An alternative theory of the history of Christianity
Hermas and the Eusebian fiction postulate
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Hermas

HERMAS: Saint, Martyr, seems to have missed being Bishop,
"first or second century," -- though the Church Saint record is so
confused that I cannot vouch whether this one is the reputed author
of the forged Epistle of Barnabas. But "in the lists of the Seventy
Apostles by the Pseudo-Doretheus and the Pseudo-Hippolytus [two
more forgeries], Hermas figures as Bishop of Philippi. No one any
longer supposes that he was the author of the Shepherd of Hermas,
the date of which is about 40 A.D., though from Origen onwards
Church-writers have expressed this view, and accordingly have given
that allegorical work a place among the writings of the apostolic
Fathers." (EB. ii, 2021; cf. CE. vii, 268.) The latter says that
this "work had great authority in ancient times and was ranked with
Holy Scripture" and included as such in the MSS. of Holy Writ; but
it is called "apocryphal and false," -- like everything else the
Holy Church has ever had for "Scripture" or for self-
aggrandizement. The pious author quotes the quaint forged Eldad and
Medad as Scripture, and the Pagan Sibyls as inspired Oracles of
God.

-- extracted from Joseph Wheless,
"FORGERY IN CHRISTIANITY", 1930

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