(Socr. H. E. vi. ii; Soz. H. E. viii. 6; Pallad. p. 139). At the assembling of the synod of the Oak, a.d. 403, Heraclides was summoned to answer certain specified charges brought against him by Macarius, bp. of Magnesia, a bishop named Isaac, and a monk named John Among these charges was one of holding Origenizing views. The urgency with which the condemnation of Chrysostom was pressed forward retarded the suit against Heraclides which had come to no issue when his great master was deposed and banished. After Chrysostom's second and final exile in 404, Heraclides was his fellow-sufferer. He was deposed by the party in power, and put in prison at Nicomedia, where, when Palladius wrote, he had been already languishing for years. A eunuch who, according to Palladius, was stained with the grossest vices, was consecrated bp. of Ephesus in his room (Pallad. Dial. ed. Bigot. p. 139). On the ascription to this Heraclides of the Lausiac History of Palladius, under the name of Paradisus Heraclidis, see PALLADIUS (7); also Fabricius, Bibl. Graec. x. 117; Ceillier, vii. 487.
[E.V.]
Hermas (2). In the latter half of the 2nd cent. there was in circulation a book of visions and allegories, purporting to be written by one Hermas and commonly known as The Shepherd. This book was treated with respect bordering on that paid to the canonical Scriptures of N.T., and was publicly read in some churches. A passage from it is quoted by Irenaeus (iv. 20, p. 253) with the words, "Well said the Scripture," a fact which Eusebius notes (H. E. v. 8). Probably n the time of Irenaeus the work was publicly read in the Gallican churches. The mutilated commencement of the Stromateis of Clement of Alexandria opens in the middle of a quotation from The Shepherd, and about ten times elsewhere he cites the book, always with a complete acceptance of the reality and divine character of the revelations made to Hermas, but without suggesting who Hermas was or when he lived. Origen, who frequently cites the book (in Rom. xvi. 14, vol. iv. p. 683), considered it divinely inspired. He suggests, as do others after him, but apparently on no earlier authority, that it was written by the Hermas mentioned in Rom. xvi. 14. His other quotations shew that less favourable views of the book were current in his time. They are carefully separated from quotations from the canonical books, and he generally adds a saving clause, giving the reader permission to reject them; he speaks of it (in Matt. xix. 7, vol. iii. p. 644) as a book current in the church but not acknowledged by all, and (de Princ. iv. 11) as despised by some. Eusebius (iii. 25) places the book among the orthodox νόθα with the Acts of Paul, Revelation of Peter, Epistle of Barnabas, etc. Elsewhere (iii. 3), while unable to place it among the ὁμολογουμένα because rejected by some, he records its public use in churches and by some most eminent writers, and that it was judged by some most necessary for elementary instruction in the faith. Athanasius (Ep. Fest. 39, vol. i. pt. ii. p. 963) classes it with some of the deutero-canonical books of O.T. and with The Teaching of the Apostles as not canonical, but useful for catechetical instruction. It is found in the Sinaitic MS. following the Ep. of Barnabas, as an appendix to the N.T. After the 4th cent. it rapidly passed out of ecclesiastical use in the East.
The Western tradition deserves more attention, as internal evidence shews the book to have been composed at Rome. The MURATORIAN FRAGMENT on the Canon tells us that it had been written during the episcopate of Pius by his brother Hernias, a period which the writer speaks of as within then living memory. He concludes that the book ought to be read but not publicly in the church among the prophetic writings, the number of which was complete, nor among the apostolic. The statement that the book not only might but ought to be read is a high recognition of the value attributed to it by the writer, and we gather that at least in some places its use in church was then such as to lead some to regard it as on a level with the canonical Scriptures. Tertullian, in one of his earliest treatises, de Oratione, has a reference to its influence on the practice of churches which shews it to have enjoyed high authority at the time, an authority which Tertullian's argument does not dispute. It had probably been used in church reading and translated into Latin, since Tertullian describes it by the Latin title Pastor, and not by a Greek title, as he usually does in the case of Greek writings. Some ten years later, after Tertullian had become a Montanist, and the authority of The Shepherd is urged in behalf of readmitting adulterers to communion, he rejects the book as not counted worthy of inclusion in the canon, but placed by every council, even those of the Catholic party, among false and apocryphal writings (de Pudic. c. 10). Quoting Hebrews, he says that this is at least more received than that apocryphal Shepherd of the adulterers (c. 20). The phrase "more received" warns us to take cum grano Tertullian's assertion as to the universal rejection of The Shepherd; but doubtless the distinction between apostolic and later writings was then drawn more sharply, and in the interval between Tertullian's two writings The Shepherd may have been excluded from public reading in many churches which before had admitted it. The Liberian papal catalogue (probably here, as elsewhere, following the catalogue of Hippolytus) states that under the episcopate of Pius his brother Ermas wrote a book in which the commands and precepts were contained which the angel gave him when he came to him in the habit of a shepherd. Yet, while refusing to assign the book to apostolic times, it makes no doubt of the reality of the angelic appearance to Hermas. Later biographical notices of popes state that the message given to Hermas was that Easter should always be celebrated on a Sunday. These clearly shew that by then all knowledge of the book had been lost; and further notices shew a confusion between the name of Hermas and that of his book, which imply that the book was no longer in use. Jerome, when quoting Eusebius about the book (de Vir. Ill. 10, vol. ii. 845), adds that among the Latins it was almost unknown. He speaks contemptuously of it (in Habac. i. 14, vol. vi. 604), for it seems certain that the book of Hermas
