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Chapter Four Foreign Countries and Alien Assets in the Shepherd of Hermas Given the flexibility of alien and foreign status as a trope, early Christians found further uses for it in addition to labeling themselves. As I have argued, the claim to alien status is a relational one, drawing a boundary that defines an outside in relation to an inside. In the traditional valorization of the alien topos (as seen in 1 Peter, Hebrews, and Diognetus), outsider and insider terms get reversed, so that, by claiming the name “alien,” Christians mark their insider status with a revalued language of alterity. But because of this relational dynamic, small differences in emphasis could produce variant effects. We see a noteworthy example of this in another second-century text, The Shepherd of Hermas. Along with the above texts, Hermas also articulates Christian identity in the terms of the alien topos, setting up a vision of two cities: the one where Christians currently dwell “as in a foreign country” and their true city which is far away. But unlike these texts, Hermas’s articulation of Christian marginality never actually labels Christians explicitly as “strangers,” “sojourners,” or “resident aliens.” While the comparison that the text sets up between two cities does function logically to situate the audience as aliens, Hermas does not expend its rhetorical energy interpellating them as such. Instead, it unleashes a polemic against the uses of wealth in the Christian community. Here the text impugns a particular social locale—and its attendant business dealings and financial commitments—by figuring them in terms of their foreignness. In this way Hermas deploys the doubleness of the topos to a distinct end (and one different from what we have seen thus far): it retains the valorization of Christian alien identity, while simultaneously bringing the negative connotations of the rhetoric of foreignness to the fore in order to demonize one way of life in the hopes that Christians will pursue another. The Slaves of God The Shepherd of Hermas is a tripartite work usually classified as an early Christian apocalypse.1 Scholars generally situate it in Rome in the early Foreign Countries and Alien Assets: Shepherd of Hermas 79 to mid-second century.2 The text’s three sections are comprised of five visions, twelve mandates, and ten parables (or similitudes). This triple division , as well as manuscript evidence, has led scholars to posit numerous theories mapping out the composite nature of the text, its hypothetical sources, and multiple authors.3 But these are questions of secondary importance for the purposes of this study. With respect to the alien topos, the key portion of Hermas is Similitude 1, an extended treatise on the nature of Christian identity: 1. He spoke to me, saying, “You know that you, the slaves of God, dwell in a foreign country; for your city is far from this city. If then you know your city in which you are going to dwell, why do you make arrangements for lands, expensive furnishings, buildings, and worthless living quarters? 2. Accordingly, the one who makes arrangements for these things in this city is not able to return to his or her own city. 3. O foolish, double-minded, and miserable person, do you not grasp that all these things are foreign and are under the authority of another? For the lord of this city will say: ‘I do not want you to dwell in my city; instead go out from this city, because you do not use my laws.’ 4. So you who have lands and houses and many other possessions, when you are thrown out by him, what will you do with your land and your house and the rest of it, which you have prepared for yourself? For the lord of this region justly says to you, ‘Either use my laws or depart from my country.’ 5. What then are you going to do, seeing as you have a law in your own city? On account of your lands and the rest of your possessions, will you totally deny your law and walk in the law of this city? Take care lest it be harmful to deny your law; for if you wish to return to your city, you will not be accepted back, because you have denied the law of your city, and you will be shut out of it. 6. So take care therefore; as one dwelling in a foreign country, make no more arrangements for yourself than an adequate...

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