Shepherd of Hermas, Mandate 11.15 (43.15)

Hermas · Shepherd of Hermas: Mandates · ca. 100–150 · Rome · Read in context

Summary: An empty jar stays empty among full ones.

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Greek text · Lake, LCL 25:122

ἐὰν γὰρ εἰς ἀποθήκην στιβάσῃς οἶνον ἢ ἔλαιον καὶ ἐν αὐτοῖς θῇς κεράμιον κενόν, καὶ πάλιν ἀποστιβάσαι θελήσῃς τὴν ἀποθήκην, τὸ κεράμιον ἐκεῖνο, ὃ ἔθηκας κενόν, κενὸν καὶ εὑρήσεις· οὕτω καὶ οἱ προφῆται οἱ κενοὶ ὅταν ἔλθωσιν εἰς πνεύματα δικαίων, ὁποῖοι ἦλθον, τοιοῦτοι καὶ εὑρίσκονται.

English · Claude translation

For if you store wine or oil in a storeroom and put an empty jar among them, and then wish to empty the storeroom, you will find that jar you put there empty still empty. So also the empty prophets, when they come among the spirits of the righteous, are found as they came.

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)

Cite this passage

Herm. Mand. 11.15 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/herm-mand/11/15/).

Plain text

Herm. Mand. 11.15 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/herm-mand/11/15/).

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