ated furnishes an
_explanation_, indeed, of this and other like puerilities, but no
_vindication_ of them.

11. The _Shepherd of Hermas_, as the work current under the name of
Hermas is called, consists of three books--his Visions, his Commands,
and his Similitudes. The four visions are received through the ministry
of an aged woman, who is the church of Christ. The twelve commands and
ten similitudes are received from one who appears to him "in the habit
of a shepherd, clothed with a white cloak, having his bag upon his back,
and his staff in his hand," whence the title The _Shepherd_ of Hermas.
All these are intended to unfold the truths of Christianity with its
doctrines and duties. The writer has a most luxuriant imagination. In
reading his books, particularly the first and the third, one sometimes
finds himself bewildered in a thicket of images and similitudes, some of
them grotesque and not altogether congruous. Yet the work throws much
light on the religious ideas and tendencies of its age.

The ancients speak doubtingly of the authority of this work. Origen,
whom Eusebius and Jerome follow, ascribes it to the Hermas mentioned in
the epistle to the Romans (chap. 16:14); though it does not appear that
he had any other ground for this than the identity of the name. The
Muratorian canon names as its author Hermas the brother of Pius bishop
of Rome. According to this, which is the more probable view, the date of
its composition would be about the middle of the second century.

V. THE APOSTLES' CREED.

12. We put this among the remains of the apostolic fathers, not because
there is any doubt as to its containing the substance of the doctrines
taught by the apostles, but because, as is generally admitted, it did
not receive its present form at their hand. "Though not traceable in its
present shape before the third century, and found in the second in
different longer or shorter forms, it is in substance altogether
apostolic, and exhibits an incomparable summary of the leading facts in
the revelation of the triune God from the creation of the world to the
resurrection of the body; and that in a form intelligible to all, and
admirably suited for public worship and catechetical use." Schaff, Hist.
Chris. Church, pp. 121, 122.

VI. APOCRYPHAL GOSPELS AND ACTS.

13. These are very numerous. Under the head of Apocryphal Gospels.
Tischendorf has published twenty-two works; under that of Apocryphal
Acts of the Apostl