Among their most famous scholars: Valentinus, born in 100 AD in Alexandria, Egypt; Basilides, a contemporary of Valentinus; Marcion, who founded his own church with his followers and composed his own gospel; Secundus, Epiphanes, Ptolemy, Marcus, Simon, Saturninus, Carpocrates, Marcellina, the Ebionites, the Nicolaitans, Cerdon, and the Encratites.

Among their most important books and texts: The Gospel of Thomas, a disciple of the Lord Messiah; the Gospel of Philip, a disciple of the Lord Messiah; the Gospel of Judas, the treacherous disciple; the Gospel of the Egyptians; the previously mentioned Acts of John; the Gospel of Mary Magdalene; the Gospel of Truth; the Sophia of Jesus Christ; and the Letter of Eugnostos the Blessed.

Who fought their ideas: Irenaeus of Antioch (author's text) compiled books against these ideas. The most famous book, "The Refutation and Overthrow of Falsely So-Called Knowledge," was later renamed by Christian scholars to "Against Heresies." This book, written between 182 and 186 AD, is considered the best description of Gnosticism from the early Church era. Irenaeus, the bishop of Lyon in the early Church, fought them by all means. He burned their books, letters, and manuscripts. Copies were only found, as we mentioned, at Nag Hammadi in Egypt after the Gnostics had been killed under every stone and rock under the pretext that they were "authors of innovation and heresy." Few of them survived, practicing their faith in secret. It is said that remnants exist in two countries: Iran and Iraq.

This is a brief overview of this group. The point of similarity between this esoteric group and the general Muslim populace is that they agree on a fundamental issue: the matter of substitution in the crucifixion of the Lord Messiah. This point is one of the most dangerous to exoteric Christianity. For this reason, the Gnostics were killed, their books were burned, and they were displaced, because their belief demolishes the fallacy of "Redemption" and refutes this myth, which has also permeated the deficient Shia. As for the similarity between this esoteric group and the Monotheists (Muwahhidun), it lies in many issues, most importantly reincarnation and detachment from materialism.