Graphic Bible · Scene 3 of 7
Historical Library · Apostolic Fathers
Shepherd of Hermas — Mandate 5, section i
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 32:3
Honey and Wormwood
Long-suffering, Honey, and the Warning about Quick Temper · Shepherd of Hermas 32
Story guide: The supplied comparison contrasts honey kept sweet with honey embittered by a small amount of wormwood.
Open this scene in the reader →3For if, after taking a little wormwood, you pour it into a jar of honey, does not all the honey perish? So much honey is ruined by the smallest amount of wormwood: it destroys the sweetness of the honey, and it no longer has the same usefulness with its master, because it has been embittered and has lost its use. But if the wormwood is not cast into the honey, the honey is found sweet and becomes serviceable to its master.
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