A keeper of sheep. The first keeper of sheep in the Bible was Adam's son Abel (Genesis 4:2 ). Shepherding was the chief occupation of the Israelites in the early days of the patriarchs: Abraham (Genesis 12:16 ); Rachel (Genesis 29:9 ); Jacob (Genesis 30:31-40 ); Moses (Exodus 3:1 ). As cultivation of crops increased, shepherding fell from favor and was assigned to younger sons, hirelings, and slaves (compare David in 1 Samuel 16:11-13 ). Farmers such as in Egypt even hated shepherds (Genesis 46:34 ). The Bible mentions shepherds and shepherding over 200 times. However, the Hebrew word for shepherding is often translated, “feeding.” Shepherds led sheep to pasture and water (Psalm 23:1 ) and protected them from wild animals (1 Samuel 17:34-35 ). Shepherds guarded their flocks at night whether in the open (Luke 2:8 ) or in sheepfolds (Zephaniah 2:6 ) where they counted the sheep as they entered (Jeremiah 33:13 ). They took care of the sheep and even carried weak lambs in their arms (Isaiah 40:11 ). Shepherd came to designate not only persons who herded sheep but also kings (2 Samuel 5:2 ) and God Himself (Psalm 23:1 ; Isaiah 40:11 ). Later prophets referred to Israel's leaders as shepherds (Jeremiah 23:1 ; Ezekiel 34:1 ). In Bible times the sheep cared for by shepherds represented wealth. They provided food (1 Samuel 14:32 ), milk to drink (Isaiah 7:21-22 ), wool for clothing (Job 31:20 ), hides for rough clothing (Matthew 7:15 ), and leather for tents (Exodus 26:14 ). Furthermore, sheep were major offerings in the sacrificial system (Exodus 20:24 ). They were offered as burnt offerings (Leviticus 1:10 ), sin offerings (Leviticus 4:32 ), guilt offerings (Leviticus 5:15 ), and peace offerings (Leviticus 22:21 ). The New Testament mentions shepherds 16 times. They were among the first to visit Jesus at His birth (Luke 2:8-20 ). Some New Testament references used a shepherd and the sheep to illustrate Christ's relationship to His followers who referred to Him as “our Lord Jesus, that great shepherd of the sheep” (Hebrews 13:20 ). Jesus spoke of Himself as “the good shepherd” who knew His sheep and would lay down His life for them (John 10:7-18 ). Jesus commissioned Peter to feed His sheep (John 21:1 ). Paul likened the church and its leaders to a flock with shepherds (Acts 20:28 ). The Latin word transliterated “pastor” means shepherd. Elmer Gray

Composer. Born in England c.1512;died there c1563 A chorister under Thomas Mulliner at Saint Paul's, he became in 1542 choir-master and organist at Magdalen College, Oxford, and in 1549 gained a fellowship. From 1553 to 1558 he belonged to Mary Tudor's Chapel Royal. The Music School, Oxford, has preserved in manuscripts many of his religious compositions. Notable selections are four masses, several alleluias, and ten motets.

Our Lord means to teach in this parable (Matthew 18) the care and love of God for the little ones, that is to say the weak, of whom He thinks so much that He has placed them under the protection of His angels. God wishes that not one of them should become lost; hence the duty of looking after them to secure their salvation. The lesson is conveyed in the parable of the lost sheep; a shepherd with a flock of 100 sheep will leave the 99 that are not in danger and in no special need of his care, in order to look for the one that has been lost, and will not give up the search until he has found the lost one. This parable resembles very closely that in Luke 15, and so quite naturally the two parables are commonly identified. The differences between them are of the kind that may be expected in two parallel versions of the same discourse, teaching essentially the same lesson; the value of the soul in the eyes of God, whence flows the necessity of doing everything to reclaim one on the way to perdition, the point brought out especially by Saint Matthew, and the joy of God over the conversion of the sinner, the point brought out especially by Saint Luke.

SHEPHERD . See Sheep.

A word naturally of frequent occurence in Scripture. Sometimes the word "pastor" is used instead (Jeremiah 2:8 ; 3:15 ; 10:21 ; 12:10 ; 17:16 ). This word is used figuratively to represent the relation of rulers to their subjects and of God to his people (Psalm 23:1 ; 80:1 ; Isaiah 40:11 ; 44:28 ; Jeremiah 25:34,35 ; Nahum 3:18 ; John 10:11,14 ; Hebrews 13:20 ; 1 Peter 2:25 ; 5:4 ). The duties of a shepherd in an unenclosed country like Palestine were very onerous. "In early morning he led forth the flock from the fold, marching at its head to the spot where they were to be pastured. Here he watched them all day, taking care that none of the sheep strayed, and if any for a time eluded his watch and wandered away from the rest, seeking diligently till he found and brought it back. In those lands sheep require to be supplied regularly with water, and the shepherd for this purpose has to guide them either to some running stream or to wells dug in the wilderness and furnished with troughs. At night he brought the flock home to the fold, counting them as they passed under the rod at the door to assure himself that none were missing. Nor did his labours always end with sunset. Often he had to guard the fold through the dark hours from the attack of wild beasts, or the wily attempts of the prowling thief (see 1 Samuel 17:34 ).", Deane's David.

1: ποιμήν (Strong's #4166 — Noun Masculine — poimen — poy-mane' ) is used (a) in its natural significance, Matthew 9:36 ; 25:32 ; Mark 6:34 ; Luke 2:8,15,18,20 ; John 10:2,12 ; (b) metaphorically of Christ, Matthew 26:31 ; Mark 14:27 ; John 10:11,14,16 ; Hebrews 13:20 ; 1 Peter 2:25 ; (c) metaphorically of those who act as pastors in the churches, Ephesians 4:11 . See PASTOR.

The occupation of shepherd was one of the earliest recorded (Genesis 4:2). In the dry semi-desert countries of the Bible story, shepherds lived a hard tough life, battling against heat, drought and wild animals (Genesis 31:38-40; Amos 3:12). It is therefore not surprising that ‘shepherd’ became a word symbol for a leader of God’s people. The emphasis is not only on care and leadership, but also on the ability to endure hardship. The shepherd must be prepared to battle against all opponents who threaten the welfare of those in his care (John 10:1; John 10:10-12; Acts 20:28-29). Life of a shepherd Shepherds were a common sight in Palestine and neighbouring countries. They lived in tents and moved around from place to place with their flocks in search of grass and water (Exodus 3:1; Deuteronomy 8:15; Isaiah 13:20; see also SHEEP). Often the only water available was at wells that people had dug. These wells were frequently the cause of disputes (Genesis 26:12-32). After the Israelites took possession of Canaan, the shepherds among them settled down more or less permanently with their flocks. They still faced the problem of finding good pastures and water, and still had to meet attacks by wild animals (Zechariah 11:15-1751; Psalms 23:2; Psalms 23:4-5; Matthew 10:16). Additional dangers came from thieves who stole sheep by night, and desert people who raided in groups (Genesis 31:39; Job 1:14-15; 2 Chronicles 21:16-17; John 10:10). The shepherd’s only weapons were a sling and a stick, though he may have used trained dogs to help him in his work (1 Samuel 17:40; 1 Samuel 17:49; Job 30:1; Psalms 23:4; Zechariah 11:7; Zechariah 11:10). Sheep had to be protected and watched by shepherds constantly, otherwise they would wander away and be lost. If sheep became lost, the shepherd sometimes had to risk his life in searching for them and rescuing them (Ezekiel 34:8; Ezekiel 34:12; Matthew 18:12). The shepherd was responsible to pay the owner the cost of any sheep lost while in his care, unless he could satisfy the owner that he was not to blame for the loss (Genesis 31:39; Exodus 22:10-13). At night the shepherd usually kept his sheep in a walled enclosure called a fold, as an added protection against dangers (Numbers 32:36; Micah 2:12; Habakkuk 3:17; Luke 2:8; John 10:1). He counted the sheep as they went in at night, to make sure that none was missing; then, in the morning, he led them out into the fields (Jeremiah 33:13; Ezekiel 20:37; John 10:3; John 10:27; John 17:12). Leaders of God’s people The Old Testament often refers to the leaders of Israel as shepherds, and to the people as the flock (Numbers 27:17; Isaiah 63:11). Many of Israel’s leaders were bad shepherds, and because of them the nation crumbled (Isaiah 56:11; Jeremiah 50:6; Ezekiel 34:2-6; 1618451480_2). In the New Testament also leaders of God’s people are referred to as shepherds of the flock. As elders of a church they have the responsibility to lead it, feeding it with spiritual food and protecting it from spiritual harm (John 21:15-17; Acts 20:28-29; 1 Peter 5:1-3; see ELDER; PASTOR). The true shepherd, however, is always God (Genesis 49:24; Psalms 23:1; Isaiah 40:11). This is seen clearly in the illustration Jesus used to picture himself as the good shepherd. He was so concerned for the sheep that he died for them (John 10:1-29; Hebrews 13:20; 1 Peter 2:25; 1 Peter 5:4; cf. Ezekiel 34:23-24).

