Relation Between the Church and the World
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shared the same social setting as recent New Testament scholars have suggested for the earliest church. House-church patronage was probably a central feature of Hennas' community. While the precise form of the schisms is uncertain, a house-church setting provides a plausible backdrop for the more serious divisions which are described.
Relation Between the Church and the World In the preceding discussion we have attempted to show that Hermas' references to the abuses of wealth in his community and his exhortations concerning its proper use point to a situation in which wealthier patrons of Hermas' church, often acting as its leaders, invited members into their homes for church activities. If, however, in the course of discussion, we have been able to isolate certain elements of the text which relate to the use and abuse of riches, this should not blind us to the fact that Hermas was not engaged in a theoretical discussion concerning the wealth of certain members of his community. A treatment which rejects the notion that Hermas' predominant concern is with post-baptismal sin must not put in its place one which finds in his writing a theoretical concern with riches.
Hermas' worries regarding the use and abuse of wealth may be more fully understood when placed in the wider social context of his concern with the purity of his community. Both his teachings on repentance and his exhortations concerning the proper use of wealth have as their goal the purification of the Christian community. The fact that Hermas continually employs descriptions of group and personal impurity, defilement, and even disease as metaphors suggests that his community's purity is one of his major concerns,55 The issue of purity raises for Hermas the problem of his community's relation to the world, a problem particularly acute because, as we have seen above, it seems likely that the leaders of his community were well-to-do and, as we will see below, may have relied for their economic prosperity on "worldly" connections. In this section we will provide a general discussion of Hermas' references to purity and impurity in order to place Hermas' concerns concerning wealth in their proper context. We will concentrate primarily on the causes which have resulted in group impurity, and on the ways Hermas describes the relation of the church to the world. An understanding of these concerns for purity will help us to comprehend in a better way the relationship which existed between what we will call "the response to the world" of Hermas' community and the problems which were undermining its group identity.
The references in this document concerning purity are too numerous to discuss separately. We shall concentrate primarily on a representative portion of the text (Stm. 9) which is illustrative of Hermas' concerns. This will help us to see the nature of the impurity which Hermas thinks is contaminating his church.
In Sim. 9 Hermas expands the material composed in Vk. 3 (Sim. 9:1.2). In his vision he is taken to a great plain surrounded by twelve mountains (9:1.4) which represent the nations of the earth (9:17.1). Different stones, with distinctive qualities representative of types of people (9:19.1ff.), are brought from each of the mountains to the centre of the plain for the construction of a tower
The Social Setting of the Ministry (9:3.Iff.), which represents the church (9:13.1). Before the completion of the tower construction is halted and the Lord of the tower comes to test the suitability of the stones for the construction of the building (9:5.2). He strikes each of the stones of the tower with his staff. As a result, several stones turn black or rotten or reveal other flaws (9:6.3f.). These stones are then removed and cleaned or replaced by better stones (9:6.5ff.). After these renovations, Hermas sûtes (9:9.7) that the tower appeared "as if it were all one stone, without a single joint in it, and the stone appeared as if it had been hewn out of a rock, for it seemed to me to be a single stone." The tower is swept by virgins, who represent holy spirits (9:13.2), and water is sprinkled on it (9:10.3). The significance of this cleansing is revealed in 9:18.2-4, where the shepherd explains:
Thus therefore the Church of God shall be cleansed (καθαριοθή σεται).
But just as you saw that the stones were taken from the tower and handed over to the evil spirits and cast out from it (and there shall be one body of those who are purified, just as also the tower becarnfc as if it were made of a single stone, after it was purified [καθαρισθηναι]), so the Church of God shall be, after it has been purified (καθαρισθήναι), and the wicked and hypocrites and blasphemers and double-minded, and doers of various wickedness, have been rejected from it. After these have been rejected the Church of God shall be one body, one mind, one spirit, one faith, one love, and then the Son of God shall rejoice and be glad in them, when he has received his people in purity (καθαρός).
This whole similitude is an image for the purification of Hermas' community.
It becomes clear who are the persons need purification when the meaning of the various stones which are rejected from the tower is revealed. Hermas' references to the "wicked and hypocrites and blasphemers and double-minded, and doers of various wickedness" in the passage cited above are repeated throughout his writing. While they often function as general descriptions of unfaithful members, 6 in certain instances Hermas provides a more precise description of members who are guilty of these charges. This is particularly the case in descriptions of apostasy. Hermas returns repeatedly to the charges of blasphemy and apostasy as examples of his community's most heinous sins. In Sim. 9:19.1 the shepherd states that the stones taken from the black mountain, symbolic of absolute impurity, represent "such believers as these: apostates and blasphemers against the Lord, and betrayers of the servants of God." That these are not mere rhetorical flourishes is suggested by the fact that Hermas singles out Maximus in Vis. 2:3.4 as a member who had denied his faith once before. While there is no evidence that wealth was related to Maximus' apostasy, Hermas often links apostasy and blasphemy with riches (Vis. 1:4.2 [cf. 1:1.8-9]; 2:2.6-8 [assuming that leaders are well-to-do]; 3:6.5; Sim. 1:4-6; 6:2.3-4; 8:8.2; 8:9.1-3; 9:19.3; cf.
