Graphic Bible · Scene 5 of 5

Seated Hermas gestures toward the water as the woman listens.
AI-generated artwork interprets this work's literary visions and teaching, not authenticated historical events or portraits. Source and translation notes preserve the available edition's limits and review uncertainty. Reported literary vision

Historical Library · Apostolic Fathers
Shepherd of Hermas — Vision 3, section iii

The available POB edition is a partial translation, not a summary or the complete ancient work. Popular, not Scripture. Artwork interprets literary visions and teaching; it does not establish their portrayals as historical events.

Source and translation notes

The text names Hermas as its narrator. The illustrations do not identify a historical author or supply authenticated portraits.

Existing reader manuscript-image reference: Codex Sinaiticus. Working source: Lightfoot & Harmer 1891 (normalized OCR) · Greek

English witness: People's Open Bible provisional English rendering (Cartha Inc. and contributors) · CC BY 4.0 — https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ — for POB project outputs; source editions retain their original licenses

Numbered reading units are modern paragraph divisions, not ancient verse numbers. The available units follow Visions, Mandates, and Similitudes; absent passages are not reconstructed.

  • The available edition begins mid-dialogue and ends mid-sentence in Similitude 8.iv; absent passages are not supplied.
  • Reading paragraph 2 [a]: Repentance and related expressions are read in this works own context; they are not restricted to feeling sorry, and no uniform Godward formula is imposed. Use repentance for moral change while preserving the works own teaching about baptism, forgiveness, conduct and the angel of repentance; do not impose a different tradition on it.

Shepherd of Hermas 11:5

Water and Unseen Power

The Church, the Tower and the Waters · Shepherd of Hermas 11

Story guide: Hermas asks about the water; the woman answers. The final water-and-tower essay illustrates her explanation while the unseen support remains unseen.

Open this scene in the reader →

5I asked her, "Why has the tower been built upon the waters, lady?" She says, "I told you before also, and you inquire diligently; therefore, by inquiring, you find the truth. Why, then, the tower has been built upon the waters—listen: because your life was saved through water and will be saved. And the tower has been founded by the word of the almighty and glorious Name, and is held fast by the unseen power of the Master."

Step through the story beside the Scripture itself. About the People’s Open Bible