"thought the Gnostic opinion was that Jesus was never actually cruxcifed and he just flew back to heaven"
I actually found the story for this in one of my books. The story basically says the following(I'm adding in information and simplifying); at baptism Jesus(the mortal) became NOUS(divine mind, I think, ill look it up later). Before his crucifixion Nous disguised Simon the mage(a 'leader'/founder of gnosticism) as jesus, who was crucified in his turn while Nous returned to his place of origin in the sky.
An interesting note with this story is that the early Christian church claimed that Simon was killed by St. Peter(more of a manslaughter type thing), possibly around the same time gnostic disciples started claiming this. I'm assuming it was a type of propaganda, perhaps on both ends(especially with simon being sacraficed as Jesus). It's kind of funny because it almost implies gnosticism was founded by Jesus, assuming this was some kind of freaky friday action.
Another thing, you guys should really find some work on Bacchus. Their stories are practically identical, and it's been presented that the early christian church mixed them up purposefully so that romans would have an easy transition period to becoming Christian. Actually, jesus is nearly identical to every single "Savior" type person ever created. All the way down to age and the amount of apostles he had. 33 is a funny age to die at, think of masonic degrees. Especially how the period in which he did the most teaching were within the last three years of his life(post baptism). Very weird. Savior-sun/son is almost too ironic.
NOUS:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nous
I'd say it's more akin to plato and plotinus' definition. It's funny how much of gnostic thought is derived from actual philosophy, while the influence it had on the christian church is immeasureable. Hopefully at some point in the near future I'll be able to find a website(or some other information source i can share) of notable contributions gnosticism(and other religions) have made to the Christian religion(along with philosophical and scientific contributions). Christianity is such an amalgamation.
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