The Shepherd of Hermas

Next he came to look at the white and round stones, and said to me: What do we do with these stones? How should I know, Sir? said I. Then do you not notice anything about them?

I, Sir, said I, have not this art, I am neither a stone-cutter, nor can I understand. Do you not see, said he, that they are very round, and if I wish to make them square, a great deal must be cut away from them? Yet some of them must of necessity be put into the building.

If then, Sir, said I, it is necessary, why do you worry yourself, and not choose for the building those which you wish and fit them into it? He chose out from them the largest and bright ones and hewed them, and the maidens took and fitted them into the outside of the building.

And the rest which remained over were taken up and put back into the plain from which they had been brought. But they were not rejected, Because, said he, there remains still a little to be

And there were called twelve women, very beautiful to look at, clothed in black, girded, and their shoulders bare, and their hair loose. And these women looked to me to be cruel. And the shepherd commanded them to take the stones which were rejected from the building, and take them back to the mountains, from which also they had been brought.

And they were glad and took them up, and took away all the stones, and put them whence they had been taken. And after all the stones had been taken up, and there no longer remained a stone round the tower, the shepherd said to me: Let us go round the tower and see if there is any defect in it. And I went round it with him.

And when the shepherd saw that the tower was beautifully built, lie was very joyful; for the tower was so built that when I saw it, I envied its building, for it was so built, as if it were all one stone, without a single joint in it, and the stone appeared as if it had been hewn out of a rock, for it seemed to me to be a single stone.