Pope Marcellinus (served 296 – 304) to have apostasized, repented, and then been martyred.

(Question 2) Does the Shepherd of Hermas teach a heresy that Christians cannot successfully repent of severe sins committed after their baptism more than once? How does this strict rule compare with the instructions to Maximus to deny the faith?

Brian Fitzgerald writes about early Christians’ views on this topic in his essay “Adult Patristic Study - The Shepherd of Hermas”:

Is repentance possible after baptism? To the modern Christian such a question would seem odd since it is assumed that one may repent as often as necessary. The early Church did not assume this, hence the then common practice of delaying baptism until the approach of death.
st-philip.net/files/Fitzgerald%20Patristic%20series/shepherd_of_hermas.pdf

Where have you heard about Christians commonly delaying baptism in the early Church until the converts were near death? The only time that comes to mind is Constantine the Great being baptized before death.

(Continued in the next message below.)

 

[rakovskii]

According to the Unam Sanctam Catholicam website’s essay on the Shepherd of Hermas:

Some passages, such as 2.4.3 [“if any one… sins after that great and holy calling…” etc.], can easily be taken in a Donatist sense. When the Shepherd says that there is but one chance to repent after baptism, it is uncertain whether this is to be taken in the sense we expressed above (i.e., that it was common for the Sacrament of Penance to be administered only once, and after that, sins had to be atoned by extended durations of penitence) or rather in the absolute sense the Donatists inferred - that there is no repentance or penitence that can atone for certain serious sins committed after baptism.
Shepherd of Hermas

The full passage in Mandate 4 to which the article refers goes:

And I said to him, “I should like to continue my questions.” “Speak on,” said he. And I said, “I heard, sir, some teachers maintain that there is no other repentance than that which takes place, when we descended into the water and received remission of our former sins.”

He said to me, “That was sound doctrine which you heard; for that is really the case. For he who has received remission of his sins ought not to sin any more, but to live in purity. Since, however, you inquire diligently into all things, I will point this also out to you, not as giving occasion for error to those who are to believe, or have lately believed, in the Lord. For those who have now believed, and those who are to believe, have not repentance for their sins; but they have remission of their previous sins. For to those who have been called before these days, the Lord has set repentance. For the Lord, knowing the heart, and foreknowing all things, knew the weakness of men and the manifold wiles of the devil, that he would inflict some evil on the servants of God, and would act wickedly towards them. The Lord, therefore, being merciful, has had mercy on the work of His hand, and has set repentance for them; and He has entrusted to me power over this repentance. And therefore I say to you, that if any one is tempted by the devil, and sins after that great and holy calling in which the Lord has called His people to everlasting life, he has opportunity to repent but once. But if he should sin frequently after this, and then repent, to such a man his repentance will be of no avail; for with difficulty will he live.”

(Continued in the next message)

 

[rakovskii]

Fitzgerald notes: “Hermas’ initial understanding is that there is one repentance, one baptism, and one remission of sins available to all. He even queries the Angel of Repentance concerning this issue.” Fitzgerald then quotes the passage that the Unam Sanctam website cited about repenting only once, and comments:

The discussion in Mandate Four… came later and indicates some development in Hermas’ thought, i.e., what happens in case of multiple acts of repentance.
Frequent alternations between sinning and repentance apparently render such occasions of repentance void. Yet where those who do not repent die, those who repent often might live, albeit with difficulty. … Although severely discouraged, repenting often might still save, if only barely. This last point is left rather vague, however.
(st-philip.net/files/Fitzgerald%20Patristic%20series/shepherd_of_hermas.pdf)

Book II, Commandment 11 complains that there are non-heathen false prophets who frequently repent:

As many, then, as are strong in the faith of the Lord, and are clothed with truth, have no connection with such spirits, but keep away from them; but as many as are of doubtful minds and frequently repent, betake themselves to soothsaying, even as the heathen, and bring greater sin upon themselves by their idolatry.

Don’t you think frequent repentance is actually a good thing?

The passage seems to be complaining about false prophets who present themselves as holy but actually doubt and frequently switch between sinning and repenting, thereby showing that they are not really holy.

 

[rakovskii]

To summarize:
Question 1 is: Who is Maximus and what is his denial?
Question 2 is: Does the Shepherd teach the heresy that Christians cannot successfully repent of severe sins more than once?

