Graphic Bible · Scene 3 of 5
Historical Library · Apostolic Fathers
Shepherd of Hermas — Mandate 3
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 28:3
Weeping and Confession
Truth, Confession, and the Command to Keep · Shepherd of Hermas 28
Story guide: Hermas weeps, questions whether he can be saved and confesses a life of deceit in reply to the Shepherd’s questions.
Open this scene in the reader →3So when I heard these things, I wept greatly. But seeing me weeping, he says, ‘Why are you weeping?’ ‘Because, sir,’ I say, ‘I do not know whether I can be saved.’ ‘Why?’ he says. ‘For,’ I say, ‘sir, never yet in my life have I spoken a true word, but I have always lived deceitfully with everyone, and I made my lie appear true before all people; and no one ever contradicted me, but my word was believed. How then,’ I say, ‘sir, can I live, having done these things?’
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