Tertullian's Attitude Toward the Shepherd of Hermas

It seems that Tertullian (after he became a Montanist) did not like the work known as the Shepherd of Hermas because of his stance on repentance and adultery. Tertullian neither regarded the Shepherd as Scripture nor as law (LEX). He wrote:

"It [the Shepherd of Hermas] is a story, not a law" (De Orat XVI, 2). This comment shows that Tertullian did not view the Shepherd in the same light that he viewed Scripture, and his view of this work appears to have been correct in certain respects. (See Jean Danielou 3:153.)

I say, in certain respects, since the Shepherd is not a part of inspired Scripture and never was--yet Tertullian apparently had an unbalanced view of godly repentance. Moreover, I am not so sure he was right to believe that the Shepherd condones adultery. See Mandate 4 of the Shepherd.

Tertullian also writes in De Pudicitia X,12:

"These (pleas) you (will urge) to me, most benignant
interpreter of God. But I would yield my ground to
you, if the scripture of 'the Shepherd,' which is the
only one which favours adulterers, had deserved to
find a place in the Divine canon; if it had not been
habitually judged by every council of Churches (even
of your own) among apocryphal and false (writings);
itself adulterous, and hence a patroness of its
comrades; from which in other respects, too, you
derive initiation; to which, perchance, that Shepherd
will play the patron whom you depict upon your
(sacramental) chalice, (depict, I say, as) himself
withal a prostitutor of the Christian sacrament, (and
hence) worthily both the idol of drunkenness, and the
brize of adultery by which the chalice will quickly be
followed, (a chalice) from which you sip nothing more
readily than (the flavour of) the 'ewe' of (your)
second repentance!"

What makes this text so intriguing is that Tertullian writes about the "Divine canon" which implies that he already knew about some type of canon generally
accepted by most Christians in his day. Additionally, he indicates that "every council of Churches" decided not to view the Shepherd as canonical. While Danielou suggests that Tertullian's language is a wee bit strong, since not every church council (or early church) thought the Shepherd was false, they did not usually view it as Scripture either. Tertullian's words may indicate that claims about the biblical canon being formed in the forth century or later are a little exaggerated, to say the least. One also needs to distinguish between the word "canon" referring to a list of authoritative books and that same term which references the inspired books themselves.