Shepherd of Hermas, Similitude 9.8.3 (85.3)

Summary: Some cracked stones are used; the badly cracked are rejected.

Greek text · Lake, LCL 25:238

εἶτα κατενόει τοὺς τὰς σχισμὰς ἔχοντας· καὶ ἐκ τούτων πολλοὺς ἐλατόμησε καὶ ἐκέλευσε διὰ τῶν παρθένων εἰς τὴν οἰκοδομὴν ἀπενεχθῆναι· ἐξώτεροι δὲ ἐτέθησαν, ὅτι ὑγιέστεροι εὑρέθησαν. οἱ δὲ λοιποὶ διὰ τὸ πλῆθος τῶν σχισμάτων οὐκ ἠδυνήθησαν λατομηθῆναι· διὰ ταύτην οὖν τὴν αἰτίαν ἀπεβλήθησαν ἀπὸ τῆς οἰκοδομῆς τοῦ πύργου.

English · Claude translation

Then he examined those that had cracks; and he hewed many of these, and ordered them to be carried away by the virgins into the building; and they were placed on the outside, because they were found to be sounder. But the rest could not be hewn because of the number of their cracks; for this reason, then, they were rejected from the building of the tower.

About this passage

Source

Lake, LCL 25:238 · 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. 9.8.3 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/herm-sim/9/8/3/).

Plain text

Herm. Sim. 9.8.3 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/herm-sim/9/8/3/).