Shepherd of Hermas, Similitude 9.29.3 (106.3)

Summary: Those like babies will be the most glorious.

Greek text · Lake, LCL 25:288

ὅσοι οὖν διαμενεῖτε, φησί, καὶ ἔσεσθε ὡς τὰ βρέφη, κακίαν μὴ ἔχοντες, πάντων τῶν προειρημένων ἐνδοξότεροι ἔσεσθε· πάντα γὰρ τὰ βρέφη ἔνδοξά ἐστι παρὰ τῷ θεῷ καὶ πρῶτα παρʼ αὐτῷ. μακάριοι οὖν ὑμεῖς, ὅσοι ἂν ἄρητε ἀφʼ ἑαυτῶν τὴν πονηρίαν, ἐνδύσησθε δὲ τὴν ἀκακίαν· πρῶτοι πάντων ζήσεσθε τῷ θεῷ.

English · Claude translation

All of you, then, who remain,” he said, “and will be like babies, having no malice, will be more glorious than all those mentioned before; for all babies are glorious before God and first with him. Blessed, then, are you, whoever remove wickedness from yourselves and put on innocence; you will live to God first of all.”

About this passage

Source

Lake, LCL 25:288 · 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

Matt 18:3 · allusion, medium confidence
Matt 19:14 · echo, medium confidence

Cite this passage

Herm. Sim. 9.29.3 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/herm-sim/9/29/3/).

Plain text

Herm. Sim. 9.29.3 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/herm-sim/9/29/3/).