People generally think of the Bible as a book containing a fixed number of texts within its pages: 24 books in the Jewish version of the Bible; 66 for Protestants; 73 for Catholics; 81 if you are Ethiopian Orthodox.
In contrast, writings that are not in the Bible are often called “apocryphal,” a Greek term that refers to things that are hidden or secret. There is hundreds of Jewish and Christian apocryphal texts which, for one reason or another, were not included in the different versions of the Bible. Some have simply fallen into disuse. Some caused theological headaches for Jews or later Christians, and some were rejected because of their authorship – because they were not supposed to have been written by an apostle, for example. (When used with a capital “A”, the apocrypha refers to a handful of books included in the Catholic and Orthodox versions of the Old Testament, but not to most Protestant books.)
Just because a text has been deemed apocryphal does not mean it was unpopular or lacked influence. Many texts that today are considered unimportant or unbiblical were once considered central. Like a specialist in early Christianitysome of my research focuses on what was once a widely read text, but one that most people have never heard of today: The Shepherd of Hermas.
Enslaved to God
The Shepherd of Hermas was written between 70 CE and 140 CE and takes place on the road between Rome and Naples. Hermas, presented as the author and narrator of the text, repeatedly encounters two divine figures called the Church and the Shepherd, who give him commandments and visions that he is instructed to share with other believers.
The Shepherd is a large text – 114 chapters – and substantial parts describe a vision of a tower under construction. The tower represents the church itself, as understood by all of Jesus’ disciples, built with stones that represent different types of believers. Some fit perfectly, others need to be remodeled or recolored, and some are rejected outright. For example, stones depicting wealthy people or businessmen are urged to repent, while hospitable people are depicted as being rightly shaped.
Christian art, like this 3rd century Coptic piece, has long used the metaphor of the shepherd to describe Jesus and spiritual care. (CM Dixon/Heritage Images/Getty Images)
Other parts of the text focus on how believers should manage their emotions, how to act ethically in the world, and how to obey God’s will. The shepherd encourages self-control and fear of God, trying to instill obedience and avoid letting emotions like fear or doubt take over believers.
My own research on the Shepherd focuses on how the text describes believers as slaves of God, as is also the case in other early Christian writings. The author imagines that God’s holy spirit is able to enter and possess the bodies of faithful believers, causing them to do what God wants.
Notably, characters like Jesus and the apostles are virtually absent from The Shepherd. Instead, readers find the story of an otherwise unknown slave named Hermas who has visions and speaks with divine beings in the Italian countryside. Hermas is depicted as a believer who doubts his own ability to accomplish what these two divine figures, the Church and the Pastor, expect of him, everywhere lamenting how difficult it is to follow God’s commandments.
“Useful for the soul”
Given that The Shepherd is a long, rambling text that does not explicitly mention Jesus, one might assume that it was read by only a small number of early Christian theologians. However, this is not the case.
The Shepherd became one of the most popular texts among Christians during the first five centuries CE. Even today, there is more surviving manuscripts of the Shepherd of Antiquity than of any text of the New Testament, with the exception of the Gospels of Matthew and John.
Pages from Codex Sinaiticus, the world’s oldest Christian Bible, displayed on a laptop in Westminster Cathedral, London, in 2009. (Leon Neal/AFP via Getty Images)
The visions have been translated from Greek into Latin, Coptic, Ethiopic, Arabic and Georgian. Eventually the text spread as far west as Ireland and east to China.
The Shepherd is even included in what scholars consider to be one of the oldest and most complete Bibles in the world. Canonical Christian Bibles today end with Revelation, a dramatic book of apocalyptic visions. THE Codex SinaiticusHowever, a fourth or fifth century manuscript, now in the British Library, ends with the Shepherd. The inclusion of the text in such an expensive and luxurious codex highlights the importance of the text to many Christians, even as the contents of the New Testament were being consolidated.
A lot important Christian writers of the fourth and fifth centuries explain how Shepherding is an important instruction for new Christians, whether or not it is considered part of the formal Bible.
Even figures who did not include the Shepherd in the New Testament texts thought he was too important to leave out. The book was too important to ignore, but too strange to be considered biblical: it was part of an intermediate category that the biblical scholar François Bovon called “useful for the soul.”
An open Bible
As the Shepherd helps to demonstrate, whether a religious text is included or excluded from the Bible is not necessarily an indicator of its popularity or importance.
While scholars often lament that The Shepherd is boring, pedantic, or overly long, its style probably made it ideal teaching material for early Christians. Esoteric texts that required deeper philosophical knowledge, such as the Gospel of Truth or the Gospel of Judas, might have been ideal for some Christians with access to more education. But texts that make small statements – like “think not of another man’s wife” (Shepherd 29:1), “get rid of sorrow” (Shepherd 40:1), or “believe that God is one” (Shepherd 26:1) – are easier for readers to take away and apply to the daily decisions of their lives.
The word “canon,” referring to texts that gain official approval, comes from a Greek word meaning “measuring stick”: which books “measure up?” » In religious communities, the notion of “canonical texts” can be particularly restrictive, because it determines what believers can and cannot read or believe.
Apocryphal literature, however, allows us to see that this was not always the case: ancient Christians did not think they were connected to the same specific set of stories that churches focus on today. today. The long history of reading the apocrypha shows how some Christians have always been interested in reading the “Bible with the back cover torn off» – continually explore religious ideas.
(Chance Bonar, postdoctoral researcher, Center for the Humanities, Tufts University. The views expressed in this commentary do not necessarily reflect those of Religion News Service.)
