Abyssinian professor, which M. d'Abbadie describes as full of interest, both for the naiveté which it exhibits, and for the curious details of life and manners which it contains. Unhappily the author makes no secret of his unbelief. In stating his doubts as to all existing religions, he reduces his own personal belief to open deism. Another work (No. 234) by the same author, and perhaps another transcript, with some modifications, of No. 215, goes even farther, being, in the opinion of Père Juste d'Urbin, a profession of downright atheism. Instead, however, of pursuing farther these detailed notices of the catalogue, it will be more interesting to pass on to M. d'Abbadie's first published specimen of his collection--the Ethiopic version of the well known Pastor of Hermas. The MS. from which this treatise is printed is numbered 174 in the catalogue, and M. d'Abbadie, in the short notice of it there given, expresses the opinion that "so far as he had been able to examine it, it exhibits traces of being retranslated from an Arabic version." This opinion, however, after a fuller examination, he saw reason to doubt; and in the preface of the work as printed at Leipsig, he expressly recalls it, and declares himself satisfied that it is a direct version from the original into Ethiopic.t It will be necessary, in order to make the value of this Ethiopic version of the Shepherd fully understood, to enter at some length into the critical history of the work, prior to the discovery of this MS. The name of Hermas occurs among those to whom salutations are addressed by St. Paul, in the 16th chapter of his epistle to the Romans. The same name is again mentioned, as that of the author of a very ancient work which was known under the fanciful title of Pastor, and widely circulated in the Church before the time of St. Irenæus and Clement of Alexandria. Whether the Hermas of St. Paul be the writer of the Pastor, or whether that work is to be ascribed to a later Hermas, the brother. of Pope Pius I. about A. D. 150, has been a subject of controversy both in ancient and modern times. We shall return, before we close, to the consideration of this point, as it will be more convenient to continue the critical history of the work without interruption. Although undoubtedly of Greek original, it had only been known in the modern Church by a Latin translation, with the exception of some fragments of the Greek, which had been collected from the various authors by whom it had been quoted. Very recently, however, the curiosity of the learned was excited by the news that, among the Greek MSS. brought from Mount Athos by the (since that time) too notorious M. Simonides, was the long lost original of the Pastor of Hermas; and in the year 1856 the supposed original was printed at Leipzig. Very soon after its appearance, the cloud of doubt which has since darkened into distrust, began to gather around the sole voucher for the genuineness of the MS., and the edition of Leipzig met but little favour. In the following year, however, Dr. Dressel, in his edition of the Patres Apostolici, published for the first time, from an ancient Vatican MS. a new revision of the Latin version, which corresponded so closely with the reputed Greek original of Simonides, that Dressel thought himself warranted in printing that Greek text, in his edition, as the genuine original. On the other hand Dr. Tischendorf contended in an essay published soon afterwards, that the Greek of Simonides was not, and could not be, the original, but only a comparatively modern retranslation into Greek of one of the mediæval Latin versions. Between these two conflicting views opinion had remained divided. The controversy upon this question naturally lent a special interest to M. d'Abbadie's discovery of another version of the "Shepherd," written in a different language, and most probably from an entirely independent source. During the early years of his residence in Abyssinia, he had employed several copyists to transcribe for him every work of value which he found himself unable otherwise to procure; and in the month of September 1847, during the course of a visit to Mgr. Massayar, a zealous and learned missionary, then recently appointed bishop of the Gallan tribe, who had invited M. d'Abbadie, with the view of obtaining from him information and advice as to the habits and opinions of his new flock, he learned that a MS. with the name of Hermas was preserved in the library of the Monastery of Guindaguinde, a celebrated convent of the province of Agame near the Red Sea. In one of the memoranda contained in the collection of church-music which M. d'Abbadie describes in his catalogue. (No. 87), VOL. LI.-No. CI. 10 Hermas is mentioned by name; and the age of the author of these memoranda, St. Yared, an Ethiopic saint of the seventh century, gave to the work of Hermas great value in M. d'Abbadie's eyes. In ordinary circumstances there might have been difficulty in obtaining, from the monks of Guindaguinde, permission to examine or transcribe the MS.; but several of the then members of the community having been recently converted from their schism through the zeal and learning of M. d'Abbadie's friend, the excellent missionary, De Jacobis, were but too happy to give every facility for the purpose. The transcript was afterwards carefully compared with the original by a professor named Assagahan. It was not until after his return to Europe that M. d'Abbadie learned from Dr. Dillmann the value of the MS. and the special interest which it had even recently acquired in consequence of the controversy regarding the original to which we have been alluding. A few specimens of the Ethiopic version were made public in 1858 by Professor Anger, in the