9:20.2). In Hermas' view there is a direct relationship between undue regard for riches and lack of allegiance to the church. Because of their riches wealthier members do not "cleave to the saints" (Sim. 8:8.1; 9:20.2) but involve themselves instead in "heathen" friendships (Man. 10:1.4-5; Sim. 8:9.1-3). The result is that the wealthy members, who perhaps rely on their worldly connections for the success of their businesses,57 find it difficult to separate themselves from their economic interests when it is necessary to show their solidarity with the
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wider community, as for example in times of persecution,58 and end in denying their faith.
In Sim. 9 and throughout the rest of the writing Hermas describes these wealthy members as being guilty of varying degrees of impurity. In Man. 10:1.4 and Sim. 8:9.3 the shepherd states that they are corrupted (καταφθείρονται; φθειρόμενοι) by their deeds and associations with the "heathen." For Hermas, corruption is equivalent to impurity (cf. Sim. 4:7). We have already seen that the apostates and blasphemers are represented by the black stones in Sim. 9. Other stones represent similar impure characters: the stones with spots in Sim. 9:26.2 symbolize those who have abused their ministry by using the common funds for their own gain. Hermas also uses the image of round white stones for members who have a degree of purity but are not useful for the building of the tower unless their wealth be cut off from them (Vis. 3:6.5; Sim. 9:31.1-2). In Sim, 6:5.5 the shepherd states that among those who live luxuriously are the covetous who give satisfaction to their "disease" (νόσος). Again, in Sim. 8:11.3 Hermas learns that when those who have been described in the preceding parable of the sticks purify themselves "from the wickednesses which have been mentioned before," they shall "receive healing from the Lord for their former sins." While the parable refers to several categories of people, two important examples of members in need of purification, represented by sticks partly alive and partly dead, are those who concern themselves with business activity and "do not cleave to the saints"
(St'm. 8:8.1) and those who have become "rich and in honour among the heathen" and do not "cleave to the righteous" (Sim. 8:9.1). Given these references it appears that the exhortation to be purified from the "vanities of this world"
(Man. 9:4; cf. 12:6.5; Sim. 6:2.2-3) was of particular significance to the community's wealthy members.
We have found in the Shepherd a concern regarding the impurity of wealthy members of the group. The impurity which results when wealthy members form allegiances too close to the world has implications for the whole group.
Members who become too attached to their wealth cause disorder in the community, both in the sense that they separate themselves from other members and in the sense that they contribute to the erosion of the group's ethical identity. We will return to this latter point in our final section. Here we are interested in the relation between impurity and disorder within the group.
The cultural anthropologist Mary Douglas has argued convincingly that notions of pollution and impurity in both primitive and advanced societies and in ancient and contemporary cultures59 have to do with the maintenance of order and internal and external group boundaries. She has noted that the concept of "dirt" is a relative notion which implies disorder.60 "Dirt" according to Douglas is "matter out of place" and its presence implies two conditions: "a set of ordered relations and a contravention of that order." Furthermore, " D i r t . . . is never a unique isolated event. Where there is dirt there is system."61 Dirtiness and its opposite, cleanliness, apply not only to inanimate objects but also to persons and places.
Rules which are formulated to maintain cleanliness or purity are attempts to preserve personal and group boundaries so that what is regarded as proper order is not upset. As Malina suggests, purity
The Social Setting of the Ministry is specifically about the general cultural map of social time and space, about arrangements within the space thus defined, and especially about their boundaries separating the inside from the outside. The unclean or impure is something that does not fit the space in which it is found, that belongs elsewhere, that causes confusion in the arrangement of the generally accepted social map because it overruns boundaries, and the like.62
In the case of the Shepherd, Hermas describes wealthier members preoccupied with their business interests who are impure because they have stepped beyond the boundaries of the group to form allegiances with the wider society — resulting in a withdrawal of their loyalty to the church. T o call them impure is to state that they are "dirty," that they have caused social disorder by trespassing certain social lines which are meant to separate members of the group from outside influences.
