Vision 2.4 of The Shepherd of Hermas reads thusly:
1/ While I slept a revelation came to me, brothers and sisters, from a handsome young man who said to me: “The elder lady from whom you received the little book—who do you think she is?” I answered: “The sybil.” Wrong, he said. “that is not who she is.” “Then who is she?” I asked. “The church,” he said. I said to him: “Then why is she elderly?” “Because,” he said, “she was created before everything. That is why she is elderly, and for her the world was established.” (Carolyn Osiek, Shepherd of Hermas: A Commentary [Hermeneia; Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1999], 58)
On the antiquity of the church, one that predates its earthly establishment, Osiek writes that , in the author’s ecclesiology, it is “created before everything else, and therefore elderly. Her primeval creation as end of all other creation is a wisdom motif already adapted to Jewish purposes, and the personification of Israel, Jerusalem, or the church as a woman already established” (Ibid., 58).
Elsewhere, in the same vision, we read:
2/ Later, I saw a vision in my house. The elder lady came and asked me if I had already given the book to the elders. I replied that I had not. “You have done well,” she said. “I have words to add. When I have finished them all, they will be communicated through you to all the elect. 3/ So you will write two little books and send one to Clement and one to Grapte. Clement will send his to the other cities, for he is charged with this responsibility. Grapte will admonish the widows and orphans. But you will read it in this city with the presbyters who preside in the church.” (Ibid.)
Commenting on the above passage’s ecclesiology, as well as implications for 1 Clement and whether the Church at Rome at a monarchical episcopacy at the time Hermas wrote, Osiek notes:
The next vision has a place but not a time marker; it happens not out in the open like the first two, but in private, in his house. The woman church indicates that the message is not complete, yet she does not add anything on the spot. The revelation will therefore remain free-flowing, added to from time to time. Her previous nudges in the direction of Hermas’ duty to communicate the message (1.3; 2.3-4, 6; 3.6 above) now become quite specifically localized.
The debate has raged among scholars about this Clement: is he or is he not Clement of Rome, author of 1 Clement? Even if the two figures are identical, that does nothing to establish a monarchical episcopate at Rome at this early date; the end of v. 3 is very clear about Church government (Eusebius’ identification of Clement as bishop of Rome from 93 CE is anachronistic [Hist. eccl, 3.15, 34). Even if there were a single bishop in Rome at this time—though all evidence is to the contrary—sending someone else’s letter to other churches would hardly be his task. The reference is more likely to the church secretary, perhaps a deacon. The figure of Clement was powerful enough in the early tradition to establish a long literary connection: not only 1 Clement, but 2 Clement, the Clementine Romances, and the Recognitions. Through the writing of 1 Clement is generally dated to the 90s of the first century, there is nothing against an early second-century date, so that discrepancy of dating is not a problem. Hermas’ original community obviously knows who this person is supposed to be. If Clement of Rome is alive and functioning as a kind of community secretary this remark must refer to him.
If Clement is very well known, Grapte is otherwise unknown. Probably a widow and a freewoman, she holds responsibility for instruction of women and children who are not under male authority, a function entrusted to wise older women (Titus 2:3-4). She is perhaps a deacon charged with religious instruction (1 Tim 3:11; Sim. 9.26.2). (Ibid., 58-59, emphasis in bold added)
For more on 1 Clement and its ecclesiology, see:
