- tures the Codex Sinaiticus, where it is honoured by being
placed at the end of the canonical writings.
But it is as an historical piece of evidence respecting the continued persecutions which vexed the early Church, without any period of cessation, that the work is quoted here. The Shepherd is full of references to this state of things. Renan L'Église Chrétienne) describes this book in his picturesque vivid imagery as "issuing from a bath of blood." Lightfoot speaks of it as "haunted in large parts by this ghastly spectre of persecution." The writer specially alludes to this harrying of the Christian sect in the past, and says that it was likely to continue in the future.
Hermas, in his unique and interesting work, says nothing about the Jewish foes of the Church, and his allusions to the pagans around him are very few. The work may be said to deal exclusively with the inner life of the Roman congregations. On the whole he pictures the life led by the followers of Jesus as fairly satisfactory and good, harassed though it was, but there were many things constantly appearing and reappearing in that life which needed amendment. He dwells with more or less detail on differences, quarrels, bitterness, which arose among themselves, and which too often disfigured and marred the beautiful Christian ideals.
But after all, in Hermas' evidently faithful and accurate pictures of the Christian congregations in Rome, the point he dwells on with the greatest emphasis is their behaviour in those ever-recurring trials of their faith to which they were constantly exposed through the sleepless, restless ill-will of the Government. Whether the writing dates from circa 140, when Hadrian was reigning, or in part from the last years of the first century in the days of Trajan, it is evident that the position of the Christian community was ever most precarious.
The rescripts of Trajan and Hadrian somewhat softened the stern measures, but before and even after these humane and statesmanlike regulations the position of the Christian was indeed a trying and painful one. For even after the issuing of the rescripts in question the sword ever hung over their heads, and the slender thread upon which it hung was often snapped.
