Papyrus 129

Papyrus 129

New Testament manuscript papyri uncials minuscules lectionaries
Sign	129
Text	The Shepherd of Hermas 51.8–82.1
Date	mid-3rd century AD
Script	Greek
Now at	University of Michigan
Category	none

Papyrus 129 (in the Gregory-Aland numbering), designated by ¹²⁹, is a papyrus manuscript of part of The Shepherd of Hermas apocrypha, in Greek. It contains chapters 51.8 through 82.1 of The Shepherd of Hermas, a section which contains the fifth vision, and the ten parables. The manuscript has been assigned to the mid-3rd century AD.^[1] The papyrus is currently held at the University of Michigan.^[2]

Contents

Papyrus 129 starts with the fifth vision of the book, in which Hermas meets a shepherd, who dictates to him 12 mandates (or commandments) and ten parables. The shepherd, despite being in some ways similar to the Good Shepherd (Jesus), is not identified as being divine, but rather only as the Angel of Penance, sent to watch over and instruct Hermas. The mandates are a series of moral warnings, possibly intended to instruct recent converts. The mandates instruct on matters such as belief in God, simplicity, generosity, truth, purity, faith, and cheerfulness, and warn against bitterness, double-mindedness, grief, and evil desire. The mandates also engage with specific issues such as divorce, second marriage, and the testing of false prophets. Much like the "Two Ways" in the Epistle of Barnabas ch.18, they identify there being two angels at work within man, one that is righteous and the other wicked.^[3]

After telling Hermas of the mandates, the shepherd begins to tell him parables, intended to reinforce the messages of the visions and mandates. Among them are a parable of two cities (on heavenly citizenship), the elm and the vine (responsibilities of the rich and poor), the trees in winter and summer (the differences of righteous and sinners, which would only become apparent in the "summer"), the vineyard (on the stewardship of the Holy Spirit given to them by God), the willow tree (on different classes and types of believers, marked different by the usage of their gifts and the quality of their repentance), and the tower. Of these parables the ninth, the Tower, is the longest by far, making up roughly a quarter of The Shepherd of Hermas. Some scholars believe that the ninth parable was a later addition, as the parable serves as a long elucidation and reinterpretation of the third vision, which centers around the concept of the Church being a tower, and is the first time within the parables that a time difference is mentioned, taking place a few days after the first eight. If this is true, then the final editor must have prepared for it carefully and skillfully woven it into the structure of the original version. Another interpretation is that the first four vision lay a substratum, and the ninth parable is used as an adaptation of the third parable for a later date, as the ninth parable shows a switch from the Church as an idealized community, as in the third vision, to a real institution.^[4]

References