A book a friend let me borrow, "The Jesus Mysteries" says that "the Gnostics were so effectively suppressed that until recently almost all we knew about them came from the writings of their detractors and oppressors."

"The Gnostics' view of Christianity was in many ways the mirror image of that of the Literalist Christians who eventually became the Roman Catholic Church."

It also says that they wrote hundreds of different Christian gospels.

"Gnostics taught that the true Christian experienced Gnosis or mystical "Knowledge" for themselves and became a Christ!"