Ethics and Separation from the World
The Social Setting of the Ministry the community will find itself in a tenuous position when it attempts to maintain the purity of its group by lessening the power of the world's influence on its daily life. Any contact with the outside world, which is seen as a place of impurity, will challenge the purity, that is the boundaries, of a group attempting, at least ideally, to maintain an identity separate from it. Similarly, any outside member coming into the group bears the seeds of impurity. As we will see below, baptism functions as a means of removing the threat of impurity.
Summary We have focused on Hermas' concerns regarding the purity of his community.
We argued that the anxiety he has about the purity of members of his group is a worry concerning community boundaries. Particular attention was given to the references to the impurity of wealthier members. Hermas attempts to control their activities by the establishment of a purity rule, which, if successfully enforced, limits the activity of the well-to-do in secular affairs, thereby reinforcing the boundaries separating the church from the world. We have suggested a tentative connection between an openness to the world as a positive place containing future believers and a relaxation of group restraints. This led to wider access by the wealthy to secular affairs, thus damaging the group's identity.
There is an inherent tension between the group's attempts to separate itself from the world and its attitude to outsiders as potential insiders, as well as its dependence on the involvement of wealthier members in the wider society for certain resources necessary for the church's common life.
Ethics and Separation from the World We have argued that the language in the Shepherd which describes purity is indicative of Hermas' concerns regarding the community's separation from the world. How is such a separation established and maintained? It was suggested, following Wilson, that there is a tension which confronts the sectarian identity of a group whose response to the outside world is characterized by openness, but which attempts to maintain an identity separate from it. The totalitarian hold which sects typically have on members tends to be undermined by openness to the world. The typical way some contemporary sects attempt to maintain their hold on members can help us to understand how Hermas hoped to maintain the separation of his church from the world. Once again we are using
Wilson's concepts heuristically: just as certain tensions confronting modern sects help to show how weak sectarian boundaries in Hermas' church resulted in its wealthier members' engagement in business activities detrimental to the sect's identity, so the form of sectarian control typical of certain contemporary sects can give us insight concerning Hermas' ethical injunctions.
Wilson suggests two ways in which a sect can keep itself from contamination by the world: "isolation" and "insulation."71 While the isolation tactic avoids contact with the world, insulation permits contact with the world but employs behavioural rules calculated to protect the sect's values by reducing the influence of the external world. In some types of sects Wilson identifies, such as the conversionist type, doctrine and moral commitment are important variables in
The Shepherd of Herrn as
the maintenance of sectarian identity.72 The role of ethics as a means of nurturing a common identity which shields the sect from influence by the outside world is a helpful way to understand the significance of Hermas' ethical paraenesis. Even if Hernias' moral exhortation is often general, its significance is that through it Hermas hopes to encourage the growth of an environment representative of what he regards as the church's fundamental nature.
Before we turn to an investigation of Hermas' paraenesis, we shall briefly discuss the role religious beliefs about transcendent reality play in shaping behaviour. The anthropologist Clifford Geertz provides a useful understanding of religion as composed of sacred symbols73 which have ethical implications.
Geertz argues that the importance of a religious symbol is that it serves as a "model of" reality, representing in another medium structures and relationships of transcendent reality, and a "model for" mundane reality, shaping behaviour so that it is consistent with the transcendent view which the symbol communicates.74 "Religious symbols" he argues, "formulate a basic congruence between a particular style of life and a specific (if, most often, implicit) metaphysic... .*'75 Geertz writes, sacred symbols function to synthesize a people's ethos — the tone, character, and quality of their life, its moral and aesthetic style and mood — and their world view — the picture they have of the way things in sheer actuality are, their most comprehensive ideas of order.76
This implies that a group's ethos is rendered intellectually reasonable by being shown to represent a way of life ideally adapted to the actual state of affairs the world view describes, while the world view is rendered emotionally convincing by being presented as an image of and actual state of affairs peculiarly well-arranged to accommodate such a way of life.77
Where this occurs a symbol at once induces certain moods, motivations, and dispositions in the individual to whom the symbol has meaning and places them in a cosmic framework in some sense congruent with those personal characteristics.78 The important point is that it is the same symbol which does both.
