St. Hermas

A shepherd who stayed with his people through hard times.

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May 9 · Bishop

St. Hermas

St. Hermas

A shepherd who stayed with his people through hard times.

Traditional feast

May 9
1914 / pre-1969 calendar, per Baring-Gould (1897)

Current feast

Not verified yet

Represents

Bishop

Their story

Adapted in modern English from Alban Butler's Lives of the Saints · little is known

Hermas was a Christian of standing in Rome whom St Paul greets in his Letter to the Romans (16:14).

Origen thought he wrote the early Christian book called The Shepherd. Butler thinks that book is more likely the work of a later Hermas and notes that scholars dated it anywhere from before 95 to about 142. In The Shepherd an angel, appearing as a shepherd, instructs the author. The book has three parts: Visions, Commandments and Parables.

Early life

The book says little or nothing about early life. This is how the account begins.

Thin entry · the 1897 book gives only 0 words. We have not filled the gap with invented detail.

What they represent

How they teach us to live

Drawn from themes in the original account

Learn from the kind of life it was. A shepherd who stayed with his people through hard times.

Keep their day. Remember them on May 9 with a short prayer, and ask for their help.

Read more

The full original · 0 words

Read Baring-Gould’s full account

Baring-Gould’s sources: Roman Martyrology, CJsuardus, &c. By the Greeks on March 8th. J HNT HERMAS is mentioned by S. Paul in his Epistle to the Romans (xvi. 14). In the Menology of the Emperor Basil he is said to have been consecrated bishop of Philippi. The ancient writers of the Church attribute to him the book called “ The Shepherd,” which is one of the earliest Christian, not canonical works, of the apostolic age that we possess. Origen says, “ I believe that it was this Hermas who wrote the Pastor.” 1 With this agrees the testimony of Eusebius,3 and of S. Jerome.3 Nevertheless the justice of this conclusion has been much shaken by the discovery of an ancient fragment containing a list of canonical books in use by the Roman Church, composed towards the end of the 2nd century, and published by Muratori, in which it is stated that Hermas was the brother of Pope Pius I., who reigned between 140 and 152. “This book of Hermas, brother of Pope Pius, has been published recently in our days.” 4 1 Com. in Ep. ad Rom. xvi. 14.

Feast days

Feast: May 9

Nine days · Free

Pray the novena
with us.

One short email a day for nine days. The day's prayer, a line from St. Hermas's story, and a nudge to keep going.

Also on May 9
G

St. Gregory Nazianzen

May 9 · Bishop, Deacon
St. Beatus

St. Beatus

May 9 · Hermit
← All 1726 saints in the library
Sources & notes

Feast-day sources

Story sources

Sources

Credits

Image: Canon Muratori.png · Samuel Prideaux Tregelles · Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

From Sabine Baring-Gould, The Lives of the Saints, new edition in 16 vols. (London: John C. Nimmo, 1897–98); text from the Internet Archive scan (OCR, lightly cleaned; errors possible). Public domain.

Image: Samuel Prideaux Tregelles, Wikimedia Commons (Public domain)

From Sabine Baring-Gould, The Lives of the Saints, new edition in 16 vols. (London: John C. Nimmo, 1897–98); text from the Internet Archive scan (OCR, lightly cleaned; errors possible). Public domain in the United States. Reproduced unedited, except for short bracketed notes in grey that we added to explain names and terms (“S.” is the old abbreviation for Saint). Some history and judgments reflect 19th-century scholarship.