Graphic Bible · Scene 1 of 17

Hermas and the shepherd look toward men on a bench and another man on a chair.
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 scene

Historical Library · Apostolic Fathers
Shepherd of Hermas — Mandate 11

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 4 [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. Retain change their minds: this is retreat from baptism or vacillation into divination, not repentance toward God. Preserve the adverse direction.

Shepherd of Hermas 40:1

The Bench and the Chair

Testing the Prophet by the Life · Shepherd of Hermas 40

Story guide: The shepherd shows Hermas men on a bench and identifies the contrasting man seated on a chair.

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11. He showed me men sitting on a bench, and another man sitting on a chair. And he says to me, “Do you see the ones sitting on the bench?” “I see, sir,” I say. “These,” he says, “are faithful; and the one sitting on the chair is a false prophet who destroys the understanding of the servants of God—of the double‑minded, not of the faithful.

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