Frauds and Follies of the Fathers (Paperback)

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: FRAUDS AND FOLLIES OF THE FATHERS. CT. IML. Hermas. The " Pastor " of Hermas, the editors of the Ante Niccne Christian Libra/ry inform us in their Introductory notice (vol. I., p. 319), was one of the most popular books, if not the most popular book, in the Christian Church during the second, third, and fourth centuries. W. Osburn, in his "Doctrinal Errors of the Early Eathers," p. 35, 1835, declares ? with much show of reason ? it is "the silliest book that ever exercised an influence over the human understanding." This gives a sufficient gauge of the value of the judgment of those centuries. As with all other early Christian writings, with the exception of some of the epistles of Paul, much doubt exists as to its author. The earliest opinion was that it was the production of the Hermas who is saluted by Paul in his Epistle to the Romans xiv., 14. Origen, in his commentary on the Romans (bk. x., 31), states this opinion distinctly, and it is repeated by the ecclesiastical historian Euse- bius (iii., 3.,), and by Jerome in his work against heresies (iv., 20, 2). There is an early .(Ethiopia version of Hermas which contains the curiously bold figment that it was written by the Apostle Paul himself, under the title of "Hermes," which name, as stated in the twelfth verse of the fourteenth chapter of the Acts of the Apostles, was bestowed upon him by the inhabitants of Lystra. The Muratorian fragment on the Canon, however (the authorship of which is unknown, but which may plausibly be dated about the year 200,) asserts that "The 'Pastor' was written very lately in our times, in the city of Rome, by Hermas, while Bishop Pius, his brother, sat in the chair of the church of the city of Rome " (i.e., 142 ? 157 A.c.), and the best modern authorities since the time of Mosheim in...