Shepherd of Hermas, Similitude 8.11.1 (77.1)

Summary: Tell everyone to repent; God, being patient, wills all the called to be saved.

Greek text · Lake, LCL 25:214

Καὶ μετὰ τὸ συντελέσαι αὐτὸν τὰς ἐπιλύσεις πασῶν τῶν ῥάβδων λέγει μοι· Ὕπαγε καὶ πᾶσιν λέγε, ἵνα μετανοήσωσιν, καὶ ζήσωνται τῷ θεῷ· ὅτι ὁ κύριος ἔπεμψέ με σπλαγχνισθεὶς πᾶσι δοῦναι τὴν μετάνοιαν, καίπερ τινῶν μὴ ὄντων ἀξίων διὰ τὰ ἔργα αὐτῶν· ἀλλὰ μακρόθυμος ὢν ὁ κύριος θέλει τὴν κλῆσιν τὴν γενομένην διὰ τοῦ υἱοῦ αὐτοῦ σώζεσθαι.

English · Claude translation

And after he had finished the explanations of all the sticks, he said to me, “Go and tell everyone to repent, and they will live to God; for the Lord, having compassion, sent me to give repentance to all, although some are not worthy because of their deeds; but the Lord, being patient, wishes the calling that came through his Son to be saved.”

About this passage

Source

Lake, LCL 25:214 · 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)

Scripture

2 Pet 3:9 · echo, medium confidence

Cite this passage

Herm. Sim. 8.11.1 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/herm-sim/8/11/1/).

Plain text

Herm. Sim. 8.11.1 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/herm-sim/8/11/1/).