Graphic Bible · Scene 5 of 7

A detail of the shepherd’s natural open palm illustrates reassurance, with troubled Hermas softly visible at left behind it.
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 5

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 7 [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 25:5

Write the Commandments and Parables

The Shepherd Entrusted to Hermas · Shepherd of Hermas 25

Story guide: The Shepherd reassures Hermas and tells him to write the commandments and parables first, so they will be readily available to read and keep.

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55. But he answered me and says, “Do not be confounded, but be strengthened in my commandments, which I am about to command you. For I have been sent,” he says, “that I may show you again all the things you saw before, especially the main points that are beneficial for you. First of all, write my commandments and the parables; but the other things, as I show you, so you will write.” For this reason, he says, “I command you first to write the commandments and parables, so that you may read them readily at hand and be able to keep them.”

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