In a nomadic state of society every man, from the sheikh down to the slave, is more or less a shepherd. The progenitors of the Jews in the patriarchal age were nomads, and their history is rich in scenes of pastoral life. The occupation of tending the flocks was undertaken,not only by the sons of wealthy chiefs, (Genesis 30:29 ) ff.; Genesis37:12 ff., but even by their daughters. (Genesis 29:6,8 ; Exodus 2:10 ) The Egyptian captivity did march to implant a love of settled abode, and consequently we find the tribes which still retained a taste for shepherd life selecting their own quarters apart from their brethren in the transjordanic district. (Numbers 32:1 ) ff. Thenceforward in Palestine proper the shepherd held a subordinate position. The office of the eastern shepherd, as described in the Bible, was attended with much hardship, and even danger. He was exposed to the extremes of heat and cold, (Genesis 31:40 ) his food frequently consisted of the precarious supplies afforded by nature, such as the fruit of the "sycamore" or Egyptian fig, (Amos 7:14 ) the "husks" of the carob tree, (Luke 15:16 ) and perchance the locusts and wild honey which supported the Baptist, (Matthew 3:4 ) he had to encounter the attacks of wild beasts, occasionally of the larger species, such as lions, nerves, panthers and bears, (1 Samuel 17:34 ; Isaiah 31:4 ; Jeremiah 5:6 ; Amos 5:12 ) nor was he free from the risk of robbers or predators hordes. (Genesis 31:39 ) To meet these various foes the shepherd's equipment consisted of the following articles: a mantle, made probably of sheep skin with the fleece on, which he turned inside out in cold weather, as implied in the comparison in (Jeremiah 43:12 ) (cf. Juv. xiv. 187.); a scrip or wallet, containing a small amount of food (1 Samuel 17:40 ) a sling, which is still the favorite weapon of the Bedouin shepherd, (1 Samuel 17:40 ) and lastly, a which served the double purpose of a weapon against foes and a crook for the management of the flock. (1 Samuel 17:40 ; Psalm 23:4 ; Zechariah 11:7 ) If the shepherd was at a distance from his home, he was provided with a light tent, (Song of Solomon 1:8 ; Jeremiah 35:7 ) the removal of which was easily effected. (Isaiah 38:12 ) In certain localities, moreover, towers were erected for the double purpose of spying an enemy at a distance and of protecting the flock; such towers were erected by Uzziah and Jotham, (2 Chronicles 26:10 ; 27:4 ) while their existence in earlier times is testified by the name Migdal-edar (Genesis 35:21 ) Authorized Version "a tower of Edar;" (Micah 4:8 ) Authorized Version "tower of the flock." The routine of the shepherd's duties appears to have been as follows: In the morning he led forth his flock from the fold (John 10:4 ) which he did by going before them and calling to them, as is still usual in the East; arrived at the pasturage he watched the flock with the assistance of dogs, (Job 30:1 ) and should any sheep stray, he had to search for it until he found it, (Ezekiel 34:12 ; Luke 15:4 ) he supplied them with water, either at a running stream or at troughs attached to wells, (Genesis 29:7 ; 30:38 ; Exodus 2:16 ; Psalm 23:2 ) at evening he brought them back to the fold, and reckoned them to see that none were missing, by passing them "under the rod" as they entered the door of the enclosure (Leviticus 27:32 ; Ezekiel 20:37 ) checking each sheep, as it passed, by a motion of the hand, (Jeremiah 33:13 ) and, finally, he watched the entrance of the fold throughout the night, acting as porter. (John 10:3 ) ^[1] The shepherd's office thus required great watchfulness, particularly by night. (Luke 2:8 ) cf. Nahu 3:18 It also required tenderness toward the young and feeble, (Isaiah 40:11 ) particularly in driving them to and from the pasturage. (Genesis 33:13 ) In large establishments there are various grades of shepherds, the highest being styled "rulers," (Genesis 47:6 ) or "chief shepherds," (1 Peter 5:4 ) in a royal household the title of abbir "mighty," was bestowed on the person who held the post. ( 1 Samuel 21:7 ) ^[2]

The name ‘shepherd’ is taken from the occupation of the Hebrews as a pastoral tribe (Genesis 13:7; Genesis 30:36; Genesis 37:2; Genesis 47:3, Exodus 3:1, 1 Samuel 17:34) and applied to God as the one who feeds and provides for His people (Genesis 48:15; Genesis 49:24, Isaiah 40:11, Psalms 23:1; Psalms 95:7; Psalms 100:3; cf. Ezekiel 34:11-31) and to the rulers of the nation (Numbers 27:17, 2 Samuel 7:7, 1 Kings 22:17, Jeremiah 2:8; Jeremiah 3:15; Jeremiah 23:1-4, Ezekiel 34:2-10, Zechariah 10:3; Zechariah 11:3 ff; Zechariah 13:5). The idea expressed in most of these passages is that the care of Israel, as ‘the flock of His pasture,’ is given by the Lord in charge of the rulers who are held to account for the welfare of every member of the same. Especially Ezekiel 34 rebukes these ‘shepherds’ for their neglect of their charge, and ends up (v. Ezekiel 34:23 b) with the prophecy that in the end one shepherd, like unto David the servant of the Lord, will tend them as prince. To this Messianic passage reference is made in John 10:11-16, where Jesus is represented as saying: ‘I am the good shepherd; … and I lay down my life for the sheep. And other sheep I have, which are not of this fold: … and they shall become one flock, one shepherd’; cf. Hebrews 13:20, 1 Peter 2:25; 1 Peter 5:4. To His office as Shepherd Jesus refers in Matthew 15:24; cf. Jeremiah 50:6. Moses also is represented in Ex. R. ii. 2-3 as the good shepherd to whom the Lord said: ‘Since thon takest such care of the lambs of thy flock, be thou the shepherd of My flocks.’ The same is said there also of David when chosen by the Lord to be king. Concerning the identification of Christ as the Good Shepherd with Orpheus on ancient Christian paintings see F. Piper, Mythologie und Symbolik der christl. Kunst, Weimar, 1847-51, i. 126; J. P. Lundy, Monumental Christianity, New York, 1876, pp. 187-196; also R. Reitzenstein, Poimandres, Leipzig, 1904, 11-13, 32 f., 113. But the title ‘shepherd’ or ‘pastor’ is given in the NT to all the heads of the Church, to the apostle Peter (John 21:17; cf. Matthew 10:6; Matthew 10:16) and to the elders of the Church (Acts 20:28, 1 Peter 5:2) as having charge of the ‘sheep of Christ,’ ‘the flock of God.’ The name Ποίμην (‘pastor’ or ‘shepherd’) is used in the sense of ‘overseer,’ episcopus (Ephesians 4:1), wherefore Jesus is also called the ‘arch-shepherd,’ ἀρχιποίμην (1 Peter 5:4). This conception (cf. Philo, ed. Mangey, i. 196) of spiritual rulers as shepherds rests on the original Jewish Didascalia (preserved in the so-called Apostolic Constitutions, ii. 6, 10, 15. 4, 18. 7-18, 19. 1-3, 20. 3-5, 9, 11), where the above-quoted passages from Jeremiah and Ezekiel are interpreted in a spiritual sense as referring to the duties and responsibilities of the overseer of the Church, viz. that he has to look after the spiritual health of each member of the flock, keep them in a sound state of perfect faith, strengthen those weakened by doubt, bind up those bruised by the remorse of sin, and bring back those that have gone astray, while expelling those that may affect the moral or spiritual well-being of the flock by evil conduct or evil doctrine (see article ‘Didascalia’ in Jewish Encyclopedia ). The name ‘shepherd’ or ‘pastor’ became henceforth the title of the bishop (Ignat. ad Phil. ii. 1, ad Rom. ix. 1; Iren. iv. 33; Cyprian, Ep. viii. ^[1], ‘Cleri Romani ad clerum Carthaginensem’; Clem. Alex. Strom. i. 26), and later on in Protestant Christianity of the minister of the Church in general. In Enoch lxxxix. 59, xc. 25, the name ‘shepherd’ is given to the 70 angels ruling the 70 nations of the earth (see R. H. Charles, ad loc., and F. Spitta, Zur Geschichte und Litteratur des Urchristentums, Göttingen, 1901, ii. 367 ff.), also to the angel in Hermas, Mand. iv. 2. 2, Sim. vi. 3. 2. In ancient Babylonia the chief stars bore the name of ‘Shepherds of Heaven.’ K. Kohler.

