Entering the Narrative World of Hermas’s Visions

Chapters in this book

1. Frontmatter I
2. Acknowledgements V
3. Abbreviations VII
4. Foreword IX
5. Table of Contents XI
6. Introduction 1
7. I The Shepherd, the Self, and Subjectivity
8. Negotiating the Experience of Possession in Hermas’s Shepherd 7
9. A True Prophet as a Mouthpiece of the Spirit? Cultivating Virtue and Control 31
10. Gender, Volubility, and Transformation in the Shepherd of Hermas 57
11. The Affect and Happy Objects of the Shepherd of Hermas 73
12. II Visions and Experiences of the Divine
13. Psychotropic Elements in Hermas’s First Two Visions: Between Experience and Culture 99
14. Entering the Narrative World of Hermas’s Visions 117
15. Experience through Narrative in the Shepherd of Hermas 137
16. Shepherd of Hermas Vision 5 and the Christian Experience of Pagan Epiphany 153
17. God’s Multiple Forms: Divine Fluidity in the Shepherd of Hermas 171
18. III Experiencing the Shepherd as Text
19. The Former Slave Hermas, Lady Church and ‘the Book’ 193
20. Authority, Fragmentation, Dilution: Experiencing an Apocalyptic Text in Late Antiquity 215
21. Bibliography 235
22. List of Contributors 257
23. Index of Subjects 261
24. Ancient Text Index 265