Shepherd of Hermas, Mandate 12.3.1 (46.1)

Summary: Serve good desire by righteousness, truth, faith, and gentleness.

Greek text · Lake, LCL 25:128

Ἤθελον, φημί, κύριε, γνῶναι, ποίοις τρόποις με δεῖ δουλεῦσαι τῇ ἐπιθυμίᾳ τῇ ἀγαθῇ. Ἄκουε, φησίν· ἔργασαι δικαιοσύνην καὶ ἀρετήν, ἀλήθειαν καὶ φόβον κυρίου, πίστιν καὶ πραότητα καὶ ὅσα τούτοις ὅμοιά ἐστιν ἀγαθά. ταῦτα ἐργαζόμενος εὐάρεστος ἔσῃ δοῦλος τοῦ θεοῦ καὶ ζήσῃ αὐτῷ· καὶ πᾶς, ὃς ἂν δουλεύσῃ τῇ ἐπιθυμίᾳ τῇ ἀγαθῇ, ζήσεται τῷ θεῷ.

English · Claude translation

“I would like to know, sir,” I said, “in what ways I must serve good desire.” “Hear,” he said: “practice righteousness and virtue, truth and the fear of the Lord, faith and gentleness, and whatever good things are like these. Doing these things you will be a well-pleasing servant of God and will live to him; and everyone who serves good desire will live to God.”

About this passage

Source

Lake, LCL 25:128 · 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

Ethics

Cite this passage

Herm. Mand. 12.3.1 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/herm-mand/12/3/1/).

Plain text

Herm. Mand. 12.3.1 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/herm-mand/12/3/1/).