Shepherd of Hermas, Similitude 8.3.2 (69.2)

Greek text · Lake, LCL 25:194–196

Ἄκουε, φησί· τὸ δένδρον τοῦτο τὸ μέγα τὸ σκεπάζον πεδία καὶ ὄρη καὶ πᾶσαν τὴν γῆν νόμος θεοῦ ἐστιν ὁ δοθεὶς εἰς ὅλον τὸν κόσμον· ὁ δὲ νόμος οὗτος υἱὸς θεοῦ ἐστι κηρυχθεὶς εἰς τὰ πέρατα τῆς γῆς· οἱ δὲ ὑπὸ τὴν σκέπην λαοὶ ὄντες οἱ ἀκούσαντες τοῦ κηρύγματος καὶ πιστεύσαντες εἰς αὐτόν·

English · Claude translation

“Hear,” he said: “this great tree that overshadows plains and mountains and all the earth is the law of God that was given to the whole world; and this law is the Son of God preached to the ends of the earth; and the peoples under its shade are those who have heard the preaching and believed in him.

About this passage

Source

Lake, LCL 25:194–196 · 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.

Topics

Christology

Notes

Translation notes

“This law is the Son of God”: Christ as the new law, an idea found also in other second-century writers (compare Justin, Dial. 11).

Notes on the original text

Digital text corrected (digitization slip against Lake's printed text (dropped letter); digitization slip against Lake's printed text (wrong letter)): εἰς ὅλοι τὸν κόσμον → εἰς ὅλον τὸν κόσμον; θεοῦ ἐστ κηρυχθεὶς → θεοῦ ἐστι κηρυχθεὶς; τοῦ κηρύγματο καὶ → τοῦ κηρύγματος καὶ.

Cite this passage

Herm. Sim. 8.3.2 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/herm-sim/8/3/2/).

Plain text

Herm. Sim. 8.3.2 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/herm-sim/8/3/2/).