The presence of riches in the community results in a certain ambiguity in the boundaries separating the group from the world because while it is the case that the misuse of and inordinate attachment to wealth leads wealthier members astray, it also enables the well-to-do to care for the poor and to provide the resources necessary for the functioning of the community, i.e. feasts, alms, a place to worship, and other facilities. Hermas' response to this ambiguity is to establish a purity rule.63 In Sim. 4:5-7 the exhortation to abstain from much business (πράξις) is qualified so that a member is permitted to be occupied with one business. This is one attempt to deal with the anomaly wealth presents. Hermas states that one who follows this rule will not have his understanding "corrupted from the Lord," "but he will serve him with a pure mind." A similar point is made by the reference to the white round stones in Sim.
9:30.4-5, which represent the wealthy members of the community who become useful to the construction of the tower only after their excess matter (i.e., their excess wealth) is cut off.
Douglas has suggested that it is especially where boundaries are ambiguous that purity and pollution rules are used to reinforce group boundaries and maintain social order.64 So too, Hermas' concerns about the business preoccupations of the wealthier members of his community and the references he makes to their impurity together with a rule for the correct amount of involvement the well-to-do may have with business concerns is an attempt to remove any ambiguity, which might result in impurity, surrounding the use of riches and to establish boundaries which limit the wealthier members' economic activities.
The establishment of a purity rule is not the only way that Hermas attempts to establish the purity and order of his group. The proclamation of a second repentance is central to Hermas' references to purity. We have seen that in Sim.
9 the Lord of the tower comes to test the edifice and discards stones which are not fit for the building. These stones, however, are able to be returned to the building if they arc clcaned (Sim. 9:7.2) 6 5 By this cleaning process Hermas refers to repentance (9:33.1; cf. 9:23.2). In Sim. 9:14.3, Hermas, after reflecting on the graciousness of the Lord for providing a period of repentance, states:
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I thanked the Lord for all these things, that he had mercy on all who call upon his name, and sent the angel of repentance to us who have sinned against him, and renewed our spirit, even when we were already corrupted, and restored our life, when we had no hope ofliving.
The proclamation of a second forgiveness of sins which scholars have traditionally seen as an attempt of Hermas primarily to come to terms with post-baptismal sin should rather be seen as an effort to re-establish the boundaries of his church by the removal of impurity. At the end of Sim. 8, healing is offered to those who "repent with all their hearts, and purify themselves from the wickednesses which have been mentioned before, and no longer add anything to their sins." But those who do not repent "and live in the lusts of this world" shall be condemned (8:11.3-4). Again, in Sim. 6:3.2-5 the angel of punishment is described as a figure who corrects those who "have wandered away from God, and walked in the lusts and deceits of this world." Their punishment is the unsettlement they experience in the conduct of their worldly affairs, and the result of this punishment is repentance. The shepherd explains:
And if they repent, then it enters into their hearts, that the deeds which they did were evil, and then they glorify God saying that he is a righteous judge, and that they suffered righteously, each according to his deeds, and for the future they serve the Lord with a pure heart, and they prosper in all their deeds.... (6:3.6) Exhortations to repentance, especially when connected to a certain urgency that members repent before the construction of the tower is completed (Vis. 3:5.5;
3:8.9; cf. Sim. 9:19.2), are attempts to re-establish the purity of the group and the church's boundaries.
As a symbol of group identity, the vision of the tower constructed as if it were made from one stone (Sim. 9:9.7) is a vision of group solidarity and cohesion.
But Hermas also uses images which present the ambiguity of group boundaries.
In Sim. 3:1-3 Hermas is shown several leafless trees, that appear to be alike. The shepherd explains to him that these represent those who dwell in this world. ... Because ... in this world, neither righteous nor sinners are apparent, but all are alike. For this world is winter for the righteous and they are not apparent, though they are living with sinners. For just as in the winter the trees which have shed their leaves are alike, and it is not apparent which are dry and which are alive, so in this world neither the righteous nor the sinners are apparent, but all are alike.
We have seen that one of the ways the community experienced this ambiguity was when wealthier members rejected closer contact with the church in favour of associations with outsiders.
But there is a more general level on which the world-church or, more precisely, world-sect dichotomy may be discussed. Bryan Wilson's sect-type, used heuristically as a tool to make distant comparisons between contemporary sects and Hermas' church, helps us to identify some of the sources of problems facing this first-century community. Wilson has noted the pressures which are exerted upon contemporary sects by their necessary existence within wider society and, more importantly, the ideological characteristics, special to certain types
The Social Setting of the Ministry of sect, which make those pressures particularly acute. He argues that contemporary sects attempt to preserve their separation from the rest of society.