This valuable and interesting relic of the life and thought of the early Roman Church may be described as a manual of personal religion, cast in an imaginative form. It has been compared in the latter respect with Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress, with Dante’s Divina Commedia, and with the visions of such mystics as St. Teresa and St. Catherine of Siena. Whether it be looked upon as a work of allegorical fiction, or, as G. Salmon strennuously maintains (Historical Introduction to the NT5, p. 529ff.), a record of actual dream experience, or again, as may well be, a combination of both, its strong moral earnestness and its didactic purpose are equally apparent. It is primarily a call to repentance, addressed to Christians among whom the memory of persecution is still fresh (Vis. iii. 2, 5, Sim. ix. 28), and over whom now hangs the shadow of another great tribulation (Vis. ii. 2, iv. 2). From the first Vision, with its revelation of the sinfulness of sins of thought, and of neglect of responsibility for others, to the last Parable, where the greatness of the Shepherd, the supernatural Being ‘to whom alone in the whole world hath authority over repentance been assigned’ (Sim. x. 1), is ordered to be declared to men, the theme is repentance and amendment of life. Indeed, the little book would almost seem to have been written partly as an attempt to break through the iron ring of despair resulting from a rigorous acceptance of those words in the Epistle to the Hebrews which speak of the impossibility of repentance for sin committed after baptism (Hebrews 6:6; Hebrews 12:17). The subject is discussed in the Fourth Commandment (Mand. iv. 3) in a curiously simple manner. The authority of this teaching is admitted verbally, and then an exception is made, which covers the whole teaching of the book. ‘I have heard. Sir,’ says Hermas, ‘from certain teachers, that there is no other repentance, save that which took place when we went down into the water and obtained remission of our former sins.’ The Shepherd replies that this is so. They that have believed, or shall believe, have not repentance, but only remission of their former sins. He then, however, goes on to say that, if after this great and holy calling any one, being tempted of the devil, shall commit sin, he hath only one (opportunity of) repentance. This one opportunity, however, would seem to be embodied in the Shepherd himself, who was sent ‘to be with you who repent with your whole heart, and to strengthen you in the faith’ (Hebrews 12:6), and whose command to Hennas is, ‘Go, and tell all men to repent, and they shall live unto God; for the Lord in His compassion sent me to give repentance to all, though some of them do not deserve it, for their deeds’ (Sim. viii. 11). 1. Authorship.-There are a few references scattered through the work to the circumstances of its author. He had originally been a slave, and was sold to one Rhoda, in Rome (Vis. i. 1). After his freedom he had engaged in business and prospered (iii. 6), but he had been corrupted by the affairs of this world (i., iii.), practising deception in the course of his business (Mand. iii.). However, he had lost his riches, and become useful and profitable unto life (Vis. iii. 6). His worldly loss seems to have been connected with the misdeeds of his children (i., iii.), who had not been very strictly looked after by him. His wife is represented as a person who did not sufficiently restrain her tongue (ii. 2). Hermas depicts himself as slow of understanding, but insatiable in curiosity (Mand. xii. 4, Sim. v. 5), and at the same time as ‘patient and good tempered and always smiling,’ ‘full of all simplicity and of great guilelessness’ (Vis. i. 2). The scene is laid partly in the house of Hermas in Rome, partly in the country where he abides (Vis. iii. 1), and once in Arcadia (Sim. ix. 1). Mention is made of the road to Cumae, the Campanian Way, and the river Tiber, in which Hermas sees Rhoda bathing (Vis. i. 1). To the question who Hermas was there are three possible answers. (1) He may, as Origen supposes in his Commentary on Romans (x. 31 ^[1]), have been the Scriptural character mentioned by St. Paul as a member of the Roman Church c. ^[2] a.d. 58 (Romans 16:14). (2) According to the Muratorian fragment (circa, about a.d. 180), he was brother of Pope Pius I. during his Episcopate (circa, about a.d. 140-155). (3) He may have been an otherwise unknown person who was a contemporary of Pope Clement (circa, about a.d. 90-100). This theory involves the identification of the Church official mentioned in Vis. ii. 4 with the Bishop of Rome. ‘Thou shalt therefore write two little books, and shalt send one to Clement.… So Clement shall send to the foreign cities, for this is his duty.’ Of these views Lightfoot with some diffidence prefers the second, while G. Salmon, Zahn, and others accept the third (see J. B. Lightfoot, Apostolic Fathers, 294; G. Salmon, Introduction to the NT5, 46, 534). 2. Date and use by the Church.-Whether the work was written in the beginning or in the middle of the 2nd cent., there is evidence of its wide circulation soon after the latter date. Irenaeus, Bishop of Lyons in a.d. 177, accepted it and spoke of it as Scripture. ‘Well did the Scripture speak, saying, etc.’ (ap. Historia Ecclesiastica (Eusebius, etc.)v. 8). Clem. Alex. quotes it several times (e.g. Strom. I. xxix. 181), while Origen in the passage above referred to speaks of it as a very useful, and, as he thinks, Divinely-inspired writing. Tertullian approved of it in his pre-Montanist days, but afterwards condemned it (de Pudic.10). The author of the Muratorian Canon, while seeking to deprecate the public reading of the Shepherd in church, commends it for private use. ‘But the “Shepherd” was written quite lately in our times by Hermas, while his brother Pius, the bishop, was sitting in the chair of the Church of the city of Rome; and therefore it ought indeed to be read, but it cannot to the end of lime be publicly read in the Church to the people, either among the prophets, who are complete in number, or among the Apostles.’ 3. Contents.-The book is divided up into five Visions, twelve Mandates or Commandments, and ten Similitudes or Parables. The Visions form the introduction to the rest, the Shepherd not appearing until the last of these. The following outline will give an idea of the purport of the work as a whole. (1) Visions.-In the first Vision Hermas tells now, while journeying to Cumae, he saw in the opened heavens Rhoda, his former owner, whom he had recently met again, and whom he had begun to esteem as a sister. She rebukes him for an unchaste thought towards herself, and leaves him aghast at the strictness of God’s judgment. Then he sees a great white chair of snow-white wool upon which an aged lady in shining raiment seats herself. She tells Hermas that what God is really wroth about is his lack of strictness with his family whereby his children have become corrupt. She then reads from a book the glories of God, but Hermas can only remember the last words, for the rest is too terrible to bear. She rises, the chair is carried away towards the east by four young men, and two other men assist her to depart in the same direction. As she goes, she smiles and says, ‘Play the man, Hermas.’ The second Vision takes place a year later, and in the same locality. The aged lady again appears, and gives him a little book that he may copy its contents and report them to the elect of God. He copies it letter for letter, for he cannot make out the syllables, and when he has finished, the book is snatched away by an unseen hand. After fifteen days the meaning is revealed to Hermas, who is directed to rebuke his children for their wickedness, and his wife for her faults of the tongue, as well as to exhort the rulers of the Church. A great tribulation is at hand, with danger of apostasy by Christians. One Maximus, in particular, is to be warned against a second denial. Then it is revealed that the aged woman is not, as Hermas supposes, the Sibyl, but the Church, created before all things. He is directed by her to write two copies of the book, after the revelation is finished, and send one to Clement that he may send it to the foreign cities, and one to Grapte that she may instruct the widows and the orphans. Hermas is to read it to the city along with the elders that preside over the Church. The main part of the third Vision is the revelation by the lady of the Church under the image of a tower being built by angels upon the waters of baptism. The stones of various degrees of suitability (some of them castaway), are explained to mean different kinds of members of the Church, among whom are ‘apostles and bishops and teachers and deacons,’ and ‘they that suffered for the name of the Lord.’ The tower is supported by seven women. Faith, Continence, Simplicity, Knowledge, Guilelessness, Reverence, and Love. Hermas is next commissioned to rebuke the self-indulgence of the well-to-do and the ignorance and divisions of the rulers of the Church. He inquires why the lady was aged and weak in the first Vision, more youthful and joyous in the second, and still more so in the third, and learns that these appearances were the reflexion of his own changing spiritual state. The fourth Vision occurs twenty days later, on the Campanian Way. Hermas sees a huge cloud of dust, which resolves itself into the form of a beast like a sea-monster, emitting fiery locusts from its mouth. Its length is about a hundred feet, and its head was as it were of pottery, coloured black, fire and blood-colour, gold and white. This is a type of the impending tribulation, but it does not harm Hermas, for the angel Segri has shut its mouth. The colours represent this world (black), the blood and fire in which it must perish, those that have escaped from the world (gold), and the coming age (while). The fifth episode is called a revelation (Ἀποκάλυψις, not Ὄρασις). The shepherd, the angel of repentance, now appears for the first time, glorious in visage, with sheepskin wallet and staff. He has been sent by the most holy angel to dwell with Hermas for the rest of his life. Hermas at first fails to recognize him as the being to whom he was delivered, but on recognition proceeds to write down the Commandments and the Parables dictated by the Shepherd. (2) Mandates.-The first Commandment is to believe in and to fear the One God, the Creator, the incomprehensible (ἀχώρητος), and to practise continence; the second to avoid slander, whether by hearing or by speaking it, and to be generous of the needy; the third to abstain from falsehood; the fourth to be pure in thought as well as in deed. An adulterous wife is to be divorced, if unrepentant, but her husband may not marry again, for that would be committing adultery. If she repents after divorce her husband sins if he does not receive her again (after baptism only one opportunity of repentance is given, over which the Shepherd has authority). If a husband or a wife die, the other may marry without sin, but to remain single is better. The fifth Commandment enjoins longsuffering, the opposite of ill-temper (ὀξυχολία), that most evil spirit which causes bitterness, wrath, anger, and spite. The next three Mandates expand the provisions of the first-faith, fear, and temperance. Contrasts are drawn between the two ways (and the two angels) of righteousness and wickedness, between the fear of God and the fear of the devil, and between temperance as to what is evil, and indulgence in what is good. The ninth Commandment extols faith in prayer, and condemns doubtful-mindedness, while the tenth exhorts Hermas to be clothed in cheerfulness and to put away sadness. In the eleventh striking descriptions are given of the false prophet, who absents himself from the Christian assembly, and is consulted as a soothsayer by men in corners, and of the true prophet upon whom the Divine afflatus comes in the course of the Church’s worship. The last Commandment is to banish evil desire by the cultivation of desire which is good and holy. (3) Similitudes.-The first Parable is a simple expansion of the theme that the Christian is a sojourner in a foreign city, and should act as a citizen of the city which is his true home. In the second the duty of the rich to give to the poor is illustrated by the figure of an elm and a vine. The former, though Fruitless, supports the fruitful vine. So the intercessions of the poor man prevail on behalf of the wealthy benefactor. In the nest two, a similitude is drawn between trees in winter, when all are leafless, and all seem equally withered, and in summer, when some are sprouting, while others remain withered. The winter represents the conditions of this world, the summer those of the world to come. The fifth Parable presents the story of a vineyard, a master, and a faithful servant, the exposition of which reveals an early belief in the doctrine of works of supererogation, and an Adoptianist conception of the personality of the Son of Cod (see below). In the next, two shepherds are shown, one of pleasant mien sporting with his sheep, the other of sour countenance lashing his flock with a whip and otherwise maltreating them. The former is the angel of self-indulgence and deceit, the latter the angel of punishment. A few days later Hermas is afflicted by this angel of punishment, and in the seventh Parable he is taught that this is because of the sins of his household. The nest two are long and complicated. First Hermas sees a great willow tree (the Law of God, which is the Son of God preached unto the ends of the earth) under which stands a multitude of believers. A glorious angel (Michael) cuts rods from the tree and gives them to the people, who in due course return them in great variety of condition-withered, grub-eaten, cracked, green, some with shoots, and some with a kind of fruit. These last are those who have suffered for Christ. They are crowned and sent into the tower with some of the others. The remainder are left to the care of the Shepherd, who, as the angel of repentance, plants the rods in the earth, and deals with the owners according to the results. The ninth Parable is an amplification of the third Vision. Hermas, seated on a mountain in Arcadia, sees a great plain surrounded by twelve mountains, each of which has a different appearance. These are the tribes of the world, varying in understanding and conduct. In the midst of the plain is a great and ancient rock, with a recently-hewn gate in it. This is the Son of God, older than creation, and yet recently made manifest. Upon the rock a tower (the Church) is being built by angels, of stones that are brought through the gate. The first course is of ten stones, the second of twenty-five, the third of thirty-five, the fourth of forty. These are the first and the second generation of righteous men, the prophets and ministers, and the apostles and teachers. These stones come from the deep, and the rest come from the mountains. Some are suitable and other’s are rejected. The Shepherd, as in the former Parable, deals with the latter, to fit those that are capable for a place in the building. A curious feature is the introduction of the Son of God, already symbolized by the rock and the gate, as the glorious man who inspects the tower and rejects certain of the stones. The purport of the concluding Parable is an exhortation to Hermas to keep the Shepherd’s commandments and to publish them to others. 4. References to organization and doctrine of the Church (a) Organization.-In the first respect, the allusions are too slight to give more than a general picture. We read of the rulers (προηγούμενοι) of the Church, whom Hermas is directed to exhort (Vis. ii. 2) and even to rebuke for their divisions and their ignorance (iii. 9). There are apostles, bishops, teachers, and deacons (iii. 5), also prophets and ministers (διάκονοι; Sim. ix. 15). There are deacons who plunder the livelihood of widows and orphans, and make gain from the performance of their office (ix. 26), and, on the other hand, bishops who exercise hospitality and are like trees sheltering sheep, receiving into their houses the servants of God at all times, and sheltering the needy and the widows in their visitation (ix. 27). Clement, whose duty is to communicate with foreign cities, may, as we have seen, have been the bishop of Rome, while Grapte, who instructs the widows and the orphans, may have been a deaconess (Vis. ii. 4). Hermas, who is told to read his book to the city along with the elders who preside over the Church (μετὰ τῶν πρεσβυτέρων τῶν προϊσταμένων τῆς ἐκκλησίας), may well have been one of the order of prophets. The office of a prophet is held in estimation by the Church. ‘When then the man who hath the divine Spirit cometh into an assembly (συναγωγή) of righteous men, who have faith in a divine Spirit, and intercession is made to God by the gathering of those men, then the angel of the prophetic spirit who is attached to him, filleth the man, and the man, being filled with the Holy Spirit, speaketh to the multitude, according as the Lord willeth’ (Mand. xi.). The false prophet, on the contrary, is dumb in the Church assembly, and plies a wizard’s trade in corners. In view of the Roman character of the Shepherd, it is interesting to note that the tower which represents the Church is represented as founded, not on Peter, but, in the third Vision, upon the waters of baptism, and, in the ninth Parable, upon the rock of the Son of God. (b) Doctrine.-The doctrinal references reveal, at least in the case of Hermas, a creed which is simple and yet has its own peculiarities. Perhaps the most striking of the latter is the conception of the Son of God. In the Parable of the vineyard (the fifth) the Son of God is represented as a slave placed in charge, with a promise of freedom if he fulfils his allotted duty. He does so much more than is expected of him that the Divine master of the vineyard resolves that he shall be made joint-heir with His Son, who is represented as the Holy Spirit. ‘The Holy Pre-existent Spirit, which created the whole creation, God made to dwell in flesh that He desired. This flesh therefore, in which the Holy Spirit dwelt, was subject unto the Spirit … When then it had lived honourably in chastity, and had laboured with the Spirit, and had co-operated with it in everything, behaving itself boldly and bravely, He chose it as a partner with the Holy Spirit’ (Sim. v. 6). This Adoptianist conception, which illustrates early Roman speculation on the Person of Christ, finds frequent expression in phrases identifying the Spirit with the Son of God, e.g. ‘For that Spirit is the Son of God’ (ix. 1). In this same fifth Parable we have an early trace of the doctrine of works of supererogation, which, in mediaeval times, was so prominent in the Church’s system. ‘If thou do any good thing outside the commandment of God, thou shalt win for thyself more exceeding glory, and shalt be more glorious in the sight of God than thou wouldest otherwise have been’ (v. 3). Hermas also teaches that the first apostles and teachers who had died, went like Christ, and preached unto the Spirits in prison (ix. 16). His eschatology is in one respect severe and narrow. Not only are unrepentant sinners to be burned, but also the Gentiles, because of their ignorance of God (iv.). In the fifth Vision there is an apparent reference to the belief in guardian angels. When the Shepherd at first appears, Hermas fails to recognize him, as apparently he should have done.* ^[3] to be the being to whom he was ‘delivered,’ and only when the visitant changes his form does recognition come. It seems curious that while Baptism is plainly mentioned two or three times (Vis. iii, 3, Mand. iv. 3, Sim. ix. 16) the Lord’s Supper does not appear to be alluded to. Fasting is often mentioned, and once we find Hermas keeping a ‘station,’ as the early fast-days were called (Sim. v. 1). In this case he is commanded, not to abstain entirely from food, but to take bread and water. While Hermas shows fewer traces of the influence of St. Paul than of that of St. James, with whose Epistle he shows great familiarity, he need not be definitely classed as a Judaizer. His office is that of a prophet, and his mission is to recall Christians from the danger of too intimate contact with pagan social influence. He speaks of those ‘who have never investigated concerning the truth, nor enquired concerning the deity, but have merely believed, and have been mixed up in business affairs and riches and heathen friendships, and many other affairs of this world’ (Mand. x. 1), as specially without understanding and corrupt. Hence his standard of Christian duty is put in the most practical shape: ‘faith, fear of the Lord, love, concord, words of righteousness, truth, patience, … to minister to widows, to visit the orphans and the needy, to ransom the servants, of God from their afflictions, to be hospitable, … to resist no man, to be tranquil, to show yourself more submissive than all men,’ etc. (viii.). The indwelling of the Spirit of God is a feature of Christian life prominently insisted on, and if intermediate. beings like Faith, Continence, Power, Longsuffering (Sim. ix. 15) seem to shape the Christian character, these are declared to be ‘powers of the Son of God’ (ix. 13), God is the Creator alike of the world and of the Church. ‘Behold, the God of Hosts, who by His invisible and mighty power and by His great wisdom created the world, and by His glorious purpose clothed His creation with comeliness, and by His strong word fixed the heaven, and founded the earth upon the waters, and by His own wisdom and providence formed His holy Church, which also He blessed’ (Vis. ii. 3). Hermas, who was evidently acquainted with the contents of the Didache, does not directly cite Scripture by name, but he continually uses Scriptural words and ideas, handling them with a light touch, and working them into new combinations. C. Taylor (The Witness of Hermas to the Four Gospels) has investigated these allusions minutely, and considers Hermas to be a valuable witness to the Canon, especially in the case of the four Gospels. He finds in the four feet of the couch in the third Vision (13), with the associated cryptic utterance ‘for the world too is upheld by means of four elements,’ the source of the famous saying of Irenaeus that there can be neither more nor fewer than four Gospels, because there are four regions of the world, and four catholic winds, etc. (see p. 13ff.). There is a citation of the lost work Eland and Medad (Vis. ii. 3), and Segri, the name of the angel who shuts the monster’s month in Vis. iv. 2, is a word derived from the Hebrew verb in Daniel 6:22 ‘shut the lions’ months’ (The Johns Hopkins University Circular, April, 1884, iii. 75). 5. Text and Versions.-There is no complete Greek text of the Shepherd. About the first quarter of it is contained in the 4th cent. Sinaitic manuscript (א), while the Athos manuscript (A) written in the 14th cent. is the authority for the rest of the work, except the concluding portion, from Sim. ix. 30 to the end, which has to be supplied from the Latin versions. These are two in number, the so-called Old Latin Version (L) found in about twenty Manuscripts , and the Palatine Version (L2) existing in one manuscript of the 14th century. There is also an Ethiopic Version (E) published in 1860 with a Latin translation (see J. B. Lightfoot, Apostolic Fathers, p. 295). Literature.-J. B. Lightfoot, The Apostolic Fathers, I vol., London, 1891; O. von Gebhardt and A. Harnack, Patrum Apost. Opera, Fasc. iii., Leipzig, 1877; F. X. Funk, Patres Apostolici, Tübingen, 1901; C. Taylor, The Shepherd of Hermas (Translation, Introduction, and Notes), London, 1903-1906; T. Zahn, Der Hirt des Hermas, Gotha, 1868; A. Hilgenfeld, Hermœ Pastor, Leipzig, 1887; C. Taylor, The Witness of Hermas to the Four Gospels, London, 1892; ^[4], Barnabas and Hermas, Oxford, 1685; G. Salmon, Historical Introduction to NT5, London, 1891. A. Mitchell.    

