The Accusation from Heaven

The man who raised me sold me to a woman named Rhoda, in Rome. Many years later I met her again and recognized her, and I began to love her as a sister. Some time after that I saw her bathing in the river Tiber. I gave her my hand and brought her up out of the river. And when I saw how beautiful she was, I turned it over in my heart and said to myself, “I would be a happy man if I had a wife as beautiful and as good as she is.” That was the only thing I considered — that, and not one thing more. [a]

Some time later I was walking to Cumae, praising the things God has made — how great and splendid and powerful they are — and as I walked I fell asleep. A spirit took hold of me and carried me off through trackless country where no one could travel: the ground was steep, and torn open by the waters. So I crossed that river and came out onto level ground. There I knelt down and began to pray to the Lord and to confess my sins. While I was praying the sky opened, and I see the woman I had wanted, greeting me out of the sky and saying, “Hello, Hermas!”

I looked up at her and said, “Lady, what are you doing here?” She answered me, “I was taken up here to bring the charge against your sins before the Lord.” “Are you now my accuser?” I said. “No,” she said. “But listen to the words I am about to say to you. God, who lives in the heavens and made the things that are out of what was not, and multiplied them and made them grow for the sake of his holy church, is angry with you, because you sinned against me.” I answered her, “I sinned against you? Where, or when, did I ever speak an indecent word to you? Did I not always think of you as a goddess? Did I not always treat you with the respect due a sister? Why do you accuse me falsely, woman, of these wicked, filthy things?”

She laughed and said to me, “The craving for what is evil rose up into your heart. Or do you not think it an evil thing for a righteous man when an evil craving rises into his heart? It is a sin, and a great one. For a righteous man plans righteous things. And in planning righteous things his glory is set straight in the heavens, and he finds the Lord easily reconciled to him in everything he does. But those who plan evil things in their hearts drag down death and captivity on themselves — above all those who take this present age for their own, and strut in their wealth, and do not hold on to the good things that are coming. Their souls will repent — people who have no hope, who have given up on themselves and on their life. But you: pray to God, and he will heal your sins, and your whole household’s, and all the holy ones’.”

After she had said these words the heavens were shut, and I was shaking all over and grieving. I said to myself, “If this sin is written down against me, how can I be saved? How am I to make peace with God over my sins, full-grown as they are? What words can I use to ask the Lord to be merciful to me?” [h]

While I was thinking this over and weighing it in my heart, I see, standing across from me, a great white chair made of wool white as snow. And an elderly woman came, in a shining robe, with a book in her hands, and she sat down alone and greeted me: “Hello, Hermas!” Grieving and weeping, I said, “Hello, Lady.”

And she said to me, “Why so downcast, Hermas? You are the patient one, never irritable, always laughing. Why do you look so gloomy, and not cheerful?” I said to her, “Because of a very good woman, who says I sinned against her.”

“Far be it from a servant of God to do such a thing,” she said. “But a desire for her certainly did rise into your heart. For God’s servants a plan like that does bring sin with it. It is a wicked and shocking plan for a spirit that is wholly dignified and already tested, if it craves an evil deed — and above all for Hermas, the self-controlled man, who keeps away from every evil craving and is full of all simplicity and great innocence.

“But this is not why God is angry with you. It is so that you will turn your household around — they have broken the law against the Lord and against you, their parents. You love your children, and so you did not warn your household; you let it be ruined. That is why the Lord is angry with you. But he will heal all the evil that has already been done in your house. It was through their sins and their lawless acts that you were ruined by the business of daily life. “But the Lord’s deep compassion has had mercy on you and on your household, and it will make you strong and set you on a firm footing in his glory. Only do not go slack. Take heart, and make your household strong. For just as a smith hammering away at his work masters the thing he wants to make, so the righteous word spoken day after day masters all wickedness. So do not stop warning your children; for I know that if they repent with their whole heart, they will be written into the books of life along with the holy ones.” [l]

When she had finished these words she says to me, “Do you want to hear me read?” “I do, Lady,” I said. “Then be a listener,” she said, “and hear the glories of God.” And I heard great and wonderful things that I had no strength to remember; for all the words were terrifying, more than a person can bear. The last words I did remember, because they were useful to us, and gentle:

When she had finished her reading and got up from the chair, four young men came and carried the chair off and went away toward the east. Then she called me over and touched my chest and said to me, “Did my reading please you?” “Lady,” I say to her, “these last words please me; the first ones are difficult and hard.” “The last words are for the righteous,” she said. “The first are for the nations and for those who have fallen away.” [p]

While she was still speaking with me, two men appeared and lifted her by the elbows and went off toward the east, where the chair had gone. She left cheerful, and as she went she said to me, “Be a man, Hermas.”