Shepherd of Hermas, Similitude 8.6.4 (72.4)

Greek text · Lake, LCL 25:204

Ἄκουε, φησίν· ὧν αἱ ῥάβδοι ξηραὶ καὶ βεβρωμέναι ὑπὸ σητὸς εὑρέθησαν, οὗτοί εἰσιν οἱ ἀποστάται καὶ προδόται τῆς ἐκκλησίας καὶ βλασφημήσαντες ἐν ταῖς ἁμαρτίαις αὐτῶν τὸν κύριον, ἔτι δὲ καὶ ἐπαισχυνθέντες τὸ ὄνομα κυρίου τὸ ἐπικληθὲν ἐπʼ αὐτούς. οὗτοι οὖν εἰς τέλος ἀπώλοντο τῷ θεῷ. βλέπεις δέ, ὅτι οὐδὲ εἷς αὐτῶν μετενόησε, καίπερ ἀκούσαντες τὰ ῥήματα, ἃ ἐλάλησας αὐτοῖς, ἅ σοι ἐνετειλάμην· ἀπὸ τῶν τοιούτων ἡ ζωὴ ἀπέστη.

English · Claude translation

“Hear,” he said: “those whose sticks were found dry and eaten by a moth are the apostates and traitors of the church, who in their sins blasphemed the Lord, and moreover were ashamed of the name of the Lord that was invoked over them. These, then, have perished to God forever. And you see that not one of them repented, although they heard the words that you spoke to them, which I commanded you; life has departed from such people.

About this passage

Source

Lake, LCL 25:204 · 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

Persecution

Notes

Translation notes

“Traitors”: probably Christians who betrayed fellow believers to the authorities during persecution.

Notes on the original text

Digital text corrected (digitization slip against Lake's printed text (missing accent)): ἐπαισχυνθεντες → ἐπαισχυνθέντες.

Cite this passage

Herm. Sim. 8.6.4 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/herm-sim/8/6/4/).

Plain text

Herm. Sim. 8.6.4 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/herm-sim/8/6/4/).