 

[Hodos]

Quite frankly this document didn’t make it into the canon for a reason. Although it is an interesting document, I would not invest a lot of time in it. It has questionable theology regarding justification, and also takes a heterodox if not heretical view of Christology.

 

[billcu1]

Hum. Donatism. This is the first I have heard of this. Was this a Catholic text? I know I was told when you repent of something you receive graces that help you in your situation. I believe that. Some things are hard to get over. I myself find myself when I repent, offering the same things over time. I had one priest my confessor and my pastor get angry. He said I was “committing the same sin”. Penances became more penal and more penal. I don’t know where he was coming from. I have another confessor too and he doesn’t do things that way.

 

[rakovskii]

Although it is an interesting document, I would not invest a lot of time in it. It has questionable theology regarding justification

Thanks for replying, Hodos. What do you think is its questionable theology about justification? The reasons that I found it important is that it is in Codex Sinaiticus and Jerome’s Vulgate, two of the most important, earliest Bibles, and it’s one of the few surviving texts by the official Church in Rome in the 1st-mid 2nd centuries AD next to I & II Clement.

 

[Hodos]

Thanks for replying, Hodos. What do you think is its questionable theology about justification? The reasons that I found it important is that it is in Codex Sinaiticus and Jerome’s Vulgate, two of the most important, earliest Bibles, and it’s one of the few surviving texts by the official Church in Rome in the 1st-mid 2nd centuries AD next to I & II Clement.

This kind of thing isn’t that uncommon. So for example, you often find manuscripts of the Gospel of Matthew with the Didache. All that means is that it was not uncommon for early Christians to group documents into Christian libraries to save money on papyrus (which wasn’t cheap). With regard to the Christology of the Shepherd of Hermas, the author seems to take on an adoptionist tone, basically stating that the Holy Spirit tabernacle in Jesus as a reward for his purity of life. Tertullian and other contemporary writers would have rejected this. Quite frankly it is a rather bizarre compilation of five supposed visions that don’t square with the theology of the NT.

 

[rakovskii]

With regard to the Christology of the Shepherd of Hermas, the author seems to take on an adoptionist tone, basically stating that the Holy Spirit tabernacle in Jesus as a reward for his purity of life.

Hodos,
Some modern people read the Shepherd to teach Adoptionism and that the 3rd person of the Trinity tabernacled in a purely human Jesus. But I think that this is a misreading and that the Shepherd is trying to paraphrase John 1 as I explained in my post here: The holy Spirit in the Shepherd of Hermas

Rom. 8:9 says that Christ’s “Spirit” is in the apostles, and 2 Cor. 3. talks about the Spirit of Christ working in people and uses the term “Spirit” to refer Christ’s Spirit:

1. Now the Lord is that Spirit: and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty. 18. But we all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord.

The Shepherd of Hermas (Section III.9.1) also explains that the holy “Spirit” is actually Christ.

John 1 talks about the pre-Creational, All-Creating Logos, (Christ) becoming flesh:

1. In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2. He was in the beginning with God. 3. All things came into being through Him, and apart from Him nothing came into being that has come into being. … 14. And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us, and we saw His glory…

So when the Shepherd of Hermas (Section III.6) says: “The holy, pre-existent Spirit, that created every creature, God made to dwell in flesh, which He [ie. God] chose.”
I take this to refer to Christ’s/Logos’ Spirit dwelling in flesh at the incarnation, not that the Holy Spirit dwelt at Christ at His baptism and only then did he become God. But some modern writers mistakenly think that this sentence about the “holy… Spirit” refers to the 3rd person of the Trinity (The Holy Spirit).

 

[Hodos]

Have at it. As I said, it didn’t make it into the canon for reasons of authorship, date of composition, and it makes a number of statements that are at best confusing, and at worst heretical. If you find it useful, more power to you. Personally I find it a very convoluted read, and it makes sense to me why it was never widely accepted as canonical. In that regard, it isn’t that different for the Epistle of Barnabas which is probably actually more orthodox in its viewpoint, but just as hard to read.

 

[rakovskii]

Was this a Catholic text?

