what is a station? (Shep. 54:1-2)

Maurice A. O'Sullivan mauros at iol.ie
Thu Sep 14 18:25:38 EDT 2000


At 22:10 14/09/00, Bart Ehrman wrote:

>Or should I think instead that the reader -- and the angel -- do *not*
>understand the Latinism, and so translate it as "Why have you come out so
>early?" "Because, Lord," I replied, "I have a station."  "And what," he
>asked, "is a station?"

Carolyn Osiek [ Osiek, Carolyn, and Helmut Koester. Ed. Shepherd of Hermas: 
A Commentary. Minneapolis: Fortress, 1999.]
points out that in this ( and the next verse ) . the usual rhetorical 
device of  Hermas asking the annoying questions so as to elicit the 
Shepherd's teaching is reversed, with  the Shepherd asking naive questions, 
and Hermas explaining.

Osiek points out that the Shepherd seems not to know , "no more than the 
modern reader" what is behind the Latinism of " a station ", which she 
regards as an indication that this is a new term in Hermas' church, and 
therefore needs to be explained.
This passage, [ along with Didache 8.1 ] she maintains, witnesses to " the 
custom of personal fasting at this time " and v.2 indicates a regular 
practice of this on the part of Hermas.

In a footnote she cites a work in French by Hillhorst ( 1976) on "Semitisms 
and Latinisms in the Shepherd of Hermas ) in which it is accepted that the 
term refers to Christian fasting and summarizes scholarly opinion on its 
derivation as:
1. a Semitic word for standing, possibly the Mishnaic 'amad' , translated 
into the Latin of Greek speakers in a Latin world
2. a Latin loanword into a Semitic language and from there into Christian Greek
3. origin in a Latin milieu by Jews or Christians familiar with the 
biblical injunction to "stand before the face of the Lord" , translated 
into Latin as _stare ante faciem Domini_, the verb then nominalised into 
_statio_

Hillhorst, it turns out, favours the third.

Hope this helps
Maurice

Maurice A. O'Sullivan  [ Bray, Ireland ]
mauros at iol.ie






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