I should not have paused at this word, being in itself so very well understood, but only to remark the very great blessedness and tenderness of it as assumed by the Lord Jesus Christ. He saith himself, "I am the good Shepherd; the good Shepherd giveth his life for the sheep." (John 10:11) And God the Father also sweetly holds forth the Lord Jesus, in his mediatorial character, under this endearing point of view, as the Shepherd of his church and people. It would form the subject of a volume, rather than an article in a Concordance, to enter upon the character and office of a Shepherd as peculiarly suited and carried on by Christ; I cannot therefore propose such an undertaking. But while I refer to the Scriptural account of our Lord Jesus under this character, and which is more or less scattered over the whole Bible, I cannot content myself, without just observing how very blessed it must be for all the sheep of Christ and the lambs of his fold to know Jesus, and to make use of Jesus as God the Father evidently intended he should be used, as their Shepherd. As Jesus is the Shepherd, so they are the flock; the one character implies the other; and the church made up of sheep and lambs are his property. He received them as the gift of his Father, and he hath purchased them with his blood; so that every tye of nature, interest, property, and grace, endears them to Christ. And hence he saith himself, "I give unto my sheep eternal life, and they shall never perish, neither shall any pluck them out, of my hand. My Father which gave.them me is greater than all, and none is able to pluck them out of my Fathers hand. I and my Father are one." (John 10:28-30) I must not enlarge on this point, how sweet soever and interesting it is; but I do beg the reader who is conscious of being one of Christ's fold, and especially, the lambs of that fold, never to lose sight of Jesus under this pastoral office. Jesus knows all sheep, he calleth them all by name, his eye is always upon them, and his heart full of love towards them; he knows how helpless, poor, and prone to wandering they are; and he hath a suited grace for every one and for all. He saith himself that he will search and seek them out in every place whither they are scattered in the cloudy and dark day. His love, and not their deserts, is the cause of his care over them. He will feed them, protect them, help them, heal them, refresh them, restore them, and carry them through, the whole of this wilderness state, until he brings them all home to his fold in heaven. And all this and ten thousand things more, because he is their Shepherd, because he is, and ever must be, Jesus. "Hail, O thou almighty Shepherd of Israel, thou that leadest Joseph like a flock, thou that dwellest between the cherubim, shine forth!" (Psalms 80:1, etc. See Pastor.)

