I'm not trying to pull a "gotcha" here or anything, but I have one person saying that Holy Tradition is infallible, one person saying the Protoevangelion is Holy Tradition, and one person saying the Protoevangelion is heretical. My poor little mind is lost. :)
Forest, I recently tried to describe what process the Church undergoes before it declares an Apostolic Tradition infallible. Just because something CLAIMS to come from an apostle doesn't make it APOSTOLIC. Most scholars date the Infancy Gospel of James to the second half of the second century, most likely not written by the Apostle James. What we have here is likely an Apocryphal book that the Church certainly was aware of - BUT CHOSE NOT TO CALL IT SCRIPTURE. If the Church believed it was from James, the writing would have been likely included at least as a NT Deuterocanonical.
With that said, though, there can be parts within the Infancy Gospel that do come from James or an Apostle. As far as I know, I am not aware of a Church Council using this Gospel as a background in declaring any Tradition to be an Apostolic - and thus - an infallible Tradition (such as infant baptism). Certainly, there may be some truth found within the story itself, and there may even be infallible truth. However, I am not aware of the Church ever making this declaration on anything found within - although an underlying theme of Mary's virginity certainly seems to be stressed, which IS Apostolic Tradition that is considered infallible. Perhaps the Council of Ephesus used this story to show Mary's Virginity?
My Orthodox brothers - any comments?
The point, Forest, is that entire writings are NOT Apostolic Tradition. They would be called "Scripture".
Regards
If one wants to know what the Orthodox Church teaches about the early life of the Theotokos, etc., then all one needs to do is to read the lengthy accounts of the relevant feasts in the Synaxarion, St. Dimitri's Lives of Saints... and the texts of the liturgical services.
Anything found in the Protoevangelion that is not reflected in these primary Orthodox sources may be suspect.
I haven't researched this in a long time, but my recollection, which may be faulty, is, as I wrote earlier, that there are divergences between the Orthodox accounts and what is written in the Protoevangelion. It strikes me as similarities born out of a common source in Holy Tradition, rather than the Protoevangelion being a part of Holy Tradition in the same way that, say, the writings of St. John Chrysostom are.
Kolokotronis may, however, be more right on this than I am. Wouldn't be the first time.