Dear Bill,
Thanks for sharing your experience. I am glad that things got better. I think that there are alot of people (hopefully a minority) who have had unpleasant experiences like that at confession because the priest has an overly penal attitude, and then find someone who is understanding and patient.
To answer your question, the Shepherd of Hermas is a late first to mid second century text, which ascribes itself to Hermas of Rome. One might think that this Hermas was the Christian to whom Paul sent greetings in Rome (Romans 16:14). But the Muratorian Canon from about 200 AD, the earliest list of the Bible’s books, says that it was written under Pope Pius I, who ruled in 140-155 AD, by Pope Pius I’s brother, Hermas. The Shepherd of Hermas shows up in some early Bibles, but the Church considered it apocryphal and ultimately it wasn’t accepted into the canon. I made another thread asking about its authorship here: Questions about the authorship of the Shepherd of Hermas and whether it narrates literal visions

 

[rakovskii]

As I said, it didn’t make it into the canon for reasons of authorship, date of composition, and it makes a number of statements that are at best confusing, and at worst heretical. If you find it useful, more power to you. Personally I find it a very convoluted read, and it makes sense to me why it was never widely accepted as canonical.

Dear Hodos,
Sure, I think that it does have a number of statements that are confusing. One is the Donatism that we mentioned, and another for me is the place of the 3rd Person of the Trinity. I guess that Commandment 11 in the Shepherd refers to the Holy Spirit either as the angel of the prophetic spirit or as the “Holy Spirit” that fills a person when they prophesy:

When, then, a man having the Divine Spirit comes into an assembly of righteous men who have faith in the Divine Spirit, and this assembly of men offers up prayer to God, then the angel of the prophetic Spirit, who is destined for him, fills the man; and the man being filled with the Holy Spirit, speaks to the multitude as the Lord wishes.
However, it looks like the “Holy Spirit” is used elsewhere as a term for Christ’s own spirit, which is holy, as I mentioned earlier.
Plus, I think that the books of the New Testament are generally ascribed to the first century and apostles for their authorship. My guess is that the Shepherd of Hermas tries to suggest that it was written by the Hermas of Rome in Paul’s epistle, but that it was actually authored during the mid-2nd century because the Muratorian Fragment says so.

I couldn’t find anything about the meaning of Maximus’ “denial” online except that someone online asserted without explanation that it referred to denying Christ.

 

[Hodos]

Sure, I think that it does have a number of statements that are confusing. One is the Donatism that we mentioned, and another for me is the place of the 3rd Person of the Trinity.

I am not aware of any Donatist leanings in Shepherd of Hermas as this document was a 2nd century document, and the Donatists did not appear until the third century. I still believe there are a number of serious doctrinal inconsistencies in Shepherd which gives good reason why the Church did not embrace it as authoritative scripture.

 

[rakovskii]

I am not aware of any Donatist leanings in Shepherd of Hermas as this document was a 2nd century document, and the Donatists did not appear until the third century.

Hodos,
I understand what you mean about Donatism being a later heresy. The Donatist issue came up in Question 2 (Does the Shepherd of Hermas teach a heresy that Christians cannot successfully repent of severe sins committed after their baptism more than once?), where I quoted the Unam Sanctum website about the Shepherd of Hermas:

Some passages, such as 2.4.3 [“if any one… sins after that great and holy calling…” etc.], can easily be taken in a Donatist sense. When the Shepherd says that there is but one chance to repent after baptism, it is uncertain whether this is to be taken in the sense we expressed above (i.e., that it was common for the Sacrament of Penance to be administered only once, and after that, sins had to be atoned by extended durations of penitence) or rather in the absolute sense the Donatists inferred - that there is no repentance or penitence that can atone for certain serious sins committed after baptism.
unamsanctamcatholicam.com/history/79-history/356-shepherd-of-hermas.html

Wikipedia describes the Donatists’ teachings this way:

The Roman governor of North Africa, lenient to the large Christian minority under his rule throughout the persecutions, was satisfied when Christians handed over their [scriptures] as a token repudiation of faith. When the persecution ended, Christians who did so were called [traditors]—“those who handed (the holy things) over”—by their critics (who were mainly from the poorer classes). Like third-century Novatianism the Donatists were [rigorists]; the church must be a church of “saints” (not “sinners”), and sacraments administered by traditors were invalid. …
According to Augustine, a sacrament was from God and ex opere operato (Latin for "from the work carried out”). A priest or bishop in a state of [mortal sin] could continue to administer valid sacraments. The Donatists believed that a repentant apostate priest could no longer consecrate the Eucharist. Donatism - Wikipedia

What do you think about Question #2? I value your replies.

