Graphic Bible · Scene 12 of 17

An unnamed man offers coins to a 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. Illustrative teaching reflection

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 40:12

The First Seat and Payment

Testing the Prophet by the Life · Shepherd of Hermas 40

Story guide: An offer of coins accompanies the warning about status, luxury and payment for prophecy.

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1212. First, that man who seems to have a spirit exalts himself and wants to have the first seat; and immediately he is presumptuous and shameless and talkative, and lives among many luxuries and many other deceits, and he receives payment for his prophecy; and if he does not receive it, he does not prophesy. Can a divine spirit receive payment and prophesy? A prophet of God cannot do this; rather, the spirit of such prophets is earthly.

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