Shepherd of Hermas, Similitude 9.13.3 (90.3)

Summary: The rejected bore the Son's name but not the virtues' names.

Greek text · Lake, LCL 25:252

τοὺς δὲ λίθους, φησίν, οὓς εἶδες ἀποβεβλημένους, οὗτοι τὸ μὲν ὄνομα ἐφόρεσαν, τὸν δὲ ἱματισμὸν τῶν παρθένων οὐκ ἐνεδύσαντο. Ποῖος, φημί, ἱματισμὸς αὐτῶν ἐστί, κύριε; Αὐτὰ τὰ ὀνόματα, φησίν, ἱματισμός ἐστιν αὐτῶν. ὃς ἂν τὸ ὄνομα τοῦ υἱοῦ τοῦ θεοῦ φορῇ, καὶ τούτων ὀφείλει τὰ ὀνόματα φορεῖν· καὶ γὰρ αὐτὸς ὁ υἱὸς τὰ ὀνόματα τῶν παρθένων τούτων φορεῖ.

English · Claude translation

And the stones,” he said, “that you saw rejected are those who bore the name, but did not put on the clothing of the virgins.” “What is their clothing, sir?” I said. “Their very names,” he said, “are their clothing. Whoever bears the name of the Son of God ought to bear their names too; for the Son himself bears the names of these virgins.

About this passage

Source

Lake, LCL 25:252 · 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)

Cite this passage

Herm. Sim. 9.13.3 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/herm-sim/9/13/3/).

Plain text

Herm. Sim. 9.13.3 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/herm-sim/9/13/3/).