Graphic Bible · Scene 1 of 3

Hermas looks grieved at the sheep’s suffering.
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. Reported literary scene

Historical Library · Apostolic Fathers
Shepherd of Hermas — Similitude 6, section iii

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 3 [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. Use repentance for moral change while preserving the works own teaching about baptism, forgiveness, conduct and the angel of repentance; do not impose a different tradition on it.

Shepherd of Hermas 56:1

Who Is This Shepherd

The Explanation of the Punishing Shepherd · Shepherd of Hermas 56

Story guide: Grieved for the sheep, Hermas asks who the harsh shepherd is, and the guide identifies the angel of punishment.

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1Therefore, seeing them being scourged and afflicted like this, I was grieved for them, because they were being tormented in this way and had no respite at all. I said to the shepherd who was speaking with me, “Sir, who is this shepherd, so pitiless and harsh, showing no compassion at all for these sheep?” He said, “This is the angel of punishment; he is one of the righteous angels, appointed over punishment. Therefore he takes charge of those who have wandered away from God and have gone after the desires and deceits of this age, and he punishes them, as they deserve, with dreadful and various punishments.”

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