4. E'n with these words His "I," saith he, "am the shepherd, aspect changed, and unto whom thou wast delivered." straightway, in the twinkling While he was speaking, of an eye, all things were his form was changed, and I opened to me, and I see a recognized him as being the same, Vision limitless, etc. to whom I was delivered.[253] 253: For the Greek text of both passages see "Poimandres," pp. 11, 12; and for the translation see Mead: _Op. cit._, ii, pp. 3, 4, and Lightfoot: "Apostolic Fathers," p. 421. The decisive thing in the comparison is said to be not the change of form nor the assurance that the revealing spirit would always be with the prophet, "but that he revealed himself, to the heathen as the Shepherd of men (_Menschenhirten_), to the Christian as the Shepherd of this man."[254] The comparison leads Reitzenstein to the twofold conclusion that the "Shepherd" of Hermas has taken over awkwardly a type foreign to Christian revelation literature, and that "the Christian borrowed that description of the shepherd from an originally fuller text."[255] 254: "Poimandres," p. 12. 255: _Ibid._, pp. 13, 32. The argument for borrowing is obviously weakened by the admission that Hermas did not borrow from the extant "Poimandres" but from an assumed earlier form of the text; and, further, it is by no means clear why the figure of the shepherd, familiar in the Old Testament and in the Gospel parables, should be a foreign type in Christian literature. Nor is the case materially strengthened by the argument that a later mention of a mountain in Arcadia, in the "Shepherd," implies an acquaintance with the "Poimandres" where no mention of Arcadia, but simply of descent from a mountain, is made. It is admitted that the leading up upon a mountain is a current form of Christian literature, but it is said that "the exact choice of Arcadia is more than surprising, since the author lived in Rome, and besides saw his visions at Rome or Cumæ."[256] 256: "Poimandres," p. 33. It seems unnecessary to guess with Zahn that "Arikia" should be read instead of "Arkadia," or to assume that Hermas was a native of Arcadia, or had a book of travels in his hands, or that he was thinking of Hermes or the Hermetic writings. The literary tradition connecting Arcadia with shepherds and with pastoral poetry was in itself enough, as Vergil's "Eclogues" may suggest. It is admitted that Hermas was a literary man even if "a man of the people," and what more natural place for a shepherd to appear, if it was to be upon a mountain, than a mountain in Arcadia? Shepherds have suggested Arcadia from the time of Vergil to that of Sir Philip Sydney, and Vergil, in breaking away from the Sicily of Theocritus, was quite probably following a tradition already established at Rome.