O Pastor de Hermas

patristic. Hermas' concern is not doctrinaire-dogmatic, but moral.

Confident in God's mercy, Hermas believes in a new possibility of forgiveness beyond baptism. He takes a stand against the rigorists, a current that was established in Rome, maintaining that there was no other penance besides that of baptism.

Baptism is the first great penance that blots out sins. Before being baptized, the man is dead.

The idea that the Church is a necessary institution for salvation dominates. The Church is the first of all created things, a reality that pre-exists the created world. That is why she appears to him in the form of an elderly woman. But the most significant figure under which the Church presents itself to Hermas is in the allegory of a tower. This symbol represents the Church of the victors, the Church Triumphant.