Graphic Bible · Scene 1 of 5

Seated Church explains the stones to attentive Hermas on their shared ivory couch.
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 v

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 5 [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 13:1

The Stones That Fit

Fitted Stones and the Time to Repent · Shepherd of Hermas 13

Story guide: Her seated explanation leads to a fitted-stone detail. The adjoining stones illustrate the agreement she describes; their human meaning remains in her words.

Open this scene in the reader →

1“Listen now about the stones that go into the building. The stones, then, that are square and white and that fit together at their joints—these are the apostles and bishops and teachers and deacons, who walked in the reverent dignity of God and who oversaw and taught and served God’s elect with purity and reverence—some have fallen asleep, and some are still alive. They were always in agreement with one another, had peace among themselves, and listened to each other; for this reason their joints fit in the building of the tower.

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