Graphic Bible · Scene 2 of 3

Illustrative parable: a living elderly man in worn linen rests awake on a simple low bed, discouraged and without hope.
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. Illustrative parable

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

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.

Shepherd of Hermas 20:2

The Parable of the Inheritance

The Second Form and Renewed Strength · Shepherd of Hermas 20

Story guide: In the parable, an old man who has lost hope hears of an inheritance, becomes overjoyed and stands with renewed courage. He remains physically aged.

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2“When an old man, having already given up hope for himself because of his weakness and his poverty, expects nothing else but the last day of his life; then, all at once, an inheritance is left to him. On hearing of it he is stirred up, and, becoming overjoyed, he puts on strength; he no longer lies down, but stands; his spirit—already corrupted by his former deeds—is renewed; and he no longer sits, but takes courage. So also you, when you heard the revelation that the Lord revealed to you.

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