We have already incidentally mentioned that the writer of this fragment is totally unknown, nor does there exist any clue by which he can be identified. All the critics who have assigned an early date to the composition of the fragment have based their conclusion, almost solely, upon a statement made by the Author regarding the Pastor of Hennas. He says: "Hermas in
truth composed the Pastor very recently in our times in the city of Rome, the Bishop Pius his brother, sitting in the chair of the church of the city of Rome. And, therefore, it should indeed be read, but it cannot be published in the church to the people, neither being among the prophets, whose number is complete, nor amongst the apostles in the latter days."
"Pastorem vero nuperrime temporibus nostris in urbe Roma Herma conscripsit sedente cathedra urbis Romæ ecclesiæ Pio episcopus fratre ejus et ideo legi eum quidem oportet se publicare vero in ecclesia populo neque inter prophetas completum numero neque inter apostolos in fine temporum potest."(1)
Muratori, the discoverer of the MS., conjectured for various reasons, which need not be here detailed, that the fragment was written by Caius the Roman Presbyter, who flourished at the end of the second (c. a.d. 196) and beginning of the third century, and in this he was followed by a few others.(2) The great mass of critics, however, have rejected this conjecture, as they have likewise negatived the fanciful ascription of the composition by Simon de Magistris to Papias of Hierapolis,(3) and by Bunsen to Hegesippus.(4) Such attempts to identify the unknown author are obviously mere speculation, and it is impossible to suppose that, had Papias, Hegesippus, or any other well-known writer of the same period composed such a list, Eusebius could have failed to refer to
it, as so immediately relevant to the purpose of his work. Thiersch even expressed a suspicion that the fragment was a literary mystification on the part of Muratori himself.(1)
The mass of critics, with very little independent consideration, have taken literally the statement of the author regarding the composition of the Pastor "very recently in our times" (nuperrime temporibus nostris), during the Episcopate of Pius (a.d. 142--157), and have concluded the fragment to have been written towards the end of the second century, though we need scarcely say that a few writers would date it even earlier.(2) On the other hand, and we consider with reason, many critics,