Shepherd of Hermas, Similitude 5.4.2 (57.2)

Greek text · Lake, LCL 25:162

ὁ δὲ ἀποκριθείς μοι εἶπεν· Αὐθάδης εἶ λίαν εἰς τὸ ἐπερωτᾶν. οὐκ ὀφείλεις, φησίν, ἐπερωτᾶν οὐδὲν ὅλως· ἐὰν γάρ σοι δέῃ δηλωθῆναι, δηλωθήσεται. λέγω αὐτῷ· Κύριε, ὅσα ἄν μοι δείξῃς καὶ μὴ δηλώσῃς, μάτην ἔσομαι ἑωρακὼς αὐτὰ καὶ μὴ νοῶν, τί ἐστιν· ὡσαύτως καὶ ἐάν μοι παραβολὰς λαλήσῃς καὶ μὴ ἐπιλύσῃς μοι αὐτάς, εἰς μάτην ἔσομαι ἀκηκοώς τι παρὰ σοῦ.

English · Claude translation

And he answered me, “You are very bold in asking. You ought not,” he said, “to ask anything at all; for if it is necessary for it to be made clear to you, it will be made clear.” I said to him, “Sir, whatever you show me and do not make clear, I shall have seen in vain without understanding what it is; likewise, if you speak parables to me and do not explain them to me, I shall have heard something from you in vain.”

About this passage

Source

Lake, LCL 25:162 · 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 (digitization slip against Lake's printed text (missing accent)): Αὐθάδης εἰ λίαν → Αὐθάδης εἶ λίαν.

Cite this passage

Herm. Sim. 5.4.2 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/herm-sim/5/4/2/).

Plain text

Herm. Sim. 5.4.2 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/herm-sim/5/4/2/).