56 Elucidations. I. The reader has now had an opportunity of judging for himself whether the internal evidence favours any other view of the authorship of The Shepherd, than that which I have adopted. Its apparent design is to meet the rising pestilence of Montanism, and the perils of a secondary stage of Christianity. This it attempts to do by an imaginary voice from the first period. Avoiding controversy, Hermas presents, in the name of his earlier synonyme, a portraiture of the morals and practical godliness which were recognised as “the way of holiness” in the apostolic days. In so doing, he falls into anachronisms, of course, as poets and romancers must. These are sufficiently numerous to reveal the nature of his production, and to prove that the author was not the Hermas of the story. The authorship was a puzzle and a problem during the earlier discussions of the learned. An anonymous poem (falsely ascribed to Tertullian, but very ancient) did, indeed, give a clue to the solution:— “—deinde Pius, Hermas cui germine frater, Angelicus Pastor, quia tradita verba locutus.” To say that there was no evidence to sustain this, is to grant that it doubles the evidence when sufficient support for it is discovered. This was supplied by the fragment found in Milan, by the erudite and indefatigable Muratori, about a hundred and fifty years ago. Its history, with very valuable notes on the fragment itself, which is given entire, may be found in Routh’s Reliquiæ.410 Or the English reader may consult Westcott’s very luminous state- ment of the case.411 I am sorry that Dr. Donaldson doubts and objects; but he would not deny that experts, at least his equals,412 accept the Muratorian Canon, which carries with it the historic testimony needed in the case of Hermas. All difficulties disappear in the light of this evidence. Hermas was brother of Pius, ninth Bishop of Rome (after Hyginus, circ. a.d. 157), and wrote his prose idyl under the fiction of his Pauline predecessor’s name and age. This accounts (1) for the existence of the work, (2) for its form of allegory and proph- esying, (3) for its anachronisms, (4) for its great currency, and (5) for its circulation among the Easterns, which was greater than it enjoyed in the West; and also (6) for their innocent mistake in ascribing it to the elder Hermas. 410 Tom. i. pp. 393–434. 411 On the Canon, p. 235. Ed. 1855. 412 Such as Lightfoot, Westcott, Canon Cook, and others. Elucidations 112 Elucidations