 

[rakovskii]

Let me try to address Question 1 about Maximus in the verse,
“Now you will tell Maximus: Lo! tribulation cometh on. If it seemeth good to thee, deny again. The Lord is near to them who return unto Him”.
I think that the denial refers to denying Christ because the context is tribulation, which was something that the martyrs experienced when the persecutors wanted the Christians to deny or abandon the faith. Plus, it talks about the Lord being near to those who return, which brings to mind people who leave the Lord (eg. by denying Him) and then return to Him.

Even if one understands that tribulation that can be incredibly hard on believers, and even though it’s true that the Lord is near to those who return, the fact that “deny again” “if it seemeth good” is in the form of an instruction sounds very weird for a Christian writing.

The main time that comes to mind when the Church focused on having a lenient attitude to apostasy was the time of the rejection of Novationism in the mid 3rd century. I wrote in my opening post: “Eusebius in Church History VI:43 wrote that Maximus (whom Cyprian had called a persecuted Confessor in Epistula 50) had only temporarily left the Church with the 3rd c. antipope Novatian, who refused communion to Christians who lapsed and repented.”
So the instructions could be consoling the persecuted Maximus or allowing him to deny in order to avoid further persecution. But the problem with seeing the Maximus in the Shepherd as the same one as the mid-3rd century Maximus whom Eusebius mentioned is that the Muratorian canon dated the Shepherd of Hermas to the mid-2nd century. The Muratorian canon could be mistaken, but most scholars date the Muratorian canon to the late 2nd century anyway, which is well before the time of Novatian’s reign. It’s true that the scholars could be wrong about the date of the Muratorian canon; one major reason why they date the Muratorian canon to the late 2nd century is because it considers the Shepherd of Hermas to be “recent”, while dating the Shepherd of Hermas to Pius I’s mid-2nd century papacy.

However, other than the 3rd century Maximus mentioned by Eusebius, it’s hard for me to see to whom the Shepherd of Hermas refers as “Maximus”. Maybe the person’s identity has been lost.

 

[Mintaka]

A lot of this stuff is being wrongly described. For example, it cannot be Donatist, because Donatism did not exist yet.

People can be mistaken in their theology without it being heretical, if a thing has not yet been defined. Obviously having a lot of mistaken doctrine in a text goes against canonicity, though.

 

[Usagi]

It can’t literally be Donatist, but it could be expressing ideas that would later appear in what was formally identified as the Donatist heresy. Perhaps “proto-Donatist ideas” would be a better phrasing.

Isn’t there a very similar passage somewhere in the NT (in Paul or pseudo-Paul, I think) that warns, or seems to warn, against being able to repent again of serious sin after justification/baptism? As well as others that can be read as adoptionist? Even the canon isn’t free of passages that have to be carefully explained in an orthodox way, lest a naive reading lead to heresy or scrupulosity.

 

[rakovskii]

Usagi, I agree that there are alot of passages that have to be explained in an orthodox way in the Bible. Theologians have carefully looked at and explained alot of them. I don’t remember Paul warning that someone couldn’t repent of serious sin after baptism. Maybe there are places that could be harmonized with Adoptionism, but Adoptionism wasn’t the Biblical author’s intent.

On the other hand, the Shepherd of Hermas seems to make a big deal out of saying that a baptized person couldn’t repent after serious sin. I guess if you were a persuasive critic and asked the author of the Shepherd, he might reply with something like “All things are possible with God”, meaning that such a person could successfully repent even though it’s not normal for that to happen.

 

[rakovskii]

Mintaka,
You made a good point about wrong descriptions- I think that you are right that it’s not Donatist, because as I understand it, Donatism focused on whether clergy’s sacraments remained legitimate if the particular clergy had committed serious sin (particularly if he had handed over sacred writings under persecution), whereas the Shepherd even has a passage telling one “Maximus” to “deny again” because the Lord is “near” to those who return.
Would you happen to know the answer to Usagi’s question below?:

Isn’t there a very similar passage somewhere in the NT (in Paul or pseudo-Paul, I think) that warns, or seems to warn, against being able to repent again of serious sin after justification/baptism?