A person's wealth in the East frequently consisted of flocks, the shepherd therefore held an important and honourable position. David was a keeper of sheep. Joseph instructed his brethren to tell Pharaoh that they were shepherds, and they asked permission to dwell in Goshen, for every shepherd was an abomination to the Egyptians. This is supposed to have been caused by some 'shepherd-kings' having usurped authority over Egypt. The difficulties and hardships of a shepherd's life in the East may be gathered from what Jacob passed through during the time he was with Laban. Genesis 31:39,40 . The sheep following the shepherd is a sight often witnessed in the East, and that each sheep has a name and knows the shepherd's voice, has been tested and proved again and again. All this is beautifully typical of the relation of Jehovah to Israel and of Christ to the church. The sheep of Christ know the good Shepherd's voice, and find salvation, liberty, and pasture in following the One who leads. The good Shepherd gives them eternal life, having given His life for the sheep. Christ is called the great Shepherd, for the work which He accomplished could have been done only by One who was Himself God, though become man to work out redemption. In the church there are those who by reason of gift are called pastors, to feed and shepherd the sheep; but Christ is the chief Shepherd, who is over all, whose own the sheep are, and who has given His word that they shall never perish. Psalm 23 ; Zechariah 13:7 ; John 10:2-16 ; Hebrews 13:20 ; 1 Peter 5:4 ; etc.

