Graphic Bible · Scene 5 of 6
Historical Library · Apostolic Fathers
Shepherd of Hermas — Similitude 5, section ii
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 50:5
The Vineyard Parable
The Fast and the Vineyard · Shepherd of Hermas 50
Story guide: The shepherd tells of a servant digging a vineyard, removing weeds and leaving it thriving.
Open this scene in the reader →5He says to me, "I tell you, this is not fasting, the kind you suppose you are fasting to the Lord. Listen to a parable. A vineyard, not having weeds, will give more fruit, not being choked by the weeds. So the servant took up [his tool], dug the vineyard, and pulled up all the weeds that were in the vineyard. And that vineyard became very comely and thriving, having no weeds to choke it.
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