Graphic Bible · Scene 2 of 4
Historical Library · Apostolic Fathers
Shepherd of Hermas — Similitude 5, section vii
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 53:2
Keep Yourself Pure
Keep Flesh and Spirit Pure · Shepherd of Hermas 53
Story guide: The shepherd instructs Hermas to keep his flesh pure and warns against defilement.
Open this scene in the reader →2“Listen now,” he says: “Keep this flesh of yours pure and undefiled, so that the spirit that dwells in it may bear witness to it, and your flesh may be justified. Watch lest it ever rise up in your heart that this flesh of yours is perishable, and you misuse it in some defilement. For if you defile your flesh, you will also defile the Holy Spirit; and if you defile the flesh, you will not live.”
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