Who decided what made it into the canonical gospels and over what period did this happen?

I have heard that Irenaeus circa 180 AD, contributed to the thowing out of many scriptures with equal claim to validity as the remaining 4 ,based on matters such as popularity, ease of comprehension to the multitude,o'doxy ...the Gospel of Mary, the Gospel of Truth, the Gospel of Thomas, all thrown out , not because of some divine inspiration given the early church leaders, but for reasons of political expedience and to reduce the intellectual effort required to become a Christian, until the doctrine was formed into the off-the-shelf-automatic salvation shallows that now stands - that we merely have to accept Jesus on faith and we r saved...the fact that many of these early scriptures believed that the Christ indwelling in every man was more important than the historical jesus, who was regarded as a temporary vehicle only for the Christ, which was eventually supposed to be obtainable by every LIVING human. Also Athansaius has been mentioned as the chief censor of early scripture.