Graphic Bible · Scene 6 of 12

Historical Library · Apostolic Fathers
Shepherd of Hermas — Mandate 8
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 35:6
Refrain from These Works
Self-control from Evil and the Practice of Good · Shepherd of Hermas 35
Story guide: The shepherd asks about harmful works, hears Hermas’s answer, and urges him to refrain from them.
Open this scene in the reader →6“Do these not seem to you to be evil?” “Very evil,” I say, “for the servants of God.” “From all these the one who serves God must exercise self‑control. Exercise self‑control, then, from all these, that you may live to God and be enrolled with those who exercise self‑control from them. These, then, are the things from which you must exercise self‑control.
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