Shepherd of Hermas, Similitude 7.3 (66.3)

Summary: The head of the household must suffer for the family to feel it.

Greek text · Lake, LCL 25:184

λέγω αὐτῷ· Κύριε, εἰ ἐκεῖνοι τοιαῦτα εἰργάσαντο, ἵνα παραπικρανθῇ ὁ ἔνδοξος ἄγγελος, τί ἐγὼ ἐποίησα; Ἄλλως, φησίν, οὐ δύνανται ἐκεῖνοι θλιβῆναι, ἐὰν μὴ σὺ ἡ κεφαλὴ τοῦ οἴκου θλιβῇς· σοῦ γὰρ θλιβομένου ἐξ ἀνάγκης κἀκεῖνοι θλιβήσονται, εὐσταθοῦντος δὲ σοῦ οὐδεμίαν δύνανται θλῖψιν ἔχειν.

English · Claude translation

I said to him, “Sir, if they did such things that the glorious angel was provoked, what have I done?” “They cannot be afflicted otherwise,” he said, “unless you, the head of the household, are afflicted; for when you are afflicted they will of necessity be afflicted, but while you prosper they can have no affliction.”

About this passage

Source

Lake, LCL 25:184 · 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

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.

Cite this passage

Herm. Sim. 7.3 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/herm-sim/7/3/).

Plain text

Herm. Sim. 7.3 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/herm-sim/7/3/).