Proto-Gnosticism in the context of "Thomasines"

Thomasine is a name given to a Syrian Christian group that originated in the first or the second century, who especially revered the apostle Thomas and some scholars speculate to have written the gospel of Thomas. They did not refer to their writing on the life of Jesus as an "εὐαγγέλιον" (euangélion); rather they seem to have preferred the word logia, meaning a book of sayings, as both the genre of their work which makes their approach different from the other early Christian authors. The group was said to have held esoteric, mystical, and ascetic ideas. Some have associated them with the proto-Gnostics. However modern critics have disputed their affiliation with Gnosticism, especially because they lack many uniquely Gnostic beliefs.