"Gnostic" ignorance

An image of the Gnostic "Gospel of Thomas" "Gospel of Judas," provided by the National Geographic Society.

Oh, puh-leeze!! C'mon, people, and give me a break! I was exasperated to read about the discovery of a Gospel of Thomas Judas text in the New York Times today, not because of the discovery, but because somehow the reporter gives credence to "Da Vinci Code" type arguments that Christian religion is of human plotting, not of God. The idea among some scholars is that the Christianity we know today is only one of several competing early Christian beliefs. From the article:

"These discoveries are exploding the myth of a monolithic religion and demonstrating how diverse — and fascinating — the early Christian movement really was," said Elaine Pagels, a professor of religion at Princeton who specializes in studies of the Gnostics.

This is frustrating, because even though I'm not a scholar, I've read enough original sources to know the true meaning behind the "catholic" church and the defense of orthodoxy against heretics, such as the author of the "Gospel of Thomas Judas." In a way, we have such heresies to thank for early creeds of the orthodox, universal (or "catholic") church. As for the origins of the Bible canon--that was not decided by any council, but was agreed upon by comparing the accepted books that had been passed down in each regional church from the time of their writing. The "History of the Church" written by Eusebius (260-339 A.D.) is a good record of what was considered cannonical before Constantine. From Eusebius:

III.25: It will be well at this point to classify the New Testament writings already referred to.
We must, of course, put first the holy quartet of the Gospels,
followed by the Acts of the Apostles
The next place in the list goes to Paul's Epistles
and after them we must recognize the epistle called I John
likewise I Peter
To these may be added (if thought proper) The Revelation of John
...These are classed as 'The Recognized Books'.

Those that are 'Disputed Books', yet familiar to most, include
the epistles known as James, Jude, and II Peter
and those called II John and III John
(the work either of the Evangelist John or of someone else
with the same name).

Among the spurious books must be placed the 'Acts' of Paul, the 'Shepherd [of Hermas]' and the 'Revelation of Peter'; also the 'Epistle of Barnabas' and the 'Teachings of the Apostles', together with the 'Revelation of John' (if this seems the place for it; as I said before, some reject it, others include it among the Recognized Books). Moreover some have found a place in the list for the 'Gospel of the Hebrews', a book which has a special appeal for those Hebrews who have accepted Christ. These would all be classed with the Disputed Books, but I have been obliged to list the latter separately, distinguishing those writings which according to the tradition of the Church are true, genuine, and recognized, from those in a different category (not canonical, but disputed, yet familiar to most churchmen).

For we must not confuse these with the writings published by heretics under the names of the Apostles, as containing the gospels of Peter, Thomas, Mathias, and several others besides these, or Acts of Andrew, John, and other apostles. To none of these has any churchman of any generation ever seen fit to refer in his writings. Again, nothing could be farther from apostolic usage than the type of phraseology employed, while the ideas and implications of their contents are so irreconcilable with true orthodoxy that they stand revealed as the forgeries of heretics. It follows that so far from being classeven among 'The Spurious Books', they must be thrown out as impious and beyond the pale.

Note what he had to say about the Gospel of Thomas [see comments for correction to this post]. The good news in all this was that tonight the front page nytimes.com article about the newfound "gospel" was changed to this more reasonable one: Document Is Genuine, but Is Its Story True? Eh, probably not true, I'd say.