comes guilty of his blood.408 Do good works, therefore, ye who have received good from
the Lord; lest, while ye delay to do them, the building of the tower be finished, and you be
rejected from the edifice: there is now no other tower a-building. For on your account was
the work of building suspended. Unless, then, you make haste to do rightly, the tower will
be completed, and you will be excluded.”
After he had spoken with me he rose up from the couch, and taking the Shepherd and
the virgins, he departed. But he said to me that he would send back the Shepherd and the
virgins to my dwelling. Amen.409
408 [Jas. v. 19, 20. As St. James concludes with this principle, so also Hermas, who evidently delights in this
apostle’s teaching and has thrown it into this allegorical metaphrase.]
409 The Vatican has: “Here ends the Book of the Shepherd, the disciple of the blessed apostle Paul. Thanks
be to God.” The Æthiopic has: “May the name of him who wrote this book be written on a pillar of gold. With
thanksgiving to Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, this book of the prophet Hermas has been finished. Amen. Finished
are the visions, and commandments, and similitudes of the prophet Hermas, who is Paul, in the year 191 of
mercy, 23d night and 22d day of the month,” etc. The writer goes on [fruitlessly] to show that Hermas is Paul,
appealing to Acts xiv. 12.
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Similitude Tenth. Concerning Repentance and Alms-Giving.