Shepherd of Hermas, Similitude 5.2.4 (55.4)

Greek text · Lake, LCL 25:154

ἐν ἑαυτῷ οὖν ἐλογίσατο λέγων· Ταύτην τὴν ἐντολὴν τοῦ κυρίου τετέλεκα· σκάψω λοιπὸν τὸν ἀμπελῶνα τοῦτον, καὶ ἔσται εὐπρεπέστερος ἐσκαμμένος, καὶ βοτάνας μὴ ἔχων δώσει καρπὸν πλείονα, μὴ πνιγόμενος ὑπὸ τῶν βοτανῶν. λαβὼν ἔσκαψε τὸν ἀμπελῶνα καὶ πάσας τὰς βοτάνας τὰς οὔσας ἐν τῷ ἀμπελῶνι ἐξέτιλλε. καὶ ἐγένετο ὁ ἀμπελὼν ἐκεῖνος εὐπρεπέστατος καὶ εὐθαλής, μὴ ἔχων βοτάνας πνιγούσας αὐτόν.

English · Claude translation

So he reasoned to himself, saying, ‘I have fulfilled this command of the master; now I will dig this vineyard, and it will be finer when dug, and without weeds it will give more fruit, not being choked by the weeds.’ He took and dug the vineyard and pulled up all the weeds that were in the vineyard. And that vineyard became very fine and flourishing, having no weeds choking it.

About this passage

Source

Lake, LCL 25:154 · Kirsopp Lake, ed. and trans., The Apostolic Fathers, vol. 2, LCL 25 (London: Heinemann; New York: Macmillan, 1913), 138–305 · Greek text: K. Lake, The Apostolic Fathers (LCL, 1912-1913), digitized by the Perseus Digital Library and published by the First Thousand Years of Greek project (Open Greek and Latin), CC BY-SA 4.0

Translation

Claude translation (claude-opus-5-5), 2026-09-26 · Translated by Claude from the Greek text of Lake (LCL 25, 1913), and from the ancient Latin version where Lake prints it because the Greek is lost (from Sim. 9.30.3); made independently of existing English translations.

Notes

Notes on the original text

Digital text corrected (digitization slip against Lake's printed text (wrong accent)): ἐν ἑαυτῷ οὗν → ἐν ἑαυτῷ οὖν.

Cite this passage

Herm. Sim. 5.2.4 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/herm-sim/5/2/4/).

Plain text

Herm. Sim. 5.2.4 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/herm-sim/5/2/4/).