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Originally Posted by Phaelyn
In the 4th and 5th centuries, various Church Fathers wrote that the Gospel of Thomas was highly valued by Mani, who was the prophet and the founder of Manichaeism, a religion strongly influenced by Gnosticism which was widespread in the 4th century. In some ancient art of Mani, he looks like Buddha, as he is seated in the lotus position on a large lotus flower.
Cyril of Jerusalem mentioned a "Gospel of Thomas" twice in his Catechesis stating: "The Manichæans also wrote a Gospel according to Thomas, which being tinctured with the fragrance of the evangelic title corrupts the souls of the simple sort." So some basically claimed Mani or Mani's followers wrote it.
Mani was raised a member of the Jewish Christian sect of the Elcesaites so he started out as a Christian. At ages 12 and 24, Mani had visionary experiences of a "heavenly twin" calling him to leave his father's Baptist sect and preach the true message of Jesus in a new gospel. Mani then traveled to India where he studied Hinduism and its various extant philosophies, including Buddhism.
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But did any of the early Christians consider the Gospel of Thomas to be canon material?
In verse 52 of the Gospel of Thomas, it reads:
They said to him: "Twenty four prophets spoke to Israel and they all spoke of you." He responded to them: "You have deserted the living one who is with you and you spoke about the dead." seems to hold up the argument of only 24 books for the Old Testament. Too bad nothing is mentioned for the number of books for the New Testament.
The Gospel of Thomas does claim the book was written by an Apostle which would seem to elevate the book to the same level as the four canonized Gospels. The problem with this argument is that the four respective canonized Gospels never claimed within the Gospels to have been written by Apostles: only tradition makes that claim!
To complicate matters, Justin Martyr (100-165) mentioned gospels in his writings but forgot to mention which gospels.
As a side note: what you mentioned occurred during a time period when various beliefs were being 'worked' into main stream Christianity.