Shepherd of Hermas, Mandate 10.1.2 (40.2)

Summary: Sorrow is the worst spirit: it crushes the Holy Spirit, yet can also save.

Greek text · Lake, LCL 25:110–112

Πῶς, φημί, κύριε, ἀδελφή ἐστι τούτων; ἄλλο γάρ μοι δοκεῖ εἶναι ὀξυχολία καὶ ἄλλο διψυχία καὶ ἄλλο λύπη. Ἀσύνετος εἶ ἄνθρωπε, φησί, καὶ οὐ νοεῖς, ὅτι ἡ λύπη πάντων τῶν πνευμάτων πονηροτέρα ἐστὶ καὶ δεινοτάτη τοῖς δούλοις τοῦ θεοῦ καὶ παρὰ πάντα τὰ πνεύματα καταφθείρει τὸν ἄνθρωπον καὶ ἐκτρίβει τὸ πνεῦμα τὸ ἅγιον καὶ πάλιν σώζει;

English · Claude translation

“How, sir,” I said, “is it their sister? For bad temper seems to me to be one thing, double-mindedness another, and sorrow another.” “You are a foolish man,” he said, “and do not understand that sorrow is more evil than all the spirits and most terrible to God's servants, and more than all the spirits it ruins a person and crushes out the Holy Spirit, and again saves.”

About this passage

Source

Lake, LCL 25:110–112 · Kirsopp Lake, ed. and trans., The Apostolic Fathers, vol. 2, LCL 25 (London: Heinemann; New York: Macmillan, 1913), 70–137 · 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

Text

As printed in Lake, LCL 25. Manuscript variants and the editor's apparatus are not reproduced; no textual problem is noted in this passage.

Translation

Claude translation (claude-opus-5-5), 2026-09-26 · Translated by Claude from the Greek text of Lake (LCL 25, 1913); made independently of existing English translations.

Compare

Ante-Nicene Fathers, vol. 2 (1885) (an older public-domain English translation, whole volume at CCEL; checked against ours only after ours was made)

Cite this passage

Herm. Mand. 10.1.2 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/herm-mand/10/1/2/).

Plain text

Herm. Mand. 10.1.2 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/herm-mand/10/1/2/).