Graphic Bible · Scene 9 of 17

An unnamed gathering pauses quietly with open hands.
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 40:9

Gathering and Intercession

Testing the Prophet by the Life · Shepherd of Hermas 40

Story guide: A gathering pauses in intercession, followed by a speaker addressing the listeners.

Open this scene in the reader →

99. Therefore, when the man who has the divine spirit comes into a gathering of righteous men who have faith in the divine Spirit, and an intercession is made to God by the gathering of those men, then the angel of the prophetic spirit who is assigned to him fills the man; and being filled with the holy Spirit he speaks to the multitude as the Lord wills.

Step through the story beside the Scripture itself. About the People’s Open Bible