Shepherd of Hermas

Jung brings two major amplifications to this sequence of images. The first is the Shepherd of Hermas, and the second is the Emerald Tablet of Hermes. Let's talk first about the Shepherd of Hermas:

(a)

This is a text written in Rome about 140 A.D. It was very much associated with the early Christian Church, and for a while it was even part of the canonical New Testament. The main body of the text involves a series of visions of a man named Hermas, and these visions are followed by a whole set of religious instructions received by Hermas from unconscious figures. Let me give you just a taste of the chief items in the story as Jung alludes to them in Mysterium:

ML p.155

THE STORY BEGINS WITH

AN ENCOUNTER IN THE BATH

(b)

The story begins with an encounter in the bath. Hermas says: He who brought me up sold me to a certain Rhoda at Rome. After many years I made her acquaintance again, and began to love her as a sister. After some time I saw her bathing in the River Tiber, and gave her my hand and helped her out of the river. When I saw her beauty I reflected in my heart and said: “I should be happy if I had a wife of such beauty and character.” This was my only thought, and no other, no, not one. After some time, while I was going to Cumae, and glorifying the creation of God, for its greatness and splendor and might, as I walked along I became sleepy. And a spirit seized me and took me away through a certain pathless district.I crossed the river, and came to the level ground and knelt down and began to pray.Now while I was praying the Heaven was opened, and I saw that woman who I had desired greeting me out of the Heaven and saying: “Hail, Hermas.” And I looked at her, and said to her: “Lady, what are you doing here?” and she answered: “I was taken up to accuse you of your sins before the Lord.” ( Kirsopp Lake, trans., Shepherd of Hermas, in The Apostolic Fathers, vol. 2, pp. 7f. )

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HERMAS GUILTY OF LUSTFUL

THOUGHTS TOWARD RHODA

(c)

In other words, he was guilty for having harbored lustful thoughts toward Rhoda, and so she returned to him in this vision. The lustful thoughts correspond to the Ortus, the animal level [ Peregrinatio of Michael Maier ]. Later, this woman identified herself as the Church. By that device the instinctual libido, activated first on a sexual level, was transferred to another level. It became spiritualized, socialized and made communal, which then led him into a commitment and loyalty to the Church

ML p.156

(d)

One more parallel between the Maier text and the Shepherd of Hermas: just as Maier finds Mercurius after he comes back down again, so Hermas encounters the shepherd after some of his visions. I'll read you a bit of it:

ML p.157

(e)

While I was praying at home and sitting on my bed, there entered a man glorious to look on, in the dress of a shepherd, covered with white goatskin, with a bag on his shoulders and a staff in his hand.He sat down by me, and said to me, “I have been sent by the most reverend angel to dwell with you the rest of the days of your life.” I thought he was come tempting me,[But] he said to me, “Do you not recognize me?Iam the shepherd to whom you were handed over.” ( Lake, trans., Shepherd, p. 69 )

VISION COMMENTARY

(f)

In other words, Christ appears in the image of the Good Shepherd