Shepherd of Hermas — Similitude 6, Chapter 2
The Shepherd Who Comes to Destroy
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Similitude 6.2.1He said to me, “Do you see this shepherd?” “I do, sir,” I said. “This,” he said, “is an angel of indulgence and deception. He wears down the souls of God’s servants and turns them away from the truth, deceiving them through evil desires in which they perish.
Similitude 6.2.2“For they forget the commandments of the living God and walk in deceptions and empty indulgences. They are destroyed by this angel, some unto death and others unto corruption.”
Similitude 6.2.3I said to him, “Sir, I do not understand what ‘unto death’ and ‘unto corruption’ mean.” “Listen,” he said. “The sheep you saw merrily leaping are those who have completely torn themselves away from God and surrendered themselves to the desires of this age. For these there is no repentance leading to life, because they have added to their sins and blasphemed God’s name. Death belongs to such people.
Similitude 6.2.4“But the sheep you saw not leaping, but grazing in one place, are those who surrendered themselves to indulgences and deceptions, yet did not blaspheme the Lord. These have been corrupted away from the truth. For them there is hope of repentance, in which they can live. Corruption, then, holds hope of some renewal, but death holds eternal destruction.”
Similitude 6.2.5I went a little farther, and he showed me a large shepherd with a savage appearance, wrapped in a white goatskin. He had a bag on his shoulders, a very hard, knotted staff, and a great whip. His look was so bitter that I was afraid of him; such was his expression.
Similitude 6.2.6This shepherd took from the young shepherd the sheep that were indulging and enjoying themselves, but not leaping. He drove them into a steep place full of thorns and thistles, so that the sheep could not free themselves from the thorns and thistles, but became entangled in them.
Similitude 6.2.7Entangled, they grazed among the thorns and thistles and suffered terribly as he beat them. He drove them here and there and gave them no rest. Those sheep had no peace at all.
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Saints Translation · Liturgical reading edition · V1 · working draft awaiting specialist review.