The First Mandate, on Faith in God

Chapter 26

1 “First of all, believe that God is One, the One who created all things and set them in order, and brought all things from non-existence into being,⁠ who contains all things, but alone is not contained. 2 Therefore believe Him, and fear Him, and in this fear be self-controlled. Keep these things, and you will cast off all wickedness from yourself, and will clothe yourself in every virtue of righteousness, and will live for God, if you keep this commandment.”

Texts in conversation

Compare 2 Maccabees 7:28 and Shepherd of Hermas 26:1

Deuterocanon · Early Christian

Summary

In 2 Maccabees, a mother urges her son to face death, trusting that the God who created the world from nothing can restore his life. The Shepherd of Hermas likewise opens its commandments by affirming one God who created all things from nothing.

Passages

2 Maccabees 7:28

Deuterocanon

25 But when the young man would in no way listen, the king called to him his mother, and urged her to advise the youth to save himself. 26 When he had urged her with many words, she undertook to persuade her son. 27 But bending toward him, laughing the cruel tyrant to scorn, she spoke this in the language of her fathers: “My son, have pity upon me who carried you nine months in my womb, and nursed you three years, and nourished and brought you up to this age, and sustained you. 28 I beg you, my child, to lift your eyes to the sky and the earth, and to see all things that are in it, and thus to recognize that God made them not of things that were, and that the race of men in this way comes into being. 29 Don’t be afraid of this butcher, but, proving yourself worthy of your brothers, accept your death, that in God’s mercy I may receive you again with your brothers.”

160–63 BCE (scholarly estimate) Read in 2 Maccabees

Shepherd of Hermas 26:1

Early Christian

1 “First of all, believe that God is One, the One who created all things and set them in order, and brought all things from non-existence into being, who contains all things, but alone is not contained. 2 Therefore believe Him, and fear Him, and in this fear be self-controlled. Keep these things, and you will cast off all wickedness from yourself, and will clothe yourself in every virtue of righteousness, and will live for God, if you keep this commandment.”

90–140 CE (scholarly estimate) Read in the Shepherd of Hermas

References

“... The Mandates open with a very brief but very significant introduction that affirms the centrality of monotheistic faith as the foundation of all faithful living, a statement that endeared this section to later heresiologists. [...] God is affirmed as creator of all things out of nothing, a familiar Hellenistic Jewish creedal formula. [...] E.g., God as creator of all: Eph 3:9; from nothing: 2 Macc 7:28; Wis 1:14 (but cf. 11:17); Philo Spec. leg. 2.225; 4.187; Vit. Mos. 2.267; Rom 4:17; 2 Clem. 1.8. ...”

Carolyn Osiek, The Shepherd of Hermas: A Commentary, Herm (Minneapolis: Augsburg Fortress, 1999), 103.

References are not endorsements of their contents. Read each reference in full to understand its author's intentions in using these texts.

The First Mandate, on Faith in God

Shepherd of Hermas114 chapters

Compare 2 Maccabees 7:28 and Shepherd of Hermas 26:1

Summary

Passages

2 Maccabees 7:28

Shepherd of Hermas 26:1

References

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