guidance of six young men. These six young men are really angels, and the tower is the Church, and the stones are the Saints, the foundation-blocks being "apostles and bishops and teachers and deacons." Faithless disciples and backsliders are represented by cracked and defective stones which roll into a waste place. Some of these, when they have undergone torments, and have fulfilled the days of their sins," will be assigned to a humbler tower. Seven women stand about the tower, and they signify Faith, Continence, Simplicity, Knowledge, Guilelessness, Reverence, and Love. During these three Visions the aged lady has assumed a fair and gladsome look, and this change mirrors the spirit of Hermas, who has risen from dejection to cheerfulness. The fourth Vision introduces a terrific beast, on whose head flicker mysterious lights-black, red, golden, and white. The Church, now a white-clad maid, "arrayed as if she were going forth from a bride chamber," explains that the Black means the world; the Red, ruin ; the Golden, the hope of salvation; the White, the purified Saints.

After this "there entered a man glorious in his visage, in the garb of a Shepherd, with a white skin wrapped about him, and with a wallet on his shoulders and a staff in his hand." This angelic Shepherd delivers to Hermas Twelve Commandments (Mandates), dealing with (1) Belief in one God. (2) Simplicity and avoidance of slander. (3) Love of truth. "Abstain from falsehood, that most pernicious habit." (4) Sexual purity. Widows and widowers may re-marry; divorced persons may not. (5) Long-suffering temper. The gladsome, exultant, gentle spirit cannot dwell in a disciple's breast along with wrath and spite. (6) The Two Ways, and the Two Angels, of righteousness and wickedness [as in the "Teaching of the Apostles "]. (7) Fear of the Lord. "If thou fear the Lord, thou shalt be master over the Devil." (8) Abstinence from adultery, drunkenness," from many viands and the costliness of riches," pride, hypocrisy, blasphemy, and diligence in ministering to widows and orphans, in "ransoming the servants of God from their afflictions," hospitality, reverence to the aged, encouragement of struggling souls. (9) Faith. "Faith accomplishes all things," but doubtful-mindedness fails in all its works. (10) A cheery and courageous spirit.

SHEPHERD

"Every cheerful man works good, and thinks good, and despises sadness; but the sad man is always committing sin." "The intercession of a sad man has never at any time power to ascend to the altar of God." (11) The true prophet-modest, filled with the Holy Spirit; and the false prophet-mercenary, cringing to his patrons. (12) Avoidance of all evil desire, and compliance with good desire. "Everyone who shall serve the good desire shall live unto God."

Hermas expresses his sense of the beauty of these commandments, but timidly objects that the devil is a hard adversary to cope with. The Shepherd assures him of the power which God imparts to the loyal Saints, and then relates Ten Similitudes or Parables :-(1) The Pilgrims. God's servants dwell in this world as merely lodgers for a time, and their hearts must not hanker after houses and wealth, but let them rather prepare for their long journey by goodness to the widow and the orphan. (2) The Vine and the Elm. The fruit-bearing vine symbolised the rich; the unfruitful elm, the poor. Relieving the poor, the rich man is benefitted by the pauper's grateful prayers. (3) The Leafless Trees. Good and evil men live together indistinguishable. To the untaught eye they appear alike. (4) The Sprouting and the Withered Trees, prophetic of the age when the works of the just and the barrenness of the wicked will be made manifest. (5) The Vines, which a faithful servant tended and freed from weeds; on receiving delicacies as a reward, he distributed them among his fellow servants, thus indicating the Son of God who watched over the spiritual cultivation of the Saints, and shared his wealth of divine knowledge with his friends. This parable speaks of the "Holy pre-existent Spirit, which created the whole creation, and which God made to dwell in flesh that he desired." This flesh (the Son) pleased the Lord, and was chosen "as a partner with the Holy Spirit." (6) The Two Shepherds; one, "clothed in a light cloak of saffron colour," jovial and sprightly, tends a flock of sheep in the wanton meads of pleasure; the other, "a wild man in appearance, with a white goatskin thrown about him," comes with a sour visage to lead away many of the sinful sheep to a gloomy region of thorns and briars, while the rest are subjected to a sharp but wholesome and saving discipline. (7) The Shepherd of Bitter Discipline has afflicted the family of

Hermas; but, in answer to his supplication, he is told that the tribulation cannot at once be withdrawn. (8) The Willow-tree. A multitude stand under the willow, while the angel Michael lops off twigs and branches for them to gather up. These rods are examined after a time, and those who possess living and fruitful branches are crowned, and those whose rods are withered give them to the angel to be planted in the hope of renewed sap and vigour. The willow is the Law of God, the precepts of which are more or less successful in influencing the hearts of the people. (9) From an Arcadian mountain Hermas gazes down upon a plain, which is surrounded by twelve hills (the twelve nations of the world). In the middle of the plain rises a square rock, entered by a glittering gate (the Son of God)

"the gate seemed to me to have been hewed out quite recently." Around the gate twelve virgins act as sentinels -Faith, Continence, Power, Longsuffering, Simplicity, Guilelessness, Purity, Cheerfulness, Truth, Understanding, Concord, Love. On the rock a tower (the Church) is built out of stones, selected by the Lord of the Tower, from the mountains round about. Twelve black and sinister virgins carry away the rejected stones. (10) The Virgins in the House. Hermas is charged to keep the twelve graces-the virgins of Faith, Love, etc.-as inhabitants of his house, to purify and gladden it. The closing words exhort to neighbourly sympathy and good works. "Unless, then, ye hasten to do right, the tower will be completed and ye shut out."

