The Christology of the Shepherd of Hermas (Paperback) (ISBN-13: 9781950831166)

This work seeks to investigate the shape of early Christianity in The Shepherd of Hermas as a part of the earliest extant writings outside the New Testament and before the rise of dogmatic and apologetic writings. The Shepherd of Hermas is important for assessing the views of the early church on Christology, as the work was once considered part of the canon by some major Christian early theologians. This research will analyze the supposed Christological texts in the light of their background, context and scholarly views, in order to understand its Christological strand. Taking the history of its transmission and the textual problems in consideration, plus a lack of systematic unity in the Shepherd of Hermas' Christology-a spirit/wisdom/nomos/angel Christology can all be found-suggests that there are different sources behind the work and, perhaps different authors in different periods of time.