catholicity
Yes, if one purposefully narrows down the selection of representatives of "the true church" enough one can arrive at or dismiss "catholicity" for any text. And the criteria for that? Apostolicity and orthodoxy. It's a circular mess.
Doesn't "catholicity" refer to how widespread the text was? Texts that were used by the universal Church are "catholic"; texts that were localized to just one region are not. The attestation in 2 Clement shows only that St. Clement was familiar with the text. This does not necessarily indicate that the text was used universally, throughout the Church.
To clarify, 2 Clement is not generally regarded to have been written by Clement, and the text makes no such claim. If 2 Clement were in fact the work of a purported Pope, that would be a very big deal for Roman Catholic theology.
and orthodoxy
of the evangelical reports were criteria that came into play when trying to ascertain their authenticity.
The "orthodoxy" of a text is a terrible argument for authenticity without the presupposition that "orthodoxy" is correct, and it's even worse when that "orthodoxy" is itself constructed out of a particular choice of texts deemed to be authentic (or apostolic, catholic, etc.), for then it's just a self-affirming exercise in question begging.
You're overlooking the fact that the Christians of the day would have been able to recognize whether or not the book's contents were consistent with the stuff that St. Thomas actually preached. If it was consistent, they'd have reason to believe that St. Thomas wrote it. If it wasn't consistent, they'd have reason to reject the book as a forgery. That's where orthodoxy comes from. It's not an arbitrary or artificial label; the only teachings that can be called "orthodox" are those teachings which are consistent with what the apostles taught. The apostles were all in agreement with one another, so there's no picking and choosing what's "orthodox".
Yes, but we're not talking about people who knew Thomas or lived around the time of his apostolate.
The fact that the gospel of Thomas never caught on would seem to indicate that it wasn't actually written by St. Thomas; or, at the very least, it would indicate that the early Church did not believe it to have been written by St. Thomas.
A reason it wouldn't have reached the same popularity and status as the other gospels in Christian communities
anyway is that the latter are narrative accounts of the life of Jesus and had, maybe even grew out of, a liturgical use. A list of difficult sayings appeals to a different kind of person, say a mystic, and serves a different function than these or letters of instruction. Regardless, an unorthodox text wouldn't have caught on in what would call itself the orthodox group
by definition.
Now, if you're trying to argue that it did catch on but was later suppressed, all I can say is no. Despite what certain atheistic, agnostic, gnostic, or otherwise anti-Catholic scholars may posit, there was no conspiracy. Nothing was suppressed by Constantine or by anyone else;
That's obviously not true. I'm not arguing that it "caught on" only to be suppressed but that a specific version of things, popularised in the 4th century, became the established Christianity backed by Roman political power. The heterodox
were snuffed out and their texts
were destroyed. This is no controversial statement.
the Church today believes and teaches the same stuff that it has believed and taught since the very beginning. And nothing has ever been removed from the Catholic canon.
This is, as always, identifying the 4th century group with "the Church" and projecting it back onto the formative period of Christianity where the data that would concern differences between this "Catholic" group and others is sparse and ambiguous. Maybe it's an article of faith, but
I don't think one can honestly claim to derive this through historiography, though it might be one consistent explanation of the data.
The only solution to me, and the only one that matters, is partially present in Calvin's notion of
sola scriptura: the text, to the Christian enthused with the Holy Spirit, must speak for itself. Either one encounters Jesus Christ and his truth in it, and it serves the practical function of deepening gnosis and theosis, or it does not. If it does, it shows its authenticity, and if it does not it is worthless to me anyway.
If you acknowledge that the book did not catch on initially, and was never a canonical book, but you are merely trying to argue that it's nevertheless authentic, then I suppose maybe that's possible. But it doesn't seem too important to me. It's not as if important truths of the faith were ever lost, or that the gospel of Thomas can possibly shed any more light on the faith than can the canonical texts. The fact that God allowed it to fall into obscurity proves that its contents are not necessary for salvation, regardless of whether or not it was actually written by St. Thomas. (Comparably, literally all of the apostles' oral preaching has been lost to time, yet no part of the deposit of faith was ever lost. Everything that we need to know has been preserved in the sacred scripture and in the sacred oral tradition.)
Something like that, yes.
Apropos which it's interesting how Cyril speaking in the 4th century insisted it was a product of the Manichaeans, which is completely false,
Does he ever quote from the text? Maybe he was referring to a different "gospel of Thomas"? I wouldn't be suprised if there were multiple fake gospels attributed to St. Thomas. And maybe one of them (now lost) was the product of the Manichaeans.
It's possible, but the Syrian Manichaeans used the peculiar title
Dydimus Judas Thomas for the Apostle, which the gospel also does, and it would seem they did use the text. It's too much of a coincidence for me to warrant positing another gospel "according to Thomas" used by the Manichaeans.
or how 3rd century "Hippolytus" grossly misquotes Thomas 4, meaning he or a later "editor" was dishonestly representing it, either because he didn't have the text or was lying. To me this is just indicative of the problem, namely, how wrong and careless the Fathers could be in their historical musings.
What passage in Hippolytus are you referring to? Maybe he was quoting from a corrupt manuscript or something. Or maybe he was quoting it from memory (and/or paraphrasing it). There are all sorts of possible reasons why the text might not match. If it's not a fair representation then that's unfortunate, but it doesn't mean that Hippolytus was dishonest or even careless. Or it could just be that he was going for breadth rather than depth, and was focusing more on the gist rather than on accuracy of every little detail.
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This is also a possibility, if he had a "corrupt" manuscript. However, the difference is considerable. He quotes, "The one who seeks me will find me in children of seven years and older, for there, hidden in the fourteenth aeon, I am revealed", rather than, "Jesus said, 'the man old in days will not hesitate to ask a small child seven days old about the place of life, and he will live. For many who are first will become last, and they will become one and the same'". This is very different, but close enough that, given the attribution to a "Gospel according to Thomas", they can reasonably be connected. I'm inclined to believe whoever wrote this didn't have the text.
