[thefrankbaum]

That depends...how are you defining legitimate? There are Gospels bearing the names of both those Apostles which can be traced back to the very early years of Christianity. However, they were not accepted as canonical by the early Church. But that is exactly what I am getting at. What we have for Scripture *is* a Tradition - there were a lot of Gospels floating around in the early years, but the Church separated the wheat from the chaff, so to speak, and gave us Scripture as we know it today.

[dsc]

“However, they were not accepted as canonical by the early Church.”

Okay, and I am not about to substitute my judgment for theirs.

I wish, though, that I knew more about the reasons that these two were rejected.

Sigh. I guess I’ll have to look into it. Oh, no, more work (whimper, whine, moan, groan, gripe, complain, caterwaul, self pity).

[maryz]

I’m not expert here, but I believe some things from the so-called “apocryphal gospels” are accepted as tradition, although the works as a whole were not accepted as canonical, though I don’t whether they’re necessarily things with the force of dogma. The only example I can think of is that Joseph was a widower with grown children, which I believe is in the apocryphal Gospel of St. James.