Wavering saints, mass religiosity, and the crisis of post-baptismal sin in early Christianity:a Weberian reading ofThe Shepherd of Hermas

Abstract

As a religious sect that anchored its salvation pledge in an exclusive promise of spiritual empowerment, the early Christian movement called its converts to virtuoso standards of religiosity. Following their baptismal regeneration, believers were obligated to remain ‘sealed’ in purity thereafter, in expectation of pending eschatological deliverance. Signs of moral slippage would thus constitute a negation of those sectarian claims, threatening thereby the continued viability of the movement. Operating in an environment of persecution, and shaken by the protracted non-event of cosmic redemption, growing numbers of believers found the exacting purity requirements impossible to uphold. An optimal organizational resolution of that crisis would require the restoration of wavering saints to spiritual status, to be achieved through remedial adjustments in penitential practice. Drawing upon Weber's model of the sect-church dynamic, this study offers a sociological hermeneutic ofThe Shepherd ofHermas.