Graphic Bible · Scene 3 of 4
Historical Library · Apostolic Fathers
Shepherd of Hermas — Mandate 10, section iii
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 39:3
Why the Prayer Does Not Ascend
Cheerfulness and the Wine Comparison · Shepherd of Hermas 39
Story guide: Hermas asks about prayer, and the reply compares sorrow’s mixture with vinegar added to wine.
Open this scene in the reader →3“Why,” I ask, “does the prayer of the one who is sorrowing not ascend to the altar?” “Because,” he says, “sorrow has settled in his heart. Therefore sorrow, mixed with the prayer, does not allow the prayer to ascend pure to the altar. For just as vinegar and wine, mixed together, do not have the same pleasantness, so also sorrow, mixed with the Holy Spirit, does not have the same prayer.”
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