Graphic Bible · Scene 4 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 53:4
Guard Yourself Now
Keep Flesh and Spirit Pure · Shepherd of Hermas 53
Story guide: The shepherd answers with the source’s conditional teaching about healing and guarding flesh and spirit.
Open this scene in the reader →4“As to former ignorances,” he says, “God alone is able to give healing concerning them; for all authority is his. But now guard yourself, and the Lord, the Almighty—being full of compassion—will give healing for former ignorances, if from now on you do not defile your flesh or the spirit; for both are shared and cannot be defiled apart from one another. Therefore keep both pure, and you will live to God.”
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