Reflecting upon the simultaneous metaphysical and ethical nature of religious symbols Geertz writes Religion is never merely metaphysics. For all peoples the forms, vehicles, and objects of worship are suffused with an aura of deep moral seriousness. The holy bears within it everywhere a sense of intrinsic obligation: it not only encourages devotion, it demands it; it not only induces intellectual assent it enforces emotional commitment [T]hat which is set apart as more than mundane is inevitably considered to have far-reaching implications for the direction of human conduct. Never merely metaphysics, religion is never merely ethics either. The source of its moral vitality is conceived to lie in the fidelity with which it expresses the fundamental nature of reality. The powerfully coercive "ought" is felt to grow out of a comprehensive factual "is," and in such a way religion grounds the most specific requirements of human action in the most general contexts of human existence.79
Especially in religious ritual, where sacred symbols are explicit often in the form
The Social Setting of the Ministry of activity rather than words, a particular sense of the divine is communicated and certain devotional moods are evoked.80 "In sacred rituals and myths values are portrayed not as subjective human preferences but as the imposed conditions for life implicit in a world with a particular structure."81
One of the most potent symbols for the early church is baptism: it symbolizes in a profound way the nature of a new life in a community created by God and set radically apart from the world. With that new life comes an ethical imperative which reflects the nature of the transcendent reality which has called the church into existence and sustains it. The notions surrounding baptism in the Shepherd are no exception.
For Hermas the images of death and life describe in a powerful way the significance of baptism. In Sim. 9:16.1 Hermas inquires after the meaning of part of the vision of the tower where he saw stones brought up from a deep place
(Si'm. 9:3.3-4). The shepherd describes these stones as representative of the faithful first generations of Christians (Sim. 9:15.4-6), and then (9:16.2-4) explains the significance of "the deep":
They had need to come up through the water, in order that they might be made alive; for they could not enter into the kingdom of God in another way, unless they laid aside the mortality of their former life. Even these, then, who had fallen asleep received the seal of the son of God and entered into the kingdom of God. For before, said he, a man bears the name of the son of God, he is dead; but when he receives the seal he lays aside mortality and he receives (άναλαμβάνειν) life. The seal then is the water; they go down therefore into the water dead and come up alive (Lake with some modification).82
In Vis. 3:3.5 a similar image is presented where the Lady states that the tower, i.e. the church, is built on water "because your life was saved and shall be saved through water." She goes on to add, probably recalling the baptismal ritual,83
"and the tower has been founded by the utterance of the almighty and glorious Name, and is maintained by the unseen power of the Master."
Baptism initiates the member into a new life which demands a consequent purity of life. For Hermas, such a life means to live to God (ζην τψ θεψ).84 In Sim. 9:17.4-5, Hermas learns that impurity results in rejection from the church.
[A] 11 the nations which dwell under heaven, when they heard and believed were called after the name of the Son of God. So then when they received the seal they had one understanding and one mind, and their faith became one, and their love one. ... For this cause the building of the tower became bright with one colour like the sun. But after they entered in together and became one body, some of them defiled (έμ(αναν) themselves and were cast out from the family (γένους) of the righteous, and became again what they had been before, or even worse.
The implication of the language of defilement and the image of the tower "bright.. . like the sun" is that to enter the community through baptism is to become pure, in distinction from the outside world. It is to enter the kingdom of God (Sim. 9:16.2).85
Along with this purity is a characteristic ethical standard by which the individual initiated into the church is expected to abide. Baptism as a symbol of
The Shepherd of Herrn as
casting off mortality and putting on new life brings with it an ethical demandBut entry into this new life, into "the family of the righteous," is also entry into a new realization of the glory of God in his nature as creator and sustainer. It is this "symbol," using the term in Geertz's sense, which permits the faithful to fulfil the requirements of the new life.
The standards of the new life of the baptized are presented in the Mandates.
