many contest that john was a forgery written directly to attack gnosticism thus having a similar style but the most supported stance of the gnostic anti gnostic stance is that the original more gnostic version was doctored actually quite a lot of people support this idea cerinthus was held by some to have been the author despite the fact that irenaeus who makes the first known quotes from john uses his copy of the gospel to attack cerinthus mark can be seen as gnostic see the pythagoreanism part for example re but in particular the mysterious naked youth and thomas didymous which can both easily be seen as gnostic teachings n b thomas didymous translates into english as twin twin though i am not going to elaborate on that here as i will add it to the article at some point also the very existance of secret gospel of mark is gnostic as well as the reasoning that clement gives for it's creation and his statement that the carpocrations favoured it heavily p s i think it would only be fair of me to inform you that i have actually met jimmy dunn in a professional capacity for quite some time so there is little point in trying to quote his work at me dec utc