Shepherd of Hermas, Mandate 11.2 (43.2)

Summary: The false prophet tells the doubters what they want to hear.

Greek text · Lake, LCL 25:118

οὗτοι οὖν οἱ δίψυχοι ὡς ἐπὶ μάντιν ἔρχονται καὶ ἐπερωτῶσιν αὐτόν, τί ἄρα ἔσται αὐτοῖς· κἀκεῖνος ὁ ψευδοπροφήτης, μηδεμίαν ἔχων ἐν ἑαυτῷ δύναμιν πνεύματος θείου, λαλεῖ μετʼ αὐτῶν κατὰ τὰ ἐπερωτήματα αὐτῶν καὶ κατὰ τὰς ἐπιθυμίας τῆς πονηρίας αὐτῶν καὶ πληροῖ τὰς ψυχὰς αὐτῶν, καθὼς αὐτοὶ βούλονται.

English · Claude translation

These double-minded ones, then, come to him as to a soothsayer and ask him what will happen to them; and that false prophet, having in himself no power of a divine spirit, speaks with them according to their questions and according to the desires of their wickedness, and fills their souls as they themselves wish.

About this passage

Source

Lake, LCL 25:118 · 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. 11.2 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/herm-mand/11/2/).

Plain text

Herm. Mand. 11.2 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/herm-mand/11/2/).