Hermas was a freedman and Christian, who lived in Ancient Rome. He was a brother of Pius, Bishop of Rome about the middle of the 2nd century. Some later writers identify him as Hermas of Dalmatia, mentioned in. 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.

Relationship to Pius I

There are three sources indicating Hermas was the brother of Pius I: The statement that Hermas wrote during his brother's Pius pontificate may similarly be an inference from the fact that it was in a list of popes, against the name of Pius, that the writer found the information that Hermas was that pope's brother. He may have been an elder brother of the pope.

The Shepherd

The Shepherd has been viewed as an allegory, similar to Pilgrim's Progress. Apparent autobiographical points "...may be fact, or pure fiction, or fiction founded upon fact." It is not even certain that the writer's name was really Hermas.

Butler's account

The hagiographer Alban Butler (1710–1773) wrote in his Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Other Principal Saints under May 9, "St. Hermas was a Christian of distinction in Rome, whom St. Paul salutes. Origen believes him to have been the author of the book entitled Pastor, and certain modern writers fall in with this conjecture. But that seems rather to have been the work of a later Hermas. Some, indeed, with Tillemont, Ceillier, &c. conclude from the contents, that it was compiled before the persecution of Domitian in 95: but Du Guet, and others think it was only written about the year 142, against the Montanists and their false prophets. It is quoted by St. Clement of Alexandria, Origen, Tertullian, Eusebius, St. Jerom, &c. It is divided into three books; the first contains revelations; the second precepts; and the third similitudes, which resemble the revelations of the first. The author entitles his work Pastor, or the Shepherd, from the angel his monitor, who assumed the appearance of a shepherd, and whose dictates he professes to write. He assigns to every one not only an angel guardian, but also a devil who is his tempter; he recommends prayers, alms-deeds, and other good works on fast days: mentions a state of continency with approbation; says that penance, which is followed by frequent relapses, is generally fruitless. Bishop Wake published an English translation of this work, together with the epistles of St. Clemens, St. Barnabas, St. Ignatius, and St. Polycarp, in 1693, and republished the same in 1710."

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