Hermas (2). In the latter half of the 2nd cent. there was in circulation a book of visions and allegories purporting to be written by one Hermas and commonly known as The Shepherd. This book was treated with respect bordering on that paid to the canonical Scriptures of N.T. and was publicly read in some churches. A passage from it is quoted by Irenaeus (iv. 20 p. 253) with the words "Well said the Scripture," a fact which Eusebius notes (H. E. v. 8). Probably n the time of Irenaeus the work was publicly read in the Gallican churches. The mutilated commencement of the Stromateis of Clement of Alexandria opens in the middle of a quotation from The Shepherd and about ten times elsewhere he cites the book always with a complete acceptance of the reality and divine character of the revelations made to Hermas but without suggesting who Hermas was or when he lived. Origen who frequently cites the book (in Rom. xvi. 14 vol. iv. p. 683) considered it divinely inspired. He suggests as do others after him but apparently on no earlier authority that it was written by the Hermas mentioned in Rom_16:14. His other quotations shew that less favourable views of the book were current in his time. They are carefully separated from quotations from the canonical books and he generally adds a saving clause giving the reader permission to reject them; he speaks of it (in Matt. xix. 7 vol. iii. p. 644) as a book current in the church but not acknowledged by all and (de Princ. iv. 11) as despised by some. Eusebius (iii. 25) places the book among the orthodox νόθα with the Acts of Paul Revelation of Peter Epistle of Barnabas etc. Elsewhere (iii. 3) while unable to place it among the ὁμολογουμένα because rejected by some he records its public use in churches and by some most eminent writers and that it was judged by some most necessary for elementary instruction in the faith. Athanasius (Ep. Fest. 39 vol. i. pt. ii. p. 963) classes it with some of the deutero-canonical books of O.T. and with The Teaching of the Apostles as not canonical but useful for catechetical instruction. It is found in the Sinaitic MS. following the Ep. of Barnabas as an appendix to the N.T. After the 4th cent. it rapidly passed out of ecclesiastical use in the East. The Western tradition deserves more attention, as internal evidence shews the book to have been composed at Rome. The MURATORIAN FRAGMENT on the Canon tells us that it had been written during the episcopate of Pius by his brother Hernias, a period which the writer speaks of as within then living memory. He concludes that the book ought to be read but not publicly in the church among the prophetic writings, the number of which was complete, nor among the apostolic. The statement that the book not only might but ought to be read is a high recognition of the value attributed to it by the writer, and we gather that at least in some places its use in church was then such as to lead some to regard it as on a level with the canonical Scriptures. Tertullian, in one of his earliest treatises, de Oratione, has a reference to its influence on the practice of churches which shews it to have enjoyed high authority at the time, an authority which Tertullian's argument does not dispute. It had probably been used in church reading and translated into Latin, since Tertullian describes it by the Latin title Pastor, and not by a Greek title, as he usually does in the case of Greek writings. Some ten years later, after Tertullian had become a Montanist, and the authority of The Shepherd is urged in behalf of readmitting adulterers to communion, he rejects the book as not counted worthy of inclusion in the canon, but placed by every council, even those of the Catholic party, among false and apocryphal writings ( de Pudic. c. 10). Quoting Hebrews, he says that this is at least more received than that apocryphal Shepherd of the adulterers (c. 20). The phrase "more received" warns us to take cum grano Tertullian's assertion as to the universal rejection of The Shepherd; but doubtless the distinction between apostolic and later writings was then drawn more sharply, and in the interval between Tertullian's two writings The Shepherd may have been excluded from public reading in many churches which before had admitted it. The Liberian papal catalogue (probably here, as elsewhere, following the catalogue of Hippolytus) states that under the episcopate of Pius his brother Ermas wrote a book in which the commands and precepts were contained which the angel gave him when he came to him in the habit of a shepherd. Yet, while refusing to assign the book to apostolic times, it makes no doubt of the reality of the angelic appearance to Hermas. Later biographical notices of popes state that the message given to Hermas was that Easter should always be celebrated on a Sunday. These clearly shew that by then all knowledge of the book had been lost; and further notices shew a confusion between the name of Hermas and that of his book, which imply that the book was no longer in use. Jerome, when quoting Eusebius about the book ( de Vir. Ill. 10, vol. ii. 845), adds that among the Latins it was almost unknown. He speaks contemptuously of it ( in Habac. i. 14, vol. vi. 604), for it seems certain that the book of Hermas is here referred to. It is marked in the Gelasian decree as apocryphal. Notwithstanding, there;are indications that some use of the book continued in the West, e.g. the fact being that there still exist some 20 MSS. of the Latin version. In the African church of the 4th cent. we find f rom the list in the Codex Claromontanus (Westcott, Canon N. T. p. 557) that it was placed with the Acts of Paul and the Revelation of St. Peter as an appendix to the N.T. books; and it occupies a similar place in the Sinaitic MS., the only Greek Bible known to have contained it. But in some existing Latin MSS. it is placed with the apocryphal books of O.T. The book is in three parts. The first part consists of visions. Hermas tells that he who had brought him up had sold him to Rome to a lady named Rhoda; that after a considerable time he renewed his acquaintance with her and began to love her as a sister; that he saw her one day bathing in the Tiber and assisted her out of the water ; that admiring her beauty he thought how happy he should be if he had a wife like her in person and disposition. Further than this his thought did not go. But a little time after he had a vision. He fell asleep, and in his dream was walking and struggling on ground so rugged and broken that it was impossible to pass. At length he succeeded in crossing the water by which his path had been washed away, and coming into smooth ground knelt to confess his sins to God. Then the heavens were opened and he saw Rhoda saluting him from the sky. On his asking her what she did there, she told him that she had been taken up to accuse him, because God was angry with him for having sinned in thought against her. Then Hermas was overwhelmed with horror and fear, not knowing how he could abide the severity of God's judgment, if such a thought as his was marked as sin. Rhoda now passes out of his dream and he sees a venerable aged lady clad in shining garments sitting on a great white chair and holding a book in her hand. She asks why he, usually so cheerful, is now so sad. On telling her, she owns what a sin any impure thought would be in one so chaste, so singleminded and so innocent as he; but tells him that this is not why God is displeased with him, but because of the sins of his children, whom he, through false indulgence, had allowed to corrupt themselves, but to whom repentance was open if he would warn them. Then she reads to him out of her book, but of all she reads he can remember nothing save the last comforting sentence, and that all which preceded was terrible and threatening. She parted from him with the words, "Play the man, Hermas." Hermas was an elderly man with a grown-up family, and Rhoda must have been at least as old as himself. If the tale is an invented one, this is certainly an incongruity; but if it be a true story, it is quite conceivable that the thought may have occurred to Hermas, who seems to have been not happy in his family relations, how much happier it would have been for him if Rhoda had been his wife; and that afterwards, in a dream, this thought may have recurred to his memory as a sin to be repented of. The vision presents all the characteristics of a real dream; the want of logical connexion between the parts, the changes of scene, the fading out of Rhoda as principal figure and the appearance of the aged lady in her room; the substitution of quite a different offence for the sinful thought which weighed on his conscience at the beginning; the physical distress in his sleep at first presenting the idea of walking on and on without being able to find an outlet, afterwards of mental grief at words spoken to him; the long reading of which only the words spoken immediately before awaking are remembered,—all these indicate that we are reading not a literary invention like the dream of the Pilgrim's Progress, but the recital, a little dressed up it may be, of a dream which the narrator really had. In another vision, a year after, he saw again the lady and her book, and received the book to copy, but still it conveyed no idea to his mind. He then set himself by fasting and prayer to learn its meaning, and after about a fortnight was gratified. He learns, too, that the lady is not, as he had imagined, the sibyl, but the church, and that she appeared as old because she was created first of all, and for her sake the world was made. Ephesians, which probably suggested this doctrine of the pre-existence of the church, is one of the N.T. books of whose use by Hermas there are clear traces. In subsequent visions we have a different account of the matter; he sees in each a woman more and more youthful in appearance, whom he is taught to identify with the church of his former vision; and it is explained that he saw her old at first because the spirit of Christians had been broken by infirmity and doubt, and afterwards more youthful as by the revelations made him their spirit had been renewed. After his first two visions Hermas watched eagerly for new revelations, and set himself to obtain them by fasting and prayer. In those later visions, while the pictures presented to his mind are such as we can well believe to have been dream representations, the explanations given of them have a coherence only to be found in the thoughts of a waking man. This is still more true of the second and third parts of the work. At the end of the first part he has the vision in which he sees a man dressed like a shepherd, who tells him that he is the angel of repentance and the guardian to whose care he had been entrusted. >From this shepherd he receives, for his instruction and that of the church, the "Commandments," which form the second, and the "Similitudes," which form the third part of the work. The Similitudes were probably suggested by N.T. parables, though the frigid compositions of Hermas fall infinitely below these. The literary merits of the work of Herman are of little importance compared with the fundamental question as to the date of the book and whether it claims to be an inspired document, the writer of which aspires to no literary merit, save that of faithfully recording the revelations made him. Are we to suppose that Hernias in relating his visions intended no more than to present edifying lessons in an allegorical form, and that it was merely as an instructive fiction that the book was regarded when it was introduced into public reading in the church? Donaldson says: "If the book be not inspired, then either the writer fancied he had seen these visions, or tried to make other people fancy this, or he clothed the work in a fictitious form designedly and undisguisedly. If he did the first, he must have been silly. If he did the second he must have been an impostor." But as he believes the author to have been "an honest upright, and thoughtful man," he concludes that he did the third, "as multitudes of others have done after him, with John Bunyan at their head." If we took this view we could lay no stress on anything the author tells us about himself and his family. These details might be fictitious, as the angels, the towers, and the beasts of the visions. We could not even assume that his name was Hermas for the narrator of the visions, who bears this name, might be an imaginary personage But we ourselves feel bound to reject this as altogether mistaken criticism, and as an application to the 2nd cent. of the standards of to-day. To us it seems plain that, whatever the author intended, the first readers of Hermas did not receive the book as mere allegorical fiction. Bunsen (Hippolytus and his Age, i. 315) tells us that Niebuhr used to pity the Athenian ( sic, Qu. Roman? ) Christians for being obliged to listen to this "good but dull novel." If the authorities of the church regarded it merely as a novel, would they have appointed it for public reading? At the end of the century Clement and others shew no doubt of the reality of the visions Were the men of a couple of generations earlier likely to have been more severe in their judgments, and would an angelic appearance seem to them so incredible that one who related it would be regarded as the narrator of a fiction that he did not intend to be believed? The book itself contains directions to the rulers of the Roman church to send the volume to foreign churches. If we suppose it really was sent to them stamped as a prophetic writing by the authority of the Roman church, we have an explanation of the consideration, only second to that of the canonical Scriptures, which it enjoyed in so many distant churches. A man at the present day might publish a story of visions, and be persuaded that his readers would not take him seriously, but no one in the 2nd cent. would be entitled to hold such a persuasion, and if the book of Hermas was accepted as inspired, the writer cannot be acquitted of the responsibility of having foreseen and intended this result. Mosheim, de Rebus Christ. ante Const. 163, 166, holds that the writer must either have been "mente captus et fanaticus," or else "scientem volentemque fefellisse," the latter being the opinion to which he inclines, believing that the lawfulness of pious frauds was a fixed opinion with many Christians at the date of the composition we are discussing We maintain, however, that it is possible to disbelieve in the inspiration of Hermas without imputing folly either to him who made the claim or to those who admitted it We must not regard the men of the 2nd cent. as fools because their views as to God's manner of teaching His church were different from those which the experience of so many following centuries has taught us. A Christian cannot regard them as fools for believing that in the time of our Lord and His apostles a great manifestation of the supernatural was made to the world. How long and to what extent similar manifestations would present themselves in. the ordinary life of the church only experience could skew, and they are not to be scorned if their expectations have not been borne out by later experience. In particular, if we are to set down as fools all who have believed that supernatural intimations may be given in dreams, our list would be a long one, and would include many eminent names; and though modern science may regard visions as phenomena admitting a natural explanation, it is not reasonable to expect such a view from the science of the 2nd cent. What Hermas tells of his personal history and of the times and circumstances of his visions conveys to us the impression of artless truth. His information about himself is contained in incidental allusions, not very easy to piece together; and the author of a fictitious narrative would not have conveyed so obscurely what he tells about his hero. He would probably also have made him a man of some eminence, holding high church office, whereas Hermas always speaks of the presbyters as if he were not one of them, and could have no motive for making his hero one engaged in trade unsuccessfully and not very honestly, and an elderly man with a termagant wife and ill brought-up children. On the other hand, if the book be true history, it is very much to the point that Hermas should get a revelation, directing his wife to keep her tongue in better order, and his children to pay more respect to their parents; nor need we suppose Hermas guilty of dishonesty in thus turning his gift of prophecy to the advantage of his family comfort; for nothing can be more natural than that the thoughts which troubled his waking moments should present themselves in his visions. There is nothing incredible in the supposition that the pictures of the first vision did present themselves to the mind of Hernias as he relates them. They must have been very vivid, and have impressed him strongly. Still, it is a year before he has another vision. After this he begins to fast and pray and look out eagerly for more revelations. Finally he comes to believe himself to be under the constant guardianship of the shepherd angel of repentance, and he ascribes all the lessons he desires to teach to the inspiration of this heavenly monitor. But perhaps his language expresses no more than his belief in the divine inspiration under which he wrote, for elsewhere he states that he does not regard the personages of his visions as having objective reality, and those things which in the earlier part are represented as spoken to him by the church are afterwards said to have been spoken by God's Spirit under the form of the church. That be sincerely believed himself to be the bearer of a divine message appears to be the case. A summary of his convictions would serve also for those of a man in many respects very unlike, Savonarola ( a ) that the church of his time had corrupted itself, and had become deeply tainted with worldliness; (b ) that a time of great tribulation was at hand, in which the dross should be purged away; (c ) that there was still an intervening time, during which repentance was possible and would be accepted; (d ) that he was himself divinely commissioned to preach that repentance. Date and Authorship.—Antiquity furnishes authority for three suppositions: (a) the author was the Hermas to whom a salutation is sent in Rom_16:14; or (b) brother to Pius bp. of Rome at the middle of the 2nd cent.; or (c) contemporary with Clement who was bishop at the very beginning of that century or the end of the preceding. The first may be set aside as a highly improbable guess of Origen. The author shews no wish to be taken for the apostolic Hermas but distinctly speaks of the apostles as all dead. A forger could have found many more suitable names than Hermas one of the least prominent in N.T. and of which except in connexion with this book there is no trace in ecclesiastical tradition. If our view of the book be correct the author had no motive for antedating it. His prophecy announced tribulation close at hand and only a short intervening period for repentance. To represent such a prophecy as being already 50 or 100 years old would be to represent it as having failed and in fact The Shepherd did lose credit when it had been so long in existence. Hermas seems to have thought that if the worldliness of the church could be repented of and reformed it would be possible to keep it pure during the brief remainder of its existence. He announced therefore forgiveness on repentance for sins of old Christians prior to the date of his revelation but none for those of new converts or for sins subsequent to his revelation. To date his revelation 50 years back would have defeated his own purpose and made his message inapplicable to those whom he addressed. Again the acceptance of the book by the church of Rome is inexplicable if it were introduced by no known person containing as it does revelations purporting to have been given among themselves and to a leading member of their church. If the first readers of the work of Elchesai or of the Clementine homilies asked Why did we never hear of these things before? these books had provided an answer in the fiction that the alleged authors had only communicated them under a pledge of strict secrecy; in this book on the contrary Hermas is directed (Vis. iii. 8) to go after three days and speak in the hearing of all the saints the words he had heard in his vision. Elsewhere he enables us to understand how this direction could be carried out. We learn (Mand. 11) that certain persons were then recognized in the church as having prophetic gifts and that at the Christian meetings for worship if after prayer ended one of them were filled with the Holy Spirit he might speak unto the people as the Lord willed. The simplest explanation how the Roman Church came to believe in its inspiration seems then to be that it had previously admitted the inspiration of its author that he held the position of a recognized prophet as in the East did Quadratus and Ammia of Philadelphia (Eus. H. E. v. 16) and that he really did publicly deliver his message in the church assembly. As the 2nd cent. went on the public exercise of prophetic powers in the church seems to have ceased and when revived by Montanus and his followers had to encounter much opposition. The ensuing controversy led the church to insist more strongly on the distinction between the inspiration of the canonical writers and that of holy men of later times and the Muratorian fragment exhibits the feeling entertained towards the end of the cent. that the list of prophetic writings had been closed and that no production of the later years of the church could be admitted. But if, as we think, the Hermas of The Shepherd is not a fictitious character, but a real person known in the church of Rome in the 2nd cent., we incline to follow Zahn in relying more on his connexion with Clement than with Pius. Zahn places The Shepherd c. 97; but if we assign that date to the epistle of Clement we ought to allow a few years for that letter to have obtained the celebrity and success which the notice in Hermas implies. That notice need not necessarily have been published in the lifetime of Clement, for Hermas is not instructed to deliver his message immediately, but only after the completion of his revelations, and this may have been after Clement's death. Are, then, any indications of date in the book inconsistent with such an early date? There is much affinity between the leading ideas of Montanism and of the book of Hermas, especially as to the fall of many in the church from the ideal of holiness. The question was asked, Was it possible to renew such again to repentance? In both our Lord's second coming was eagerly looked forward to, and a knowledge of God's coming dealings with His church sought for from visions and revelations. But the teaching of Hermas is less rigorous than the Montanistic, and all that is special to Montanism is unknown to him. Hermas directs his efforts almost exclusively to combating the relaxation of morality in the church; he scarcely notices doctrinal errors, and no reference to Gnostic doctrines can be found in his book, unless it be a statement (Sim. v. 7) that there were some who took licence to misuse the flesh on account of a denial of the resurrection of the body. But these false teachers seem to have been all in the church, not separate from it. In the passage which seems most distinctly to refer to Gnostics ( ib. ix. 22), they are described as "wishing to know everything and knowing nothing," as "praising themselves that they have understanding, and wishing to be teachers, though they were really fools." Yet, he adds, "to these repentance is open, for they were not wicked, but rather silly and without understanding." The seeds of Gnosticism had begun to spring up even in apostolic times; but we cannot think that Hermas would have written thus after Gnosticism had become dangerous to the Roman church. Hermas rebukes the strifes for precedence among Christians (Vis. iii. 9; Mand. ix.; Sim. viii. 7), and it is difficult to find in his book evidence of the existence of the episcopal form of government or of resistance to its introduction. He appears to use ἐπίσκοπος as synonymous with πρεσβύτερος and always speaks of the government of the church as in the hands of the elders, without hinting that one elder enjoyed authority over others. Clement, indeed, is recognized as the organ by which the church of Rome communicated with foreign churches; but we are not told that implied a pre-eminence in domestic rule. Similarly, though we infer that the presbyters had seats of honour in the church assemblies, we are not told that one had a seat higher than the rest. Either it was not the case or it was too much a matter of course to be mentioned. But a message regarding dissensions is sent τοῖς προηγουμένοις τῆς ἐκκλησίας καὶ τοῖς πρωτοκαθεδρίταις . It is a very forced explanation of the last plural noun to suppose it means some one of the προηγούμενοι who desired to make himself the first, nor have we reason to think that the word implies any sarcasm. It is more natural to understand that besides the presbyters there were others, such as the teachers and prophets ( Mand. xi.), who in church assemblies were given seats of honour. The church had at the time of this writing enjoyed a good deal of quiet, but this had evidently been broken by many harassing persecutions, in which some had apostatized. Usually their danger is described as no more than of loss of goods and of injury to worldly business; but there had been (though perhaps not recently) martyrs who had given their lives and endured crosses and wild beasts for the Name of the Son of God. They could have saved themselves by denial or by committing idolatry. Thus they suffered as Christians, and it has been inferred that the date must be later than the well-known letter of Trajan to Pliny which first made the profession of Christianity unlawful. Yet it seems possible to assign an earlier date to The Shepherd, and to I. Peter which is affected by the same argument, when we remember that Trajan only gave imperial sanction to the rule on which Pliny had been acting already, and on which others had probably been acting previously; or Pliny implies that trials of Christians were then well known. And it may be argued that after the edict of Trajan obstinate profession of Christianity was liable to be punished with death, whereas in the time of Hermas it seems to have been punished only by fine or imprisonment. Hermas lost his business in the persecution, having been betrayed, it seems, by his children. At the time of the visions he was apparently farming. Zahn, who places the persecution under Domitian, ingeniously conjectures (p. 133) that Hermas was one of those to whom, as Dion Cassius tells (68, 2), Nerva made restitution by giving land instead of the goods of which they had been despoiled by Domitian. It is disappointing to have to add that an ordinary Christian of to-day would find in the book neither much interest nor edification, and that the historical student finds in it much less help than he might expect. Hermas is absorbed in trying to bring about a practical reform; he shews much less interest in doctrine, in which possibly as a layman he was perhaps not accurately instructed; he never quotes either O. or N. T., nor is his language much influenced by Scripture phraseology, and some would describe him as having preached not the Gospel, but merely a dry morality. The inference was natural, if Pauline Christianity is so much in the background in Hermas, that he must have been an anti-Pauline Jewish Christian; and this may seem confirmed by the fact that the N.T. book which has most stamped itself on his mind is the Ep. of St. James. Yet a closer examination finds no real trace of Judaism in him. It is scarcely credible that one brought up a Jew should seem so unfamiliar with O.T. The Jewish nation and its privileges are not even mentioned, nor the distinction between Jew and Gentile. Michael is not the guardian angel of the nation, but of the Christian church. The only express quotation is from the lost apocryphal book of Eldad and Modad. His use of either O. or N. T, not being indicated by formal quotation, but only by coincidences of language or thought, there is room for difference of opinion as to his use of particular books. The proofs of the use of the Epp. of James and of Ephesians seem decisive, and only a little less strong in the case of I. Peter and I. Cor. Of his use of the Gospel and Revelation of St. John we are persuaded, though we admit that the evidence is not conclusive. We believe also that the knowledge of sayings of our Lord which Hermas unmistakably exhibits was obtained from our Synoptic Gospels, the coincidences with St. Mark (see Zahn, p. 457) being most striking. Where Hermas had lived before he was sold to Rome we can only conjecture. According to a reading which there seems no good ground to question, he supposes himself in one of his visions to have been transported to Arcadia, and Mahaffy says (Rambles in Greece, p. 330, 2nd ed.) that the scenery he describes suits that in Arcadia, and does not suit the neighbourhood of Rome. Zahn conjectures that Hermas was born in Egypt because the architecture of the tower of Hermas's visions resembles the description in Josephus of the Jewish temple in the Egyptian Heliopolis. The Shepherd has been edited by Hilgenfeld ( Nov. Test. ext. Can. Rec. 1866) and Gebhardt and Harnack ( Patres Apostolici, 1877). The latter ed. is indispensable, and contains a full list of editions, and of works treating of Hermas. Some interesting discussion is to be found in the reviews of Gebhardt's ed. by Overbeck (Schurer, Theol. Literaturzeitung, 1878), Donaldson in Theological Review (1878), and Zahn, Göttingen gelehrte Anzeigen (1878). Zahn, Der Hirt des Hermas (1868), is the work from which we have learned most. Another ed. is by Funk ( Pat. Apost. Tübingen, 1878). A Collation of the Athos Codex of the Shepherd with intro. by Dr. Lambros, trans. and ed. with preface and appendices by Dr. J. A. Robinson, has been pub. by Camb. Univ. Press; a cheap Eng. trans. of The Shepherd by Dr. C. Taylor (2 vols.) by S. P.C. K.; and in Ante-Nic. Fathers, vol. ii. See also F. Spitta, Zur Gesch. und Lit. der Urchristenthums, vol. ii. (Göttingen, 1898), and Funk, in Theol. Quartalschr. lxxii. and lxxxv. ^[1]

