The Apostolic Fathers, the earliest extant Christian writings outside the New Testament, are a primary resource for the study of early Christianity. These writings provide significant and unparalleled insight into the Christian movement during a critical transitional stage in its history. more
Hermas was a well-to-do freedman who lived in Ancient Rome. He was a brother of Pius, Bishop of Rome about the middle of the 2nd century. He was an earnest simple-minded Christian, with little education or culture, but typical, no doubt, of many in the Church of his day. Some later writers confuse him with the Hermas mentioned in Romans xvi, 14.