The Shepherd of Hermas and the Roman Empire

Abstract

Introduction In the literature on the relation between early Christianity and the Roman Empire, the Shepherd of Hermas is often left aside. Moreover, in the literature on the Shepherd of Hermas, this theme has not received ample treatment. Much about the Shepherd of Hermas remains puzzling and is highly debated. It is therefore important to sum up the main assumptions that underlie this article. First, it will be assumed that the Shepherd of Hermas was written somewhere between the end of the first and the middle of the second century. Second, the work is situated in or near Rome. Third, the book is considered to be written by one author (conventionally called Hermas), whether or not in different stages. The present article investigates Hermas's views on the desirable relation of the Christian community to the authorities. Living in the centre of the Roman world, the Christian Hermas (as the author identifies himself) must have experienced the impact of the empire on all aspects of sociocultural, economic, and political life. Hermas and the Authorities Similitude 1 Hermas's views on the relation between Christians and the authorities are most clearly expressed in Similitude 1. According to this parable, God’s servants live in a foreign place (ζένη): their own city (π όƛις), in which they will live, is far away from the city in which they live now (v. 1). In the present situation, they are under the power of another lord or master who expects them to obey his laws: “For the lord of this land rightly (δικαίως) says to you: either obey my laws, or move out of my land” (v. 4). Believers are exhorted to turn their minds towards their own city with its own law. There are four major exegetical problems: the meaning of the two cities, the lord, the laws, and the change of place. For the two cities, it has been argued that they represent Rome and the heavenly Jerusalem, the state and the church, earth and heaven, or the present world and the next world that is now represented by the church. It is unlikely that the present city is Rome, because the place where Christians live is not only designated as city (πόƛις) but also as land (χώρα, v. 4).

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