Shepherd of Hermas 19

1“Listen,” he says, “about the three forms you are inquiring about. In the first vision, why did she appear to you as an old woman and seated on a chair? Because your spirit is old and already withered and has no strength because of your weaknesses and your double‑mindedness. For just as the aged, no longer having hope of being renewed, expect nothing else but their sleep, so also you, having been weakened by the affairs of life, have handed yourselves over to negligence, and you did not cast your anxieties upon the Lord; instead your mind has been shattered, and you have grown old in your sorrows.”

2“Why then was she seated in a chair? I wanted to know, sir.” “Because every weak person sits in a chair because of his weakness, in order that the weakness of his body may be supported. You have the pattern of the first vision.”