Some of these documents are called “gospels” because they contain a few stories about Jesus and some of His (purported) sayings. However, they lack the detailed chronology and description of events in the canonical gospels, and while they borrow heavily from the canonical gospels, there is no corroborating evidence showing that they date earlier than the second century.

There were many varieties of Gnosticism, but all Gnostics believed that a limited number of people were capable of attaining a spiritual gnosis (knowledge) far more important than that resulting from “mere obedience” to God’s moral law. Gnostics tended to deny the goodness of the material world and of physical life. They taught that the body and the rest of the physical world were evil and the source of human corruption. In fact, they believed that most people were “fleshly” and incapable of enlightenment, but a few were “spiritual,” and capable of being freed from the illusions of this evil world system.

Many scholars believe that these first-century struggles with false doctrine in the apostolic church indicate that an early or primitive Gnostic movement already existed in apostolic times. An indication of such influence in the infant church was its need to confront those who denied the resurrection of Christ ( 1 Corinthians 15:12 ; 2 Timothy 2:17, 18 ), claimed that Christians could do anything they wanted without committing sin ( 2 Timothy 3:5,6 ; Titus 1:16 ; 2 Peter 2:12,18 ; Jude 1:4,8,11,19 ; Revelation 2:14-29 ), and denied that Jesus had truly come in the flesh ( 1 John 2:22,23; 4:2,3 ).

Margot Adler, an author known for her sympathy with Neopaganism and highly regarded in Neopagan circles, has written one of the most comprehensive histories of modern Neopaganism. In her book Drawing Down the Moon, she tells how during the first decades of the modern “witchcraft” movement (1950s-1970s) a “myth of Wicca” took form. This myth was sparked by the 1921 thesis of Egyptologist Margaret Murray, who maintained that the Pagans of pre-Christian Europe survived into the Middle Ages in great numbers. According to her, the Catholic Church in collaboration with secular authority intentionally and systematically sought out and slaughtered millions of those still holding to the “old religion.” In her view, only a few survived the witch-hunts to provide an unbroken link from the founders of modern Neopaganism-Witchcraft to their earliest Stone Age predecessors. Ms. Adler admits that most leaders of the modern Neopagan movement acknowledge there is no historical basis for this myth. (See Drawing Down the Moon, pages 86-87.)

Jeffrey B. Russell offers this observation regarding the Murray thesis:

This scenario . . . is not permitted by the evidence, which Murray misused in violation of the simplest rules of criticism. All historians are agreed on this (see pp. 41-42).

Historian Joseph Klaits also leaves no doubt regarding the lack of an historical basis for the Murray thesis:

Murray’s bold theses have been effectively criticized many times over the years, most recently by Norman Cohn, who shows with great thoroughness that her opinions rest on a tangled tissue of highly selective quotations, mistranslated passages, and out-and-out fabrications. Although the popular reputation of Murray’s works remains remarkably strong, no serious student of the subject accepts her evidence.(Servants of Satan: The Age of the Witch Hunts, pp. 10-11)