Why was this ancient Christian bestseller excluded from the official New Testament canon?
In short: The Shepherd of Hermas was once a widely read, influential text in the early Church, even appearing in the Codex Sinaiticus. Yet, despite its popularity across the second to fourth centuries, it was ultimately rejected as non-apostolic. What does this mysterious, visionary work reveal about early Christian ethics and identity?
Written in Rome during the second century, The Shepherd of Hermas is a complex allegorical work attributed to a former slave named Hermas. The text is structured into five visions, twelve mandates, and ten similitudes. It begins with a personal account of the narrator’s unchaste thoughts regarding a woman named Rhoda, leading to a series of divine revelations. The central figure, an angel of repentance appearing as a shepherd, delivers ethical instructions that emphasize the necessity of both faith and works for salvation. The work is notable for its rigorous moral stance, including the controversial instruction that a husband must forgive and accept an adulterous wife if she truly repents.
The theology within the book has long intrigued scholars. It contains elements of adoptionism—the view that Jesus was a mortal man adopted as the Son of God—and binitarianism, where the Holy Spirit is sometimes identified as the Son. While the First Council of Nicaea in 325 AD later affirmed Christ as the coessential Logos, the Shepherd remained influential. Its teachings on penance, which allowed for only one chance at forgiveness after baptism, deeply impacted later figures like Novatian. Some modern readers even interpret its warnings about escaping 'great tribulation' as an early precursor to the concept of a pre-tribulational rapture.
The status of the Shepherd was a subject of debate in the early Church. The Muratorian fragment, dating to approximately 170 AD, identifies the author as the brother of Pope Pius I. While it acknowledges the book's value for private reading, it explicitly excludes it from public church reading because it was written after the time of the Apostles. Despite this, its reach was vast, with translations appearing in Coptic, Ge'ez, and even a Middle Persian version for Manichaean readers. Today, it serves as a vital window into the diverse, often contested, landscape of early Christian thought, morality, and community structure.
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- Summary by Intellect · source: The Shepherd of Hermas
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