James Woods, they rejected the gnostics all together! That was one of the ante-nicene fathers wrote what they did. They were writing against the heresies of the Gnostics.
Where can you find ANY evidence that they accepted the Gnostic Gospels? And by the early church I am referring to all the evidence and writings we have from the early church fathers: Clement, Ignatius, Polycarp, Irenaeus, Tertullian, Ignatius, etc.
Again, many of these Gnostic Gospels were not even around during the time some of these men were writing. Perhaps I should've worded my thread title better and wrote it as "Why did the early church accept the four NT gospels and reject the Gnostics".