These represent a series of exhortations and behavioural rules which are to guide the activities of the members of the church. The particular rules found in this section will not concern us here. Rather we shall focus our attention on Mandate 12:4.2-5 where the shepherd, after hearing Hermas' doubts about the ability to keep all the commandments revealed to him (Man. 12:3.4), states that Hermas does not understand the glory of God, "how great and wonderful it is, because he created the world for humanity's sake, and subdued all his creation to humankind, and gave humans all power, to master all things under heaven."
(Man. 12.4.2). He further explains If, then, humankind is the Lord of all the creatures of God, and masters them, is it not possible to master these commandments also? The person ... who has the Lord in his or her heart, is able to master all things and all these commandments. But those who have the Lord on their lips, but their heart is hardened, and they are far from the Lord, for them these commandments are hard, and difficult to walk in. Do you, therefore, who are empty and light in the faith, put the Lord into your heart, and you shall know that nothing is easier or sweeter or more gentle than these commandments.
The "person who has the Lord in his or her heart" is able to keep God's commandments.
The description of the Christian as a creature of God with the Lord in his or her heart at once states something about absolute reality, namely that God is sovereign Creator, and makes an ethical demand which is designed to express that reality. Thus, the Mandates begin with the exhortation to believe that God is one, "who made all things and perfected them, and made all things to be out of that which was not, and contains all things, and is himself uncontained" (Man.
1:1). The word συν in Man. 1:2 connects the accompanying ethical exhortation with this transcendent reality:
Believe then in him, and fear him, and in your fear be continent. Keep these things, and you shall cast away from yourself all wickedness, and shall put on every virtue of righteousness, and shall live to God, if you keep this commandment.
In Sim. 9:14.5-6, Hermas learns that if the whole creation is supported by the Son of God, those who "bear the name of the Son of God" and walk in his commandments are supported all the more. Again, in Vis. 1:3.4 the symbol of God as sovereign creator of the world and the church is related to the promise of reward given to those "who keep the ordinances of God, which they received with great faith." In Vis. 3:3.5, a baptismal passage cited above, it is stated that the tower "is maintained by the unseen power of the Master." The implication of this language, taken together with Hermas' descriptions of baptism, is that entry into the church is an initiation into a reality created especially by God (Vis.
The Social Setting of the Ministry 2:4.1; 1:1.6), and that reality obliges those who live within it to embark on a new life of purity. In Sim. 4:4 Hermas learns that the "heathen" (τά εθνη) shall be destroyed because they did not know their creator. Knowledge of the creator brings with it an obligation to obey him; those who know him without obedience are condemned (4:3-4).
Hermas' ethical exhortations, as well as the rules he establishes for contact with the world through business, are not distinct from the identity of his sect; rather, they are formulated as an expression of its identity as the focus of God's redeeming activity. Looking from the outside into the sect, Hermas' paraenesis often appears general and unfocused. But once it is placed into the wider eosmological context he presents, we can see how those exhortations would have taken on a greater significance for the individual within the sect looking at the world outside. For the outside world is impure and dead. Inside the sect is, or at least is meant to be, purity and life.
We turn now to a discussion of the role of ethics in the conversionist sect.
Behavioural rules and exhortation help to crcate an identity which sect members believe to be ethically distinctive. The importance of Hermas' paraenesis is that it is designed to shape the behaviour of members who are participants in the transcendent reality of the church. To be baptized into the kingdom of God, that is the church (Sim. 9:13.1-2), brings an obligation to don the apparel of the virgins (παρθένοι) who surround the tower (Sim. 9:13.2-5; 9:15.1-2; Vis.
3:8.2-8) and whose clothing of linen represents distinctive virtues and purity (Vis. 3:8.7). At one point in Hermas' vision (Sim. 9:3.4) these maidens carry the stones through the gate and into the tower for its construction. That is, those who would enter the kingdom of God must also have their virtues (Sim.
