Graphic Bible · Scene 4 of 4

The elderly woman gives sober counsel while holding her closed book.
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 vision

Historical Library · Apostolic Fathers
Shepherd of Hermas — Vision 1, 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 2:4

The Intention of the Heart

Grief Before the White Chair · Shepherd of Hermas 2

Story guide: The woman’s counsel concerns intention in the heart; the image stays with the speaker rather than inventing a wicked act.

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4But she said, “By no means does this matter apply to the servant of God. Yet surely a thought concerning her rose up in your heart. For such an intention brings sin upon the servants of God. For it is an evil and startling intention for a most reverent spirit, and one already proven, if it should desire an evil deed—especially Hermas, the self-controlled one, who abstains from every evil desire and is full of all simplicity and great innocence.”

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