The Shepherd of Hermas

And she raised me up by the hand and took me to the couch and said to the young men: Go and build.

And after the young men had gone away and we were alone, she said to me: Sit here. I said to her: Lady, let the elders sit first.[*](The meaning is obscure: the elders is often explained as the Elders of the Church, but it is more probably a mere formula of politeness seniores priores. ) She said: Do what I tell you, and sit down.

Yet when I wished to sit[*](Hermas and the couch) on the right hand she would not let me, but signed to me with her hand to sit on the left. When therefore I thought about this, and was grieved because she did not let me sit on the right hand, she said to me: Are you sorry, Hermas? The seat on the[*](The place of the martyrs) right is for others, who have already been found well-pleasing to God and have suffered for the Name. But you fall far short of sitting with them. But remain in your simplicity as you are doing, and you shall sit with them, and so shall all who do their deeds and bear what they also bore.

What, I said, did they bear? Listen, she said: Stripes, imprisonments, great afflictions, crucifixions, wild beasts, for the sake of the Name.

And you are desirous of sitting on the right hand with them, but your failings are many. But you shall be cleansed from your failings, and all who are not double-minded shall be cleansed from all sins, up to this day.

When she had said this she wished to go away, but I fell at her feet and besought her by the Lord, to show me the vision which she had promised.

And she again took me by the hand and lifted[*](The vision of the town) me up, and made me sit on the couch on the left and she herself sat on the right. And she lifted up a certain glittering rod, and she said to me: Do you see a great thing? I said to her: Lady, I see nothing. She said to me: Behold, do you not see before you a great tower being built on the water with shining square stones?

Now the tower was being built four-square by the six young men who had come with her; but tens of thousands of other men were bringing stones, some from the deep sea, and some from the land, and were giving them to the six young men, and these kept taking them and building.

The stones which had been[*](The stones) dragged from the deep sea, they placed without exception as they were into the building, for they had all been shaped and fitted into the joins with the other stones. And they so fastened one to the other that their joins could not be seen. But the

Of the other stones, which were being brought from the dry ground, they cast some away, and some they put into the building and others they broke up and cast far from the tower.