Name of a treatise highly esteemed in early times and once ranking next to the Holy Scriptures. It is an ethical rather than a theological work, preaching repentance, and consisting of five visions, twelve mandates, and two parables; particularly valuable as a contemporary record of 2century Christianity in Rome. The authorship has been attributed to Hermas, mentioned by Saint Paul in his letter to the Romans 14; but with more likelihood, to a brother of Pope Saint Pius I.

Isaiah 44:28 (a) It is used to represent King Cyrus as he took a leading place in the rebuilding of the temple, and restoring Israel to their land. Ezekiel 34:23 (a) This represents King David as he would guide the affairs and the destinies of Israel. Probably it also is prophetic of CHRIST when He returns to reign. John 10:14 (a) This is a type of the Lord JESUS. He cares for, protects and leads His people.

(See SHEEP.) The nomadic state is one of the earliest stages of society, and was regarded as honourable even to a chief (Genesis 4:2; Genesis 4:20; Genesis 30:29 ff; Genesis 37); chiefs' daughters did not disdain to tend flocks (Genesis 29:6, etc.; Exodus 2:19). The long stay in Egypt elevated Israel from the nomadic to a settled life. The two and a half nomadic tribes received their portion in the outlying regions beyond Jordan (Numbers 32). As agriculture increased pasturage decreased, and was limited to particular spots, the border of the wilderness of Judah, Carmel (1 Samuel 25:2), Bethlehem (1 Samuel 16:11; Luke 2:8), Tekoa (Amos 1:1), and Gedor (1 Chronicles 4:39). Hence the "shepherd's tent" came to symbolize desolation (Ezekiel 25:4; Zephaniah 2:6). The shepherd's occupation was now no longer dignified (Psalms 78:70; 2 Samuel 7:8; Amos 7:14). The shepherd's office represents Jehovah's tender care of His people (Psalm 23; Isaiah 40:11; Isaiah 49:9-10; Jeremiah 23:3-4; Ezekiel 34:11-12; Ezekiel 34:23). Allusions occur to the exposure to heat and cold (Genesis 31:40), the precarious food (Amos 7:14), the husks of the carob (Luke 15:16), the attacks of beasts (1 Samuel 17:34; Isaiah 31:4; Amos 3:12), robbers (Genesis 31:39). The shepherd had a mantle of sheepskin with the fleece on (Jeremiah 43:12), a wallet for food (1 Samuel 17:40), a sling such as the Bedouin still carries, a staff to ward off foes and to guide the flock with its crook (Psalms 23:4; Zechariah 11:7; so Jehovah "lifts up His staff against" His people's foes, Isaiah 10:1-24; His word is at once our prop of support and our defense against Satan). The shepherd, when far from home, had his light tent (Song of Solomon 1:8), easily taken down and shifted (Isaiah 38:12). Towers were sometimes erected to spy a foe afar off, and to guard the flock (2 Chronicles 26:10; 2 Chronicles 27:4, compare "tower of Edar," Genesis 35:21; Micah 4:8). (See EDAR.) His duty was to go before and call by name the sheep (John 10:4), watch it with dogs, a sorry animal in the East (Job 30:1), to search for stray sheep (Ezekiel 34:12; Luke 15:4), to supply water, either at a stream or at troughs by wells (Genesis 29:7; Genesis 30:38; Exodus 2:16), (so Jesus, Psalms 23:2), to bring back to the fold at evening and to reckon the sheep that none be missing (compare as to Jesus John 18:9; John 17:11-12; John 10:28-29), passing one by one "under the rod" (Leviticus 27:32; Jeremiah 33:13; Ezekiel 20:37), (i.e. you shall be counted as Mine, and subjected to My chastening discipline with a view to My ultimate saving of the elect, Micah 7:14), checking each sheep as it passed; to act as porter, guarding the entrance to the fold by night (John 10:3). The shepherds kept watches (plural in Greek, Luke 2:8, not "slumbering," Nahum 3:18) by turns at night, not on duty both night and day as Jacob (Genesis 31:40). Tenderness to the young and feeble was the shepherd's duty, not to overdrive them (Genesis 33:13); so Jesus (Isaiah 40:11-29; Mark 6:31; Mark 8:2; Mark 4:33; John 16:12). There were chief and under shepherds (Genesis 47:6; 1 Peter 5:4), and hirelings not of the family (John 10:11-13; 1 Samuel 21:7). The shepherd had responsibility, and at the same time personal interest in the flock (1 Samuel 31:39; 1 Samuel 30:32; 1 Corinthians 9:7). Playing on the pipe beguiled the monotony, and a feast at shearing time gave a yearly variety (1 Samuel 16:17; Genesis 31:19; Genesis 38:12; 2 Samuel 13:23). Shepherds often contended with one another as to water (Genesis 26:17-22; Exodus 2:17). The Egyptian antipathy to shepherds (whom the monuments always represent as mean) was due to their being themselves agriculturists, whereas the neighbouring Arabs with whom they so often strove were nomads. The seizure of Lower Egypt by shepherd kings (Hyksos) for centuries aggravated this dislike, though the Hyksos were subsequent to Joseph (Genesis 46:34). Princes, and even hostile leaders, are called shepherds: Isaiah 44:28; Jeremiah 2:8; Jeremiah 3:15; Jeremiah 6:3; Ezekiel 34:2; Micah 5:5. Teachers: Ecclesiastes 12:11. Messiah: Genesis 49:24; Psalms 80:1; Zechariah 13:7; John 10:14; Hebrews 13:20.

