Shepherd of Hermas, Mandate 11.13 (43.13)

Summary: The false prophet avoids the assembly and prophesies privately to doubters.

Greek text · Lake, LCL 25:122

εἶτα ὅλως εἰς συναγωγὴν ἀνδρῶν δικαίων οὐκ ἐγγίζει, ἀλλʼ ἀποφεύγει αὐτούς· κολλᾶται δὲ τοῖς διψύχοις καὶ κενοῖς καὶ κατὰ γωνίαν αὐτοῖς προφητεύει καὶ ἀπατᾷ αὐτοὺς λαλῶν κατὰ τὰς ἐπιθυμίας αὐτῶν πάντα κενῶς· κενοῖς γὰρ καὶ ἀποκρίνεται· τὸ γὰρ κενὸν σκεῦος μετὰ τῶν κενῶν συντιθέμενον οὐ θραύεται, ἀλλὰ συμφωνοῦσιν ἀλλήλοις.

English · Claude translation

Then he does not approach an assembly of righteous men at all, but avoids them; and he attaches himself to the double-minded and empty, and prophesies to them in a corner, and deceives them, speaking everything emptily according to their desires; for he gives answers to empty people. For an empty vessel put with empty ones does not break, but they agree with one another.

About this passage

Source

Lake, LCL 25:122 · 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)

Topics

Heresy

Cite this passage

Herm. Mand. 11.13 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/herm-mand/11/13/).

Plain text

Herm. Mand. 11.13 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/herm-mand/11/13/).