Shepherd of Hermas, Similitude 9.4.8 (81.8)

Summary: Only stones carried by the virgins through the gate can change.

Greek text · Lake, LCL 25:228

καὶ λέγουσι τοῖς ἀνδράσι τοῖς παρεμφέρουσι τοὺς λίθους· Ὅλως ὑμεῖς μὴ ἐπιδίδοτε εἰς τὴν οἰκοδομὴν λίθους· τίθετε δὲ αὐτοὺς παρὰ τὸν πύργον, ἵνα αἱ παρθένοι διὰ τῆς πύλης παρενέγκωσιν αὐτοὺς καὶ ἐπιδιδῶσιν εἰς τὴν οἰκοδομήν. ἐὰν γάρ, φασί, διὰ τῶν χειρῶν τῶν παρθένων τούτων μὴ παρενεχθῶσι διὰ τῆς πύλης, τὰς χρόας αὐτῶν ἀλλάξαι οὐ δύνανται· μὴ κοπιᾶτε οὖν, φασίν, εἰς μάτην.

English · Claude translation

And they said to the men who were bringing the stones, “Do not yourselves hand over any stones at all for the building; but put them beside the tower, so that the virgins may carry them through the gate and hand them over for the building. For if,” they said, “they are not carried through the gate by the hands of these virgins, they cannot change their colors; do not labor in vain, then.”

About this passage

Source

Lake, LCL 25:228 · 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. 9.4.8 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/herm-sim/9/4/8/).

Plain text

Herm. Sim. 9.4.8 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/herm-sim/9/4/8/).