If the sect is to persist as an organization it must not only separate its members from the world, but must also maintain the dissimilarity of its own values from those of the secular society. Its members must not normally be allowed to accept the values of the status system of the external world.66
He states further, The sect's desire to be separate from the world and its concerns — and the values which express that separateness — results in certain distinct tensions for the organization and for its members. For each sect there must be a position of optimal tension, where any greater degree of hostility against the world portends direct conflict, and any less suggests accommodation to worldly values.67
But the difficulties of maintaining a separate identity from the rest of society is increased by the typical sectarian effort to win recruits.68 Again, he comments
The principal tension between the demand for separateness and other sect values arises in the injunction, accepted by many sects, to go out and preach the gospel. Evangelism means exposure to the world and the risk of alienation of the evangelizing agents. It means also the willingness to accept into the sect new members. This throws a particular weight on the standards of admission if, through the impact of recruitment, the sect itself is not to feel the effect of members who are incompletely socialized from the sect's point of view.69
When we turn to a discussion of baptismal thought and imagery in the Shepherd we will notice how behavioural values are associated by Hermas with entry into the group through baptism, and the importance of this ritual as a group-defining symbol of separation.
A further challenge to sectarian identity occurs through the passage of time.
Wilson and other sociologists note that as certain sects continue to exist they often undergo an attenuation of their separatism and increasingly accommodate themselves to the values of the society around them. In some sects this is occasioned by the problem of recruiting the second generation, or children of the original converts, and socializing them into the group.70 In the case of the Shepherd there is evidence that seems to suggest that an attenuation of sectarian response was probably occurring within his community. When we turn to a discussion of 1 Clement we will identify organizational factors which may have contributed to this accommodation to the world. Hermas' preservation of the social distinctions prevalent in his contemporary society in his solution to the problems of maintaining group boundaries may be interpreted as evidence of a sectarian group adopting worldly structures and a movement away from the pure sect type.
The major question which Wilson's discussion of sectarianism raises for us is the relation which existed in Hermas' community between certain expressions of belief and community boundaries. Here we are interested primarily in attitudes toward the world which may have resulted in weaker community boundaries in this group. We will argue, tentatively, that the impulse in the group
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toward the winning of outsiders reveals certain patterns of openness toward the outside world and that this response to the world may have allowed contact with outsiders in a way damaging to the cohesion of the group.
It should be stated at the outset that Hermas is not concerned to provide any direct information on the topic of conversion. But there are some clues that ideologically his group responded to the world in an open way by viewing persons outside the group as potential members. In Sim. 8:3.2 Hermas hears the explanation of a great tree he saw in his vision. "Listen," says the shepherd, this great tree, which covers plains and mountains and all the earth, is God's law which was given to all the world. And this law is God's son preached to all the ends of the earth. And those who are under its shade are nations which have heard the preaching and have believed in it.
Again, in Sim. 9:17.1 Hermas is informed that the twelve mountains he sees represent all "the tribes which inhabit the whole world" to whom the apostles preached about "the Son of God." The stones from these mountains which come together to form the tower, i.e. the church, appear bright because, according to the shepherd, all the nations which dwell under heaven, when they heard and believed were called after the name of the Son of God. So when they received the seal
(i.e.baptism) they had one understanding and one mind, and their faith became one, and their love one . . . (9:17.4).
While the context of this passage refers to present members of the church, in Sim. 9:30.3 the shepherd explains that the stones brought from the white mountain represent "both past and future" pure believers. Finally, the image of the tower which is almost but not entirely completed suggests that there are still believers to be converted. And Hermas learns in Vis. 2:2.5 that although there is another chance of repentance for the saints within the community but none after the time for renewal has passed, "for the heathen repentance is open until the last day." These images suggest that there was in Hermas' community a degree of openness to the world as a source for potential believers.
A community which regarded the world with a degree of positiveness as a place of potential believers may have been less concerned to control the activities of members involved in secular activities. We suggest this as a tentative connection between an ideology of openness to the world and problems arising from the involvement of members in it. Because of an openness to outsiders, the restraints which otherwise would have functioned to control contacts with the world may have been relaxed, in a way which allowed wealthier members to involve themselves in secular activities with an enthusiasm damaging to the exclusive identity of the church. We can be more certain that as long as the community looked to wealthy members to provide the patronage necessary for the functioning of the community, there had to exist a certain openness to members involving themselves in wider social structures, since the community benefited from such involvement. It is only by contact with the world that resources will be gained for the functioning of the common life and new members will come into the community. A community that relies on these structures and sees itself involved in the salvation of members of the society outside