Hermas
2nd century Roman freedman and writer
b. 1st millennium · d. 1st millennium
Hermas was a freedman and Christian born in Aquileia, who lived in Ancient Rome. He was a brother of Pius, Bishop of Rome about the middle of the 2nd century. His father was an Italian called Rufinus, and according to the Liber Pontificalis was also a native of Aquileia. Some later writers identify him as Hermas of Dalmatia, mentioned in Romans 16:14. Hermas the freedman was the character and, by some assessments, the author of the work titled The Shepherd of Hermas, which, in the early Church, was sometimes classed among the canonical Scriptures.
Related people
- Pius I sibling of · traditional
Works
- The Shepherd of Hermas c. 140–155
Events
Places
- Aquileia birth
How we know
Recorded as a historical figure.
- The Canon of the New Testament 1 claim — Hermas writes the Shepherd at Rome
Glosses
- The two Hermases Jerome, listing the writers of the church, says the Shepherd was written by the Hermas whom Paul greets in Romans 16:14 — which would make its author a contemporary of the apostles and put the book in the first…