Shepherd of Hermas, Vision 2.4.1 (8.1)

Greek text · Lake, LCL 25:24

Ἀπεκαλύφθη δέ μοι, ἀδελφοί, κοιμωμένῳ ὑπὸ νεανίσκου εὐειδεστάτου λέγοντός μοι· Τὴν πρεσβυτέραν, παρʼ ἧς ἔλαβες τὸ βιβλίδιον, τίνα δοκεῖς εἶναι; ἐγώ φημι· Τὴν Σίβυλλαν. Πλανᾶσαι, φησίν, οὐκ ἔστιν. Τίς οὖν ἐστιν; φημί. Ἡ Ἐκκλησία, φησίν. εἶπον αὐτῷ· Διατί οὖν πρεσβυτέρα; Ὅτι, φησίν, πάντων πρώτη ἐκτίσθη· διὰ τοῦτο πρεσβυτέρα· καὶ διὰ ταύτην ὁ κόσμος κατηρτίσθη.

English · Claude translation

And it was revealed to me, brothers, while I slept, by a very handsome young man who said to me, “The elderly woman from whom you received the little book: who do you think she is?” I said, “The Sibyl.” “You are wrong,” he said, “she is not.” “Who is she, then?” I said. “The church,” he said. I said to him, “Why, then, is she elderly?” “Because,” he said, “she was created first of all; that is why she is elderly; and for her sake the world was formed.”

About this passage

Source

Lake, LCL 25:24 · Kirsopp Lake, ed. and trans., The Apostolic Fathers, vol. 2, LCL 25 (London: Heinemann; New York: Macmillan, 1913), 6–71 · 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); 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)

Notes

Translation notes

“The Sibyl”: a legendary prophetess of Greek and Roman tradition, associated with Cumae.
“Created first of all”: compare 2 Clem. 14.1, the church “created before the sun and moon.”

Cite this passage

Herm. Vis. 2.4.1 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/herm-vis/2/4/1/).

Plain text

Herm. Vis. 2.4.1 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/herm-vis/2/4/1/).