(1): (n.) A man employed in tending, feeding, and guarding sheep, esp. a flock grazing at large. (2): (n.) The pastor of a church; one with the religious guidance of others. (3): (v. t.) To tend as a shepherd; to guard, herd, lead, or drive, as a shepherd.

A. Verb. Râ‛âh (רָעָה, Strong's #7462), “to pasture, shepherd.” This common Semitic root appears in Akkadian, Phoenician, Ugaritic, Aramaic, and Arabic. It is attested in all periods of Hebrew and about 170 times in the Bible. (The word should be distinguished from the verb “to have dealings with or associate with.”) Râ‛âh represents what a shepherd allows domestic animals to do when they feed on grasses in the fields. In its first appearance Jacob tells the shepherds: “Lo, it is yet high day, neither is it time that the cattle should be gathered together: water ye the sheep, and go and feed them” (Gen. 29:7). Râ‛âh can also represent the entire job of a shepherd. So “Joseph, being seventeen years old, was feeding the flock with his brethren; and ^[1]” (Gen. 37:2). Used metaphorically this verb represents a leader’s or a ruler’s relationship to his people. At Hebron the people said to David: “Also in time past, when Saul was king over us, thou wast he that leddest out and broughtest in Israel: and the Lord said to thee, Thou shalt feed my people Israel, and thou shalt be a captain over Israel” (2 Sam. 5:2). The verb is used figuratively in the sense “to provide with nourishment” or “to enliven”: “The lips of the righteous feed many: but fools die for want of wisdom” (Prov. 10:21). Râ‛âh is used intransitively describing what cattle do when they feed on the grass of the field. So Pharaoh dreamed that “there came up out of the river seven well-favored kine and fatfleshed; and they fed in a meadow” (Gen. 41:2). This usage is applied metaphorically to men in Isa. 14:30: “And ^[2] shall feed, and the needy shall lie down in safety.…” This word is used to describe destruction: “Also the children of Noph and Tahapanes have broken ^[3] the crown of thy head” (Jer. 2:16). B. Nouns. Ro’eh (רָעָה, Strong's #7462), “shepherd.” This noun occurs about 62 times in the Old Testament. It is applied to God, the Great Shepherd, who pastures or feeds His sheep (Ps. 23:1-4; cf. John 10:11). This concept of God, the Great Shepherd, is very old, having first appeared in the Bible on Jacob’s lips in Gen. 49:24: “… From thence is the shepherd, the stone of Israel.” When applied to human kings, ro’eh recalls its usage among non-Israelites. There it depicts the king as the head of the cultus (official public worship) and the mediator between the god(s) and men. It also suggests that he is the center of national unity, the supreme protector and leader of the nation, the bestower of every earthly blessing, and the dispenser of justice. Interestingly, no biblical king claimed the title ro’eh for himself (cf. 2 Sam. 5:2). In later times leaders other than the kings were also called “shepherds” (cf. Isa. 44:28; Ezek. 34:2). Other nouns derived from the verb râ‛âh occur infrequently. Mir’eh , which occurs 12 times, means “pasture or pasturage” in the sense of where animals graze, and/or what they graze on (Gen. 47:4). Mar’it appears 10 times and refers to a “pasture” (Ps. 74:1). Re’l is found once and means “pasture” (1 Kings 4:23).

Sheep, Shepherd. Genesis 4:2; Genesis 46:32. Sheep were used in the sacrificial offerings, both the adult animal, Exodus 20:24, and the lamb. Exodus 29:38; Leviticus 9:3; Leviticus 12:6. Sheep and lambs formed an important article of food. 1 Samuel 25:18. The wool was used as clothing. Leviticus 13:47. "Rams' skins dyed red" were used as a covering for the tabernacle. Exodus 25:5. Sheep and lambs were sometimes paid as tributes. 2 Kings 3:4. Sheep-shearing is alluded to. Genesis 31:19. Sheep-dogs were employed in biblical times. Job 30:1. Shepherds in Palestine and the East generally go before their flocks, calling to them, and the sheep follow; comp. John 10:4; 1 Samuel 25:4-8; Psalms 80:1, though they also drive them. Genesis 33:13. Rev. John Hartley gives an illustration of John 10:1-16 : " Having had my attention directed to John 10:3, I asked a shepherd to call one of his sheep. He did so, and it instantly left its pasturage and its companions and ran up to the hands of the shepherd with signs of pleasure and with a prompt obedience which I had never before observed in any other animal. It is also true in this country that 'a stranger will they not follow, but will flee from him.'" The common sheep of Syria and Palestine are the broad-tailed, which, when fattened, have tails of an enormous size. "I have seen many in Lebanon so heavy," says Dr. Thomson, "that the owners could not carry them without difficulty... The cooks use this mass of fat instead of Arab butter.... This is the 'rump' so often mentioned in the Levitical sacrifices, which was to be taken off hard by the backbone. Exodus 29:22; Leviticus 3:9; Leviticus 7:3; Leviticus 9:19. It is, in fact, not properly a tail, but a mass of mar row-like fat, which spreads over the whole rump of the sheep, and down the caudal extremity, till near the end." The shearing of the sheep was celebrated anciently, as often now, with much festivity. Genesis 31:19; Genesis 38:12-13; Psalms 77:20; 1 Samuel 25:36; 2 Samuel 13:23-28.

Composer. Born in England c.1512;died there c1563 A chorister under Thomas Mulliner at Saint Paul's, he became in 1542 choir-master and organist at Magdalen College, Oxford, and in 1549 gained a fellowship. From 1553 to 1558 he belonged to Mary Tudor's Chapel Royal. The Music School, Oxford, has preserved in manuscripts many of his religious compositions. Notable selections are four masses, several alleluias, and ten motets.

Name of a treatise highly esteemed in early times and once ranking next to the Holy Scriptures. It is an ethical rather than a theological work, preaching repentance, and consisting of five visions, twelve mandates, and two parables; particularly valuable as a contemporary record of 2century Christianity in Rome. The authorship has been attributed to Hermas, mentioned by Saint Paul in his letter to the Romans 14; but with more likelihood, to a brother of Pope Saint Pius I.

Or PASTOR . Abel was a keeper of sheep, Genesis 4:2 , as were the greater number of the ancient patriarchs. When men began to multiply, and to follow different employments, Jabal son of Lamech was acknowledged as father, that is, founder of shepherd and nomads, Genesis 4:20 . A large part of the wealth of ancient patriarchs consisted in flocks and herds, the care of which was shared by their sons, daughters, and servants. Rachel the bride of Jacob was a shepherdess, Genesis 37:12-178 ; his sons, the fathers of the tribes of Israel were shepherds, and so was David their king, Psalm 78:70-72 . The employment is highly honored in the Bible, Luke 2:8-20 . In the time of the kings, the "chief herdsman" occupies a post of some importance, 1 Samuel 21:7 2 Kings 3:4 1 Chronicles 27:29-31 . In Palestine and its vicinity, besides those who united the keeping of flocks and herds with the tillage of the ground, there were and still are numbers of nomads or wandering shepherds confining themselves to no settled home. These dwellers in tents often had a wide range of pasture grounds, from one to another of which they drove their flocks as occasion required, 1618451480_98 . In the vast deserts east and south of Palestine they found many spots which in winter and spring were clothed with verdure, Exodus 3:1 Psalm 65:12 . But the heat of summer withered these "pastures of the wilderness," and drove the shepherds and their flocks to seek for highlands and streams. There are many indications in the Scripture of the conscious strength and independence of he ancient shepherd patriarchs, of the extent of their households, and the consideration in which they were held, Genesis 14:14-24 21:22-32 26:13-16 30:43 Job 1:3 . God sometimes takes the name of Shepherd of Israel, Psalm 80:1 Jeremiah 31:10 ; and kings, both in Scripture and ancient writers, are distinguished by the title of "Shepherds of the people." The prophets often inveigh against the "shepherds of Israel," that is, the kings, who feed themselves and neglect their flocks; who distress, illtreat, seduce, and lead them astray, Ezekiel 34:10 . In like manner Christ, as the Messiah, is often called a shepherd, Zechariah 13:7 , and also takes on himself the title of "the Good Shepherd," who gives his life for his sheep, John 10:11,14,15 . Paul calls him the great Shepherd of the sheep, Hebrews 13:20 , and Peter gives him the appellation of Prince of shepherds, 1 Peter 5:4 . His ministers are in like manner the pastors or under-shepherds of the flock, Jeremiah 3:15 23:3 Ephesians 4:11 . In John 10:1-16 , our Savior says the good shepherd lays down his life for his sheep; that he knows them, and they know him; that they hear his voice, and follow him; that he goes before them; that no one shall force them out of his hands, and that he calls them by their names. These, however, being all incidents taken from the customs of the country, are by no means so striking to us as they must have been to those who heard our Lord, and who every day witnessed such methods of conducting this domesticated animal. Modern travelers in the East meet with many pleasing confirmation of the truth of Scripture in respect to these particulars; they see the shepherd walking before his flock, any one of which will instantly run to him when called by its own name. The hireling, or bad shepherd, forsakes the sheep, and the thief enters not by the door of the sheepfold, but climbs in another way. See SHEEP . The Bible applies many of the excellences of the faithful shepherd in illustration of the Savior's care of his flock. The shepherd was responsible for each member of the flock intrusted to him, Genesis 31:39 Exodus 22:12 John 10:28 ; he had need of great courage and endurance, Genesis 31:40 1 Samuel 17:34,35 John 15:10 ; he exercised a tender care towards the feeble, and carried the lambs in his arms, Genesis 33:13 Isaiah 40:11 Mark 10:14,16 ; and searched for the lost sheep, bringing it back from the "land of drought and the shadow of death" into green pastures and still waters, Psalm 23:1-6 Luke 15:4-7 .

The name given in the Western Church tothe Second Sunday after Easter. The French know it as the Sunday ofthe Bon Pasteur. The name is suggested by the Gospel for the daywhich sets forth our Lord as "the Good Shepherd," and who in theEpistle is called the "Shepherd and Bishop of our Souls."