***Yeah. You're point?***
If the SHEPEHRD OF HERMAS was in the 4th century bibles why is it not in it today.
And why is no one throwing fits about it.
It wasn't
"If the SHEPEHRD OF HERMAS was in the 4th century bibles why is it not in it today.
And why is no one throwing fits about it."
There are three answers.
There were no definitive 4th Century Bibles. There were different sets of Canons, and there wasn't agreement on them. The current Catholic Canon was fixed by Pope Damascus at the time of Jerome. But that was only followed in the West, where Latin was spoken and the Vulgate was used. In the East, where Greek was used, different Canons were used, and still are. The Greek Orthodox have a few extra new testament books like the Shepherd of Hermas and the letters of Clement. They also have two more Old Testament books: 3 and 4 Maccabees.
The Ethiopian Orthodox have several books more than that.
The second point is that that was true even when the Catholic and Orthodox Churches were all still in unity. And this is NOT a point of contention between Catholics and Orthodox, because those books were excluded from the Canon for specific reasons (the NT books were pastoral and probably not by apostles, and it was decided to draw the line at apostolic authorship), while 3 and 4 Maccabbees only contain a bit of really useful material, while the rest is odd and historical; the Orthodox place these books last, in an appendix at the back. Unlike Protestants, who REJECT the so-called "Apocrypha" because they say they're NOT in the Bible, Catholics don't say there's anything wrong with the Shepherd of Hermas or the Letters of Clement - these are still orthodox Christian works, they just didn't make the cut. They are good to read and valuable Christian homilies, by saints no less!
And that brings us to our final, and most important point: why nobody is throwing fits about it. Remember, PROTESTANTS are the ones who have elevated the Bible into the Supreme Authority over Church and man. Someone on one thread equated the Bible with The Word at the beginning of John. In other words, the Bible IS God, or nearly so.
That is absurd. Catholics (and Orthodox) never thought that way. The Bible is the written tradition of the apostles and the Jews. Being in written form does NOT supersede the oral tradition. So, the Bible does NOT have more authority than the Church. The Bible is interpreted WITHIN the traditions of the Church. That a book is in or not in the Bible is not really important, so long as it is within the traditions of the Church, which the books that are canonical in the East but not the West are just not a problem.
I have to reiterate this, because it is the answer to the question: to PROTESTANTS, the Bible is the "Constitution" of religion, the "Highest Authority", the "Law Book". To Catholics, the Bible is part of tradition, part of God's revelation. It's not MOST of revelation - look at the ongoing revelations of God's goodness from thousands of saints over the ages. Look at the great proselytizing of the early Church, which captured Rome and didn't have a Bible at all.
Protestants took the Bible, MADE IT their supreme law book, and then used it as a lever to bash the Church, and each other, in their quest for independent spiritual authority. No Catholic thinks that the Bible has that authority.
To put it bluntly, the Bible is the Word of God, but it has LESS authority than the Catechism of the Church. Why? Not because the Catechism is inspired while the Bible isn't, but because the Bible, though inspired, is not clear. It was collected by men at various points to address needs of the Church vis-a-vis heresies, and to recount history. The Bible can be MISUNDERSTOOD in infinite ways, and by giving it a legal authority which it emphatically DOES NOT HAVE, one usurps the authority that God DID give to the Church (Jesus left a CHURCH, and prayed for its unity. He did NOT leave a Bible dispensary, nor even any written texts of any certitude or importance. And he was God, so presumably knew what she was doing.)
So, it isn't very RELEVANT, to Catholics and the Orthodox, that The Shepherd of Hermas is in the Bible or not, because the Bible isn't radically different from the rest of authority, and it stands BELOW the Church in authority.
That's why Catholics and the Orthodox don't fight over this point. It is not a theological issue. The Shepherd of Hermas is canonical, according to the Orthodox, but canonical does not give it independent authority as tradition outside of the Church. The Shepherd of Hermas is not canonical in the Catholic tradition, but not being canonical does not leave it outside of the tradition, or without spiritual authority. Orthodox and Catholic draw the identical moral lesson and teaching from it, and oral tradition is AS AUTHORITATIVE as written tradition (the Bible) in both wings of the Church (Catholic and Orthodox).
That's why nobody within the Catholic and Orthodox fold is throwing fits about it. Because neither of them has exaggerated the authority of the Bible and made an idol out of it.
Protestants have exaggerated the authority of the Bible to the point of quasi-idolatry, which WOULD make the question very relevant when Protestants look at the Orthodox or Catholics.
>> If the SHEPEHRD OF HERMAS was in the 4th century bibles why is it not in it today. <<
"The Shepherd of Hermas" was not in 4th century bibles. Nor was it ever included with the Old Testament. Along with "The Teaching of the Twelve" (Gr., "Didache"), it was considered by many 2nd-century churches to be "writings suitable for the spiritual formation of converts," and included in publications of apostolic writings. Most such books, with those two exceptions, later became known as the New Testament. Unlike other non-biblical works, such as the Gnostic gospels, these two books were never condemned by name as impure, but were not included in the bible when various councils of bishops set forth the New Testament canons in the third and fourth centuries.