"*

24. Epictetus. Under the early Empire wealthy citizens, half in earnest, half in whim, encouraged their slaves to study poetry, rhetoric, and philosophy. Thus it came to pass that Epaphroditus, a personal attendant on Nero, possessed a lame slave, who, though born of poor Phrygian parents, perfected himself in the principles of the Stoics, and left a lasting reputation. The lame slave was Epictetus. His disciple, Arrian, made careful notes of the philosopher's table-talk and speeches; and he has preserved them for us in the Discourses and Encheiridion. Epictetus probably died about the close of the first century.

* Translation in Lightfoot's "Apostolic Fathers;" Donaldson's "History of Christian Literature and Doctrine."

For abstract speculation Epictetus had no taste. He made all roads of human learning lead to one point, and that point was Ethics, the Rule of Life. "What do I care," he said, "whether all things are composed of atoms or of similar parts, or of fire and earth? For is it not enough to know the nature of the good and the evil, and the measures of the desires and aversions, and also the movements towards things and from them; and to use these as rules to administer the affairs of life, but not to trouble ourselves about the things above us? For these things are perhaps incomprehensible to the human mind." But he did not so far adopt Agnosticism as to exclude belief in a God-and Gods. He tells his listeners [for his style always calls up the picture of the lame sage encircled by a group of disciples] how they ought to feel gratitude for the natural provision so freely supplied. "One little boy with only a stick drives the cattle," and "milk is produced from grass, and cheese from milk, and wool from skins. Who made these things or devised them? No one, you say? O amazing shamelessness and stupidity!" And he proceeds to various simple instances of harmony and fitness-the distinction of the sexes, the cock's comb, the lion's mane, the husbandman's tools. If his friends will not sing, then he will raise a chant himself. "For what else can I do, a lame old man, than sing hymns to God? If, then, I was a nightingale, I would do the part of a nightingale......but now I am a rational man, and I ought to praise God......and I exhort you to join in this same song. With gratitude go faith and trust. The thoughtful man who has observed the divine government of the universe-"why should not such a man call himself a citizen of the world? why not a son of God? and why should he be afraid of anything which happens among men ?" When some of his poor friends murmur to him about their sorrows, and the wrongs they suffer at the hands of unjust men, and when they sullenly hint at suicide, the old man reproves their impatience. He reminds them of Socrates, who told the judges he dared not desert a post to which God had assigned him. And so, says Epictetus, "I on my part would say, Friends, wait for God. When he shall give the signal and release you from this service, then go to him; but for the present endure to dwell in this place where he has put you." And what then? One of the

audience asks, "Shall I then no longer exist?" Epictetus replies vaguely: "You will not exist, but you will be something else, of which the world has need; for you also came into existence not when you chose, but when the world had need of you." Meanwhile, man lives in a realm of Appearances, Phenomena, "phantasiai." So do the brutes; but they lack the imperial faculty which man possesses-the power to select Good from Bad—the splendid gift of a free Will. External matters are but accidents and empirical trifles. The absolute good lies in the wise man's breast, in his disciplined Will. The Will is the creator of good; and man may safely ignore all circumstances and events that are independent of the Will. "What have you seen? A handsome man or woman? Apply the rule is this independent of the Will, or dependent? Independent. Take it away. What have you seen? A man lamenting over the death of a child? Apply the rule; death is a thing independent of the will; take it away. Has the proconsul met you? Apply the rule. What kind of thing is a proconsul's office? Independent of the will, or dependent on it? Independent. Take this away also; it does not stand examination; cast it away; it is nothing to you." Even a wise man's heart may palpitate, and his cheek grow pale, at the onset of calamity; but he has trained his Will to fortitude, to habitual courage. If not strong by natural disposition, it may be elevated and strengthened by the words and examples of the wise, as in the case of young Polemon, who, bursting into the lecture-room of Xenocrates, was arrested by the grave admonitions of the teacher, and henceforward changed the manner of his life. Moved by this inner monitor, and calm in this divine peace of Will, the Cynic (for so Epictetus calls the moral man) faces life and death. He follows no impulse, provides for no passions. While other men pursue after a girl, a reputation, a cake; while they shut themselves into chambers, with a slave posted at the door to prevent interruption of their joy, the Cynic lives under the open sky. Though he has nowhere to lay his head, yet, wherever he goes, "there is the sun, there is the moon, there are the stars, dreams, omens, and communion with Gods." "Look at me," exclaims the Cynic to the wearied and care tossed world, "who am without a city, without a house, without possessions, without a slave; I