Shepherd of Hermas, Similitude 5.3.7 (56.7)

Greek text · Lake, LCL 25:160

οὕτω δὲ ποιήσεις· συντελέσας τὰ γεγραμμένα, ἐν ἐκείνῃ τῇ ἡμέρᾳ ᾗ νηστεύεις μηδὲν γεύσῃ εἰ μὴ ἄρτον καὶ ὕδωρ, καὶ ἐκ τῶν ἐδεσμάτων σου ὧν ἔμελλες τρώγειν συμψηφίσας τὴν ποσότητα τῆς δαπάνης ἐκείνης τῆς ἡμέρας ἧς ἔμελλες ποιεῖν, δώσεις αὐτὸ χήρᾳ ἢ ὀρφανῷ ἢ ὑστερουμένῳ, καὶ οὕτω ταπεινοφρονήσεις, ἵνʼ ἐκ τῆς ταπεινοφροσύνης σου ὁ εἰληφὼς ἐμπλήσῃ τὴν ἑαυτοῦ ψυχὴν καὶ εὔξηται ὑπὲρ σοῦ πρὸς τὸν κύριον.

English · Claude translation

And you shall do this: having completed what is written, on the day on which you fast you shall taste nothing but bread and water, and you shall reckon the cost of the food you would have eaten that day and give it to a widow or an orphan or someone in need, and so you will be humble-minded, so that the one who receives it from your humility may satisfy his own soul and pray for you to the Lord.

About this passage

Source

Lake, LCL 25:160 · 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

Fasting, Ethics

Notes

Translation notes

One of the earliest instructions to give the savings from fasting to the poor.

Notes on the original text

Digital text corrected (digitization slip against Lake's printed text (missing elision mark)): ἵν ἐκ τῆς → ἵνʼ ἐκ τῆς.

Cite this passage

Herm. Sim. 5.3.7 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/herm-sim/5/3/7/).

Plain text

Herm. Sim. 5.3.7 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/herm-sim/5/3/7/).