Shepherd of Hermas, Similitude 9.20.2 (97.2)

Summary: The rich avoid fellow believers for fear of being asked for help.

Greek text · Lake, LCL 25:270

οὗτοι οὖν, οἱ ἐν πολλαῖς καὶ ποικίλαις πραγματείαις ἐμπεφυρμένοι, οὐ κολλῶνται τοῖς δούλοις τοῦ θεοῦ, ἀλλʼ ἀποπλανῶνται πνιγόμενοι ὑπὸ τῶν πράξεων αὐτῶν· οἱ δὲ πλούσιοι δυσκόλως κολλῶνται τοῖς δούλοις τοῦ θεοῦ, φοβούμενοι, μή τι αἰτισθῶσιν ὑπʼ αὐτῶν· οἱ τοιοῦτοι οὖν δυσκόλως εἰσελεύσονται εἰς τὴν βασιλείαν τοῦ θεοῦ.

English · Claude translation

These, then, who are mixed up in many and various business affairs, do not cling to God's servants, but go astray, choked by their activities; and the rich cling to God's servants with difficulty, fearing that they will be asked for something by them. Such people, then, will enter the kingdom of God with difficulty.

About this passage

Source

Lake, LCL 25:270 · 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

Mark 10:23 · allusion, medium confidence

Topics

Ethics

Cite this passage

Herm. Sim. 9.20.2 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/herm-sim/9/20/2/).

Plain text

Herm. Sim. 9.20.2 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/herm-sim/9/20/2/).