Experiencing the Shepherd of Hermas Ekstasis Religious Experience From Antiquity to the Middle Ages Edited by John R. Levison Editorial Board David Aune, Jan Bremmer, John Collins, Dyan Elliott, Amy Hollywood, Sarah Iles Johnston, Gabor Klaniczay, Paulo Nogueira, Christopher Rowland, and Elliot R. Wolfson Volume 10 Experiencing the Shepherd of Hermas Edited by Angela Kim Harkins and Harry O. Maier ISBN 978-3-11-077954-7 e-ISBN (PDF) 978-3-11-078074-1 e-ISBN (EPUB) 978-3-11-078075-8 ISSN 1865-8792 Library of Congress Control Number: 2022931827 Bibliographic Information published by the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek The Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche Nationalbibliografie; Detailed bibliographic data are available in the Internet at http://dnb.dnb.de. © 2022 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston Printing and binding: CPI books GmbH, Leck www.degruyter.com Acknowledgements ThisvolumebeganasasessionattheannualmeetingoftheSocietyofBiblical Literature(SBL) in2018,jointlyhostedbytheReligiousExperienceinAntiquity programunitandtheInventingChristianityprogramunit.Wearegratefultothe chairs of those SBL program units—Fred Tappenden and Catherine Playoust of the Religious Experience in Antiquity, and Paul Middleton and Taylor G. Petrey oftheInventingChristianityprogramunits—foragreeingtohostthissessionon Experiencing the Shepherd of Hermas.We wish to also acknowledge the assis- tance of Sheila Boll, Hayden Cowart, and Alexander Klee for their careful work on the formatting of notes and bibliography, and to Alice Meroz and the staffatDeGruyterfortheirinvaluablehelp.Finally,wearegratefultotheseries editor, Jack Levison, and to Albrecht Doehnert at De Gruyter for accepting this volume into the Ekstasis series. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110780741-001 Abbreviations AGJU ArbeitenzurGeschichtedesantikenJudentumsunddesUrchristentums AGSU ArbeitenzurGeschichtedesSpätjudentumsundUrchristentums AJEC AncientJudaismandEarlyChristianity APF ArchivfürPapyrusforschung ANRW AufstiegundNiedergangderrömischenWelt ARA AnnualReviewofAnthropology ASE AnnalidiStoriadell’Esegesi BETL BibliothecaEphemeridumTheologicarumLovaniensium Bib Biblica BibInt BiblicalInterpretation BMSSEC Baylor-MohrSiebeckStudiesinEarlyChristianity CBQ CatholicBiblicalQuarterly ConBOT ConiectaneaBiblica:OldTestamentSeries CQ ChurchQuarterly CRINT CompendiaRerumIudaicarumadNovumTestamentum ECL EarlyChristianityanditsLiterature ETL EphemeridesTheologicaeLovanienses ExpTim ExpositoryTimes FAT ForschungenzumAltenTestament FRLANT ForschungenzurReligionundLiteraturdesAltenundNeuenTestaments GCS DiegriechischenchristlichenSchriftstellerderersten[drei]Jahrhunderte HABES HeidelbergeralthistorischeBeiträgeundepigraphischeStudien HNT HandbuchzumNeuenTestament HTR HarvardTheologicalReview JBL JournalofBiblicalLiterature JCT JewishandChristianTexts JECS JournalofEarlyChristianStudies JHS JournalofHellenicStudies JR JournalofReligion JRAI JournaloftheRoyalAnthropologicalInstitute JSJ JournalfortheStudyofJudaism JSNT JournalfortheStudyoftheNewTestament JSPSup JournalfortheStudyofthePseudepigraphaSupplementSeries JTS JournalofTheologicalStudies KAV KommentarzudenApostolischenVätern LCL LoebClassicalLibrary MTSR Method&TheoryintheStudyofReligion Neot Neotestamentica NHC NagHammadiCodices NovTSup SupplementstoNovumTestamentum NTOA NovumTestamentumetOrbisAntiquus NTS NewTestamentStudies https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110780741-002 