The popular symbolic representation of the Shepherd

THE POPULAR SYMBOLIC REPRESENTATION OF THE SHEPHERD

The mystical representation and thought-atmosphere of the writer or redactor of our present “Pœ mandres” are far removed from any direct traces of contact with the folk-consciousness, in which the appurtenances mentioned by “Hermas” were the typical literary description

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of a shepherd since the time of Theocritus; 1 not only so, but this was the symbolic representation of the “Shepherd of Men” in the general Hellenistic religious consciousness. Indeed, we find unquestionable proofs that Hermes was pre-eminently regarded as the “Good Shepherd, ” and a figure of him with staff and wallet and single robe was a great favourite in the popular cult. 2

In one passage 3 in which mention is made of this wallet and staff, further details are given showing that these simple symbols were well understood. The right hand is raised, and the left holds staff and wallet. Moreover, the staff has a serpent entwined round it, and Hermes is clad in a single robe. Like Isis, he stands upon the world-sphere, which has also a serpent twined round it. Hermes here represents the Mind or Logos, the father-mother (staff and wallet) force of nature; with the “left” he brings into generation, with the “right” he leads souls out of genesis, either to death, or regeneration. In this prayer, Hermes (as the sun) is called “the Shepherd who hath his fold in the West. ” 4

It is to be further remarked that Hermes is in the dress of the “Poor, ” 5 and of the “Naked. ” 6

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THE NAME “HERMAS”

But to return to Hermas. Why “Hermas” of all names in the world in this connection? We have a large literature in which “Hermes” plays the part of seer, and prophet, and revealer, and writer of sacred scriptures; in it, moreover, he figures as the beloved disciple of the Heavenly Mind, the Shepherd of Men. But what have we in Christian tradition to explain the name “Hermas”? Nothing, absolutely nothing, but contradictory hypotheses which try to discover a historic Hermas so as to authenticate the provenance of what is manifestly, like nearly every similar document of the time, pseudepigraphic. In my opinion, indeed, the very name Hermas betrays more clearly than anything else the “Hermes” source of the Christian writer’s setting of part of his most interesting apocalyptic. “Hermas” is because of “Hermes, ” rather than “Hermes” in answer to “Hermas, ” as Hilgers would have it.

AN EARLY FORM OF THE “PŒ MANDRES”

This, however, does not mean to say that “Hermas” took the setting of the introduction of his Pastoral apocalypses from precisely the same text of the “Pœ mandres” which now lies before us, for our present text is manifestly the redaction of an earlier form; so that if we could recover the other form we should in all probability find some additional verbal agreement of “Hermas” with “Hermes. ”

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That the ideas of the “Pœ mandres” treatise were the mystical and philosophical side of much that appears in the popular cult of the time, may be seen by an inspection of the prayers from the Magic Papyri which we have translated. 1 In them the Mind, as the Shepherd of Men, and the Revealer of the Light, is clearly set forth. Reitzenstein’s view (p. 32), accordingly, is that the Christian writer must have taken his description of the Shepherd from what originally was a fuller text of the “Pœ mandres” than the one preserved to us, and that this will account for several features which would otherwise be peculiar to “Hermas. ” This text was in closer verbal agreement with the general language of the popular Hermes religion as preserved to us in the Hermes-Prayers. 2

THE HOLY MOUNT

But the direct points of contact between “Hermas” and the Trismegistic literature are not confined to the “Pœ mandres” document. As the original writer of “Hermas” was dependent on “Hermes” for the setting of the introduction to his Pastoral apocalypses, so also it is highly probable that the redactor was influenced by a lost treatise referred to in the introduction of “The Sacred Sermon on the Mountain, ” C. H., xiii. (xiv. ).

In this treatise reference is made to one of the now lost “General Sermons, ” 3 the scene of which also took

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place on a mountain. For in connection with it mention is made by Tat of his passing over a mountain, or ascending a mountain, at the beginning of his noviciate, when he became a “suppliant”; 1 while it is further stated by Tat that at that stage the doctrine was not clearly explained, but rather hidden in riddles; for that as yet he was not sufficiently purified, and made “a stranger to the world-illusion. ”

Now, it is remarkable that “Hermas, ” in the appendix to the book (Sim. ix. ), tells us that after these revelations the Shepherd came to him again, and told him that much had not been explained because of his “weakness in the flesh”; but now that he has been strengthened by the Spirit, the Shepherd will explain all “with greater clearness. ” He then takes him away into Arcadia (a very unexpected locality for a Christian writer in Rome to choose), to a “breast-like mountain, ” where he has the further teaching revealed to him.

But, strangely enough, it was precisely in Arcadia that the chief Hellenic cult of Hermes existed, as stated by Lactantius, basing himself on the common belief at Rome; 2 and from Arcadia it was that Hermes, according to a tendency-legend that even at Rome went back at least to the second century B. C., set forth to teach the Egyptians.