Shepherd of Hermas, Similitude 9.7.4 (84.4)

Summary: The Shepherd will reshape most of the rejected stones.

Greek text · Lake, LCL 25:234–236

λέγω τῷ ποιμένι· Πῶς οὗτοι οἱ λίθοι δύνανται εἰς τὴν οἰκοδομὴν τοῦ πύργου ἀπελθεῖν ἀποδεδοκιμασμένοι; ἀποκριθείς μοι λέγει· Βλέπεις, φησί, τοὺς λίθους τούτους; Βλέπω, φημί, κύριε. Ἐγώ, φησί, τὸ πλεῖστον μέρος τῶν λίθων τούτων λατομήσω καὶ βαλῶ εἰς τὴν οἰκοδομήν, καὶ ἁρμόσουσι μετὰ τῶν λοιπῶν λίθων.

English · Claude translation

I said to the shepherd, “How can these stones go into the building of the tower after being rejected?” He answered me, “Do you see,” he said, “these stones?” “I see them, sir,” I said. “I,” he said, “will hew the greater part of these stones and put them into the building, and they will fit with the rest of the stones.”

About this passage

Source

Lake, LCL 25:234–236 · 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. 9.7.4 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/herm-sim/9/7/4/).

Plain text

Herm. Sim. 9.7.4 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/herm-sim/9/7/4/).