Shepherd of Hermas, Similitude 9.16.7 (93.7)

Summary: The righteous dead, now sealed, were built in without hewing.

Greek text · Lake, LCL 25:262–264

διὰ τούτων οὖν ἐζωοποιήθησαν καὶ ἐπέγνωσαν τὸ ὄνομα τοῦ υἱοῦ τοῦ θεοῦ· διὰ τοῦτο καὶ συνανέβησαν μετʼ αὐτῶν, καὶ συνηρμόσθησαν εἰς τὴν οἰκοδομὴν τοῦ πύργου, καὶ ἀλατόμητοι συνῳκοδομήθησαν· ἐν δικαιοσύνῃ γὰρ ἐκοιμήθησαν καὶ ἐν μεγάλῃ ἁγνείᾳ· μόνον δὲ τὴν σφραγῖδα ταύτην οὐκ εἶχον. ἔχεις οὖν καὶ τὴν τούτων ἐπίλυσιν. Ἔχω, φημί, κύριε.

English · Claude translation

Through these, then, they were made alive and came to know the name of the Son of God; this is why they came up with them and were fitted together into the building of the tower, and were built in with them without being hewn; for they had fallen asleep in righteousness and in great purity; only they did not have this seal. You have, then, the explanation of these also.” “I have, sir,” I said.

About this passage

Source

Lake, LCL 25:262–264 · 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. 9.16.7 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/herm-sim/9/16/7/).

Plain text

Herm. Sim. 9.16.7 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/herm-sim/9/16/7/).