Shepherd of Hermas, Similitude 5.4.3 (57.3)

Greek text · Lake, LCL 25:162

ὁ δὲ πάλιν ἀπεκρίθη μοι λέγων· Ὃς ἄν, φησί, δοῦλος ᾖ τοῦ θεοῦ καὶ ἔχῃ τὸν κύριον ἑαυτοῦ ἐν τῇ καρδίᾳ, αἰτεῖται παρʼ αὐτοῦ σύνεσιν καὶ λαμβάνει καὶ πᾶσαν παραβολὴν ἐπιλύει, καὶ γνωστὰ αὐτῷ γίνονται τὰ ῥήματα τοῦ κυρίου τὰ λεγόμενα διὰ παραβολῶν· ὅσοι δὲ βληχροί εἰσι καὶ ἀργοὶ πρὸς τὴν ἔντευξιν, ἐκεῖνοι διστάζουσιν αἰτεῖσθαι παρὰ τοῦ κυρίου·

English · Claude translation

And again he answered me, saying, “Whoever,” he said, “is a servant of God and has his Lord in his heart asks understanding from him and receives it, and explains every parable, and the words of the Lord spoken in parables become known to him. But those who are weak and idle in prayer hesitate to ask of the Lord.

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)

Topics

Prayer

Notes

Notes on the original text

Digital text corrected (digitization slip against Lake's printed text (wrong accent)): διά παραβολῶν → διὰ παραβολῶν.

Cite this passage

Herm. Sim. 5.4.3 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/herm-sim/5/4/3/).

Plain text

Herm. Sim. 5.4.3 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/herm-sim/5/4/3/).