9:13.3-5). But those who are baptized and do not clothe themselves with the maidens' raiment, are rejected from the tower and carried away by the women
(γυναίκες) clothed in black (Sim. 9:9.5). These women, with their bare shoulders and loose hair, are presented as beautiful temptresses who lead those who bear "the name of the Son of God" (Sim. 9:13.7) astray, so that once-faithful members are "rejected from the house of God (του οίκου τον θεοΰ)" and delivered to these women. These seducers represent vices roughly opposite to the virtues represented by the pure virgins (Sim. 9:15.3, cf. v.2). Members who are guilty of these vices "shall see the Kingdom of God, but shall not enter into it" (Sim. 9:15.3).
From his discussion of members who were once faithful but are later rejected from church, it seems clear that baptism is no guarantee that the member who enters the new community will remain in it. The images we have discussed which describe the impurity of rejected members suggest the same notion. This is not surprising given Hermas' anthropology. In Man. 6:2 Hermas learns that there are two angels with man, one of righteousness and one of wickedness
(Man. 6:2.1). Each of these attempts to influence the actions of individuals; when virtue comes into one's heart the angel of righteousness is present (v. 3), but when the angel of wickedness is at work vices are present (vs. 4-8).86 Whatever the source of this anthropology, its implication for the community attempting to separate itself from the influence of the world is important. For it implies that members may be in the community yet stray from the sect or act in
The Shepherd of Herrn as
ways which do not express their identity as members of the church. It is possible to be "double-minded/1 which, in the parable of the sticks (Sim. 8:7.1), describes a state in which a believer is neither dead nor alive. Included among those with this characteristic are those who, because of their business concerns, do not "cleave to the saints" (Sim. 8:8.1; see also 8:9.1-4) 87 This image forms a striking contrast to the language used of the new life attending baptism. The unambiguous new life with its fervent obedience to the Creator's commands can become vague, lukewarm, half-dead.
The use of injunction and the establishment of regulations, such as those limiting the amount of business one may involve oneself in, are important means of ensuring that the sect maintains a distinctive identity separate from the outside world. The effects of openness to the world are limited by rules and exhortations designed to ensure that a member's primary allegiance remain with the group. The city of God (see the description in Sim. 1:1) has its own law, which distinguishes it from the earthly city, and those who wish to live in it must abide by its regulations or risk exclusion (Sim. 1:5). One who lives by its laws recognizes that he or she is a stranger in a strange land, that he or she should pattern his or her lifestyle in accordance with that alien existence. "Rather than lands,"
Hermas writes in v. 8, "purchase afflicted souls, as each is able " Widows and orphans are the true costly establishments of this city: it is here where a real profit is made. The ethic of love patriarchalism is an attempt to create a distinctive group identity which is able to capitalize on the economic benefits involvement with the world brings to individuals.
But the admonitions to be subject to the law of the Lord's city are not purely an individualistic affair. In Sim. 10:3.1-2 (cf. Man. 4:4.3), Hermas is informed that the holy maidens will dwell with him in his house only if he keeps his house pure. "If then they find your house pure they will remain with you. But," explains the shepherd, "if ever so little corruption come to it they will at once depart from your home, for these maidens love no sort of impurity" (v. 2). Hermas is often chastised for the sins of his family. In Vis. 1:3.1 he learns that God is angry with him for their sins; he is indulgent, he has allowed them to become corrupt. Hermas is admonished for having disobedient children and a nattering wife (Vis. 2:2.2-3), and the problems which he once had, perhaps arising from his old economic activities (Vis. 3:6.7; see also Man. 3:5), the shepherd connects with his neglect of his family and their transgressions (Vis. 2:3.1). Again, in Sim.
7:2 Hermas learns that the angel of punishment dwells in his house because of the sins of his family, Dibelius doubts whether these statements are references to Hermas' real family, and takes them, together with Hermas' other references to his household, as a fictional model constructed to convey theological notions of sin and repentance.88 He is correct that Hermas' references constitute a model for instruction, but their primary purpose is not to provide a theoretical lesson about sin and repentance, but to teach something about the responsibility of the Christian householder to keep his house in order.
Whether his statements about his family are fictional or not, their role is to exhort householders to ensure that members of their families refrain from sinning. And included among these sins is the insubordination of wives and children (Vis. 2:2.2-4). So, in Sim. 7 the shepherd's lesson concerning the punish-