fourth volume of Gersdorf's Journal; and it was finally determined that the German Oriental Society should undertake the publication of the entire MS., M. d'Abbadie himself consenting not only to superintend the publication, but also to edit the volume. A fresh set of Ethiopic types has been cast expressly for the purpose, under his direction and after the model of the new types of the Imperial Printing Establishment; and the editor has added a careful Latin version, which he submitted before publication to the revision of Professor Dillmann. Such is the history of this publication. In order to explain its bearing on the controversy regarding the Greek original of the "Shepherd," we must briefly revert to a point before alluded to, namely the doubt which exists as to the age and authorship of the work itself. The most common opinion, and that which advances the greatest show, to say the least, of ancient authority, ascribes it to the Hermas of St. Paul; but more recent authorities have made a strong case in favour of the authorship of Hermas, the brother of Pope Pius I., who lived about the middle of the second century. In favour of the former opinion it is argued, that several very early authorities;-as Origen, in his explanation of the passage in St. Paul to the Romans, which conveys his greeting to Hermas; Eusebius in his Ecclesiastical History; and St. Jerome in his Catalogue of Ecclesiastical Writers; all speak of this Hermas as the reputed author of "the Shepherd." And it is further added that St. Irenæus and Clement of Alexandria, although they do not name the author, yet speak in such terms of reverence of the book-regarding it in truth as little short of canonical authority-as can only be explained by the supposition that they held it to be of quasi-apostolic origin. The author himself, moreover, speaks of Clement (evidently of Rome) as a contemporary.* It must be confessed, however, that not one of these authorities, although naming Hermas, can be said positively and absolutely to attribute the book to him as author. Origent merely says that he "thinks" him to be the author: Eusebiust only refers to him as the person "whom they say to be" the author; St. Jerome, in naming him as such, adds the qualifying words, "as they assert. On the other hand, several arguments both from extrinsic authority and from the tenor and contents of the work itself, are alleged in favour of the authorship of the later Hermas, the brother of Pius I. A fragment of a very early treatise discovered and published by Muratori, and by him ascribed with every appearance of probability to the Roman presbyter Caius, (about A. D. 200) expressly and circumstantially describes the book as (nuperrimé) "quite recently written by Hermas, while his brother Pius sat as bishop in the See of the Roman city." The poem against Marcion, too, which is attributed to Tertullian, and which, though it certainly is not Tertullian's, is nevertheless of that age, is equally explicit and positive. Post hunc deinde Pius, Hermas cui germine frater, The Liber Pontificalis also contains a similar statement: and it would even appear that Hermas, St. Pius's brother, was himself called, from the reputed authorship of this book, by the name of Pastor, as synonymous with his own. But the arguments from the scope and tenor of the * Visio. ii. c. iv. + Explan. in Ep. ad Rom. c. xvi. v. 14. Histor. Eccles. Lib. iii. c. 3. Catal. Script. Eccles. c. 10. "Shepherd" appear to us to tell even more forcibly. No one can read it without feeling that the writer has in his mind the Montanist heresy, and that his book, in very many of its parts, is formally addressed to the refutation of this heresy. It is impossible to understand in any other sense the strong assertion of the remissibility of all sins (Vis. ii. c. 2); of the lawfulness of second marriages (Mandat. iv. c. 1;) and we cannot help fancying that in this very circumstance is to be found the explanation of the virulence with which Tertullian, in one of his Montanistic tracts,* assails the "Shepherd" for its patronage of adultery-that is to say, according to the exaggerated Montanistic view on which Tertullian insists, of second marriage. Nor is much weight to be attached to the argument founded upon the writer's allusion (Vis. ii. c. 4) to Clement of Rome, as living and governing the Roman church at the time when the Shepherd is supposed to address Hermas. This would, in any case, have been a necessary ingredient in the design which we must in this hypothesis ascribe to him, of publishing his book as the production, and under the name, of his namesake of the apostolic time. Möllert ingeniously endeavours to reconcile both opinions by supposing that the book was really written by the Pauline Hermas in Greek, and that it came to be attributed in Rome to the later Hermas, from the fact that he translated it into Latin. Unfortunately, however, this hypothesis, besides that, like most middle opinions, it involves most of the difficulties of both the opinions which it seeks to reconcile, has no ancient authority whatever. It is a purely arbitrary supposition, unsupported either by evidence or by historical testimony. But, reverting to the bearing which this Ethiopic version has on the question as to the genuineness of the Greek text of Simonides, we cannot venture to speak authoritatively, as our judgment must rest on an examination, not of the ori ginal Ethiopic, but of M. d'Abbadie's Latin rendering of that version. But the learned Ethiopic scholar to whom we owe the able notice in the Göttingen Journal, unhesitatingly declares that the Ethiopic version bears all the appearance of being translated from a Greek text closely De Pudicitia, c. 10. † Patrologie, p. 99. |