Shepherd of Hermas, Mandate 11.20 (43.20)

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

Summary: Small things from above have great power.

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Greek text · Lake, LCL 25:124

λάβε οὖν τὴν δύναμιν τὴν ἄνωθεν ἐρχομένην· ἡ χάλαζα ἐλάχιστόν ἐστι κοκκάριον, καὶ ὅταν ἐπιπέσῃ ἐπὶ κεφαλὴν ἀνθρώπου, πῶς πόνον παρέχει; ἢ πάλιν λάβε σταγόνα, ἣ ἀπὸ τοῦ κεράμου πίπτει χαμαὶ καὶ τρυπᾷ τὸν λίθον.

English · Claude translation

Take, then, the power that comes from above: hail is a very small grain, and when it falls on a man's head, what pain it causes! Or again, take a drop that falls from the roof to the ground and wears a hole in the stone.

About this passage

Source: Lake, LCL 25:124 · 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. 11.20 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/herm-mand/11/20/).

Plain text

Herm. Mand. 11.20 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/herm-mand/11/20/).

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