Shepherd of Hermas, Similitude 2.5 (51.5)

Greek text · Lake, LCL 25:144

Πῶς, φημί, κύριε, γνώρισόν μοι. Ἄκουε, φησίν· ὁ μὲν πλούσιος ἔχει χρήματα, τὰ δὲ πρὸς τὸν κύριον πτωχεύει, περισπώμενος περὶ τὸν πλοῦτον ἑαυτοῦ, καὶ λίαν μικρὰν ἔχει τὴν ἔντευξιν καὶ τὴν ἐξομολόγησιν πρὸς τὸν κύριον, καὶ ἣν ἔχει, βληχρὰν καὶ μικρὰν καὶ ἄλλην μὴ ἔχουσαν δύναμιν. ὅταν οὖν ἐπαναπάῃ ἐπὶ τὸν πένητα ὁ πλούσιος καὶ χορηγήσῃ αὐτῷ τὰ δέοντα, πιστεύει, ὅτι ἐὰν ἐργάσηται εἰς τὸν πένητα δυνηθήσεται τὸν μισθὸν εὑρεῖν παρὰ τῷ θεῷ· ὅτι ὁ πένης πλούσιός ἐστιν ἐν τῇ ἐντεύξει καὶ ἐν τῇ ἐξομολογήσει καὶ δύναμιν μεγάλην ἔχει παρὰ τῷ θεῷ ἡ ἔντευξις αὐτοῦ. ἐπιχορηγεῖ οὖν ὁ πλούσιος τῷ πένητι πάντα ἀδιστάκτως.

English · Claude translation

“How, sir?” I said; “make it known to me.” “Hear,” he said. “The rich man has money, but toward the Lord he is poor, being distracted by his wealth, and his prayer and confession to the Lord are very small, and what he has is weak and small and has no other power. But when the rich man relies on the poor man and supplies him with what he needs, he believes that if he does good to the poor man he will be able to find his reward with God; for the poor man is rich in prayer and confession, and his prayer has great power with God. So the rich man supplies the poor man with everything without hesitating.

About this passage

Source

Lake, LCL 25:144 · 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)

Topics

Prayer, Ethics

Notes

Notes on the original text

Digital text corrected (digitization slip against Lake's printed text (missing accent)): γνώρισον μοι → γνώρισόν μοι.

Cite this passage

Herm. Sim. 2.5 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/herm-sim/2/5/).

Plain text

Herm. Sim. 2.5 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/herm-sim/2/5/).