Shepherd of Hermas, Mandate 8.6 (38.6)

Summary: Refrain from these to be enrolled among the living.

Greek text · Lake, LCL 25:104

οὐ δοκεῖ σοι ταῦτα πονηρὰ εἶναι; καὶ λίαν πονηρά, φημί, τοῖς δούλοις τοῦ θεοῦ. τούτων πάντων δεῖ ἐγκρατεύεσθαι τὸν δουλεύοντα τῷ θεῷ. ἐγκράτευσαι οὖν ἀπὸ πάντων τούτων, ἵνα ζήσῃ τῷ θεῷ καὶ ἐγγραφήσῃ μετὰ τῶν ἐγκρατευομένων αὐτά. ὧν μὲν οὖν δεῖ σε ἐγκρατεύεσθαι, ταῦτά ἐστιν.

English · Claude translation

Do you not think these are evil?” “Very evil,” I said, “for the servants of God.” “From all these the one who serves God must refrain. Refrain, then, from all these, so that you may live to God and be enrolled with those who refrain from them. These, then, are the things from which you must refrain.

About this passage

Source

Lake, LCL 25:104 · 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. 8.6 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/herm-mand/8/6/).

Plain text

Herm. Mand. 8.6 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/herm-mand/8/6/).