Shepherd of Hermas, Vision 3.9.4 (17.4)

Summary: Not sharing harms those who have.

BothGreekEnglish

Greek text · Lake, LCL 25:50

αὕτη οὖν ἡ ἀσυνκρασία βλαβερὰ ὑμῖν τοῖς ἔχουσι καὶ μὴ μεταδιδοῦσιν τοῖς ὑστερουμένοις.

This lack of sharing, then, is harmful to you who have and do not share with those in need.

Source: Lake, LCL 25:50 · 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)
Topics: Ethics

“Lack of sharing” (ἀσυνκρασία): literally “lack of mixing,” an unequal distribution.

Herm. Vis. 3.9.4 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/herm-vis/3/9/4/).

Plain text

Herm. Vis. 3.9.4 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/herm-vis/3/9/4/).