Graphic Bible · Scene 3 of 3

Hermas looks thoughtfully toward his open hands in soft light.
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. Disclosed visual essay: invitation to prayer

Historical Library · Apostolic Fathers
Shepherd of Hermas — Vision 1, section i

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 1:3

An Invitation to Pray

Desire, Accusation, and the Call to Pray · Shepherd of Hermas 1

Story guide: Hermas’s open hands symbolize the invitation to pray for his household and the holy ones; this is a visual essay.

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3"Their souls will repent—those who have no hope, but have despaired of themselves and of their life. But you—pray to God, and he will heal your sins, and those of your whole household, and of all the holy ones."

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