VIII Abbreviations ODCC OxfordDictionaryoftheChristianChurch PTS PatristischeTexteundStudien RThom Revuethomiste SBL SocietyofBiblicalLiterature SBLEJL SocietyofBiblicalLiterature:EarlyJudaismanditsLiterature SBLSP SocietyofBiblicalLiteratureSeminarPapers SCO Studyclassicieorientali SNTSMS SocietyforNewTestamentStudiesMonographSeries ST StudiaTheologica STAC StudienundTextezuAntikeundChristentum SVTP StudiainVeterisTestamentiPseudepigrapha SymS SocietyofBiblicalLiteratureSymposiumSeries TDNT TheologicalDictionaryoftheNewTestament.EditedbyGerhardKittel,GerhardFrie- drich,andGeoffreyWilliamBromiley.GrandRapids,MI:W.B.Eerdmans,1985. TENTS TextsandEditionsforNewTestamentStudy ThH Théologiehistorique TU TexteunUntersuchungen VC VigiliaeChristianae VCSup SupplementstoVigiliaeChristianae WUNT WissenschaftlicheUntersuchungenzumNeuenTestament ZAC ZeitschriftfürantikesChristentum ZNW ZeitschriftfürdieneutestamentlicheWissenschaftunddieKundederälterenKirche ZPE ZeitschriftfürPapyrologieundEpigraphik Foreword AmongthewritingstohavecomedowntousfromChristianantiquity,theShep- herd of Hermas is by all accounts a strange and most enigmatic text—strange and enigmatic, that is, to modern scholarship,which has been poring over its pages only to find what Robert J. Hauck described as the “many puzzles in this puzzling little book.”¹ Some of the greatest intellects of the early Christian Church, such as Irenaeus of Lyon or the Alexandrians Clement and Origen, as well as many others after them, read the very same book with close attention and regarded it as an important catechetical and mystagogical work of great use to God-seekers. Indeed, if there is anything puzzling about the Shepherd, it is the fact that this text never scandalized the doctrinal certainties of its con- temporaries or later orthodoxy. Perhaps our comprehension of texts such as the Shepherd is hampered by the undeniablediscontinuitybetweentheimpliedreadersofmuchofearlyChristian literature,andtheactualonesinacademia.TheShepherdhashighexpectations ofitsreaders,someofwhichareareincomprehensible,unreasonable,orimpos- sible for scholars.When Hermas isgiven a booklet to read and copy, and finds that he can onlydecipher and copyeach letter in turn,unable tomakeout syl- lablesandutterlyfrustratedinhisattempttoreadandunderstand,hissolution is the following: “Fifteen days later, after I had fasted and earnestly asked the Lord, the meaning of the writing was revealed to me” (Vis. 2.2 [6.1]);When he has difficulty makingsense of the parables, he addressesthe angelusinterpres: “IdonotunderstandnoramIabletocomprehendtheseparablesunlessyouex- plain them to me” (Sim. 5.3 [56.1]). Needless to say, becoming existentially in- volvedinthetext,undergoingspiritualconversion,andexercisingoneselfasceti- cally is not what the guild of Early Christian Studies is set up to do. While the Shepherd claims to bear witness to divine revelation, a scholarly approach toancienttextsisbydefinitiononethatmaintainsacriticaldistancetothetext. Thestudyofvisionaryexperiencesisoneareawheretheacademyhasshiftedin thepastfiftyyears.AdistinguishedexpertofJewishapocalypticliterature,such as Michael Stone,who insists, in some of his seminal essays—“Apocalyptic,Vi- sion, or Hallucination?” (1974), “On Reading an Apocalypse” (1989), and “A  RobertJ.Hauck,“TheGreatFast:ChristologyintheShepherdofHermas,”AnglicanTheolog- icalReview75(1993):187–98,187. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110780741-003