Shepherd of Hermas, Similitude 10.1.3 (111.3)

Summary: The Shepherd alone has authority over repentance in the whole world.

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Latin text · Lake, LCL 25:298

custodienti enim tibi mandata huius subiecta erit omnis cupiditas et dulcedo saeculi huius, successus vero in omni bono negotio te sequetur. maturitatem huius et modestiam suscipe in te et dic omnibus, in magno honore esse eum et dignitate apud dominum et magnae potestatis eum praesidem esse et potentem in officio suo. huic soli per totum orbem paenitentiae potestas tributa est. potensne tibi videtur esse? sed vos maturitatem huius et verecundiam, quam in vos habet, despicitis.

English · Claude translation

For if you keep his commandments, every desire and sweetness of this world will be subject to you, and success will follow you in every good undertaking. Take on yourself his gravity and modesty, and tell all that he is in great honor and dignity with the Lord and is a ruler of great power and mighty in his office. To him alone in the whole world has authority over repentance been given. Does he seem to you powerful? But you despise his gravity and the modesty he shows toward you.”

About this passage

Source
Lake, LCL 25:298 · Kirsopp Lake, ed. and trans., The Apostolic Fathers, vol. 2, LCL 25 (London: Heinemann; New York: Macmillan, 1913), 138–305 · 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), and from the ancient Latin version where Lake prints it because the Greek is lost (from Sim. 9.30.3); 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)

Notes

Notes on the original text

  • Digital text corrected (Latin decoded from Greek letters: letter misread): die omnibus → dic omnibus.

Cite this passage

Herm. Sim. 10.1.3 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/herm-sim/10/1/3/).

Plain text
Herm. Sim. 10.1.3 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/herm-sim/10/1/3/).

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