Shepherd of Hermas, Similitude 5.2.7 (55.7)

Summary: The master makes the slave joint heir with his son.

Greek text · Lake, LCL 25:156

καὶ λέγει αὐτοῖς· Ἐγὼ τῷ δούλῳ τούτῳ ἐλευθερίαν ἐπηγγειλάμην, ἐάν μου τὴν ἐντολὴν φυλάξῃ, ἣν ἐνετειλάμην αὐτῷ· ἐφύλαξε δέ μου τὴν ἐντολὴν καὶ προσέθηκε τῷ ἀμπελῶνι ἔργον καλόν, καὶ ἐμοὶ λίαν ἤρεσεν. ἀντὶ τούτου οὖν τοῦ ἔργου οὗ εἰργάσατο θέλω αὐτὸν συγκληρονόμον τῷ υἱῷ μου ποιῆσαι, ὅτι τὸ καλὸν φρονήσας οὐ παρενεθυμήθη, ἀλλʼ ἐτέλεσεν αὐτό.

English · Claude translation

And he said to them, ‘I promised this slave freedom if he kept the command I gave him; and he kept my command and added good work to the vineyard, and it pleased me greatly. In return for this work that he has done, I wish to make him joint heir with my son, because when he thought of what was good he did not neglect it, but carried it out.’

About this passage

Source

Lake, LCL 25:156 · 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.

Cite this passage

Herm. Sim. 5.2.7 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/herm-sim/5/2/7/).

Plain text

Herm. Sim. 5.2.7 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/herm-sim/5/2/7/).