c. The prophetical writing known to us as =Pastor Hermæ [Hermas]=,[59] which was first erroneously attributed by Origen to Hermas the scholar of Paul at Rome (Rom. xvi. 14), was so highly esteemed in the ancient church that it was used in public like the canonical books of the New Testament. Irenæus quotes it as holy scripture; Clement and Origen regarded it as inspired, and the African church of the 3rd century included it in the New Testament canon. On the other hand, the Muratorian canon (§ 36, 8) had already ranked it among the Apocrypha that might be used in private but not in public worship. The book owes its title to the circumstance that in it an angel appears in the form of a shepherd instructing Hermas. It contains four visions, in which the church, which πάντων πρώτη ἐκτίσθη, appears to the author as an old woman giving instruction (πρεσβυτέρα); it contains also twelve _Mandata_ of the angel, and finally, ten _Similitudines_ or parables. The Gentile-Christian origin of the author is shown by the position which he assigns to the church as coeval with the creation of the world and as at first embracing all mankind. The sending of the Son of God into the world has for its end not the founding but only the renewing and perfecting of the church, and the twelve tribes to which the Apostles were to preach the gospel are “the twelve peoples who dwell on the whole earth” (comp. Deut. xxxii. 8). In all the three parts the book takes the form of a continuous earnest call to repentance in view of the early coming again of Christ, dominated throughout by that same legalistic conception of the Gospel that we meet with in the discourse of Clement. Indeed this is more fully carried out, for it teaches that the true penitent is able not only to live a perfectly righteous life, but also in good works, such as fasts, alms, etc., to do more than fulfil the commands of God, and in this way to win for himself a higher measure of the divine favour and eternal blessedness. In Hermas we find no trace of any application of the doctrine of the Logos to the person of Christ, and the ideas of the Son of God and the Holy Spirit are confused with one another. The Son of God as the Holy Spirit is προγενέστερος πάσης τῆς κτίσεως; at His suggestion and by His means God created the world; through Him He bears, sustains, and upholds it; and by Him He redeems it by means of His incarnation, for the Son of God as the Holy Spirit descends upon the man Jesus in His baptism. From its prophetical utterances, its eager expectation of the early return of the Lord, and its promises of a new outpouring of the Spirit for the