There are numerous references to gnosis in the New Testament, but we never notice them because they are translated away as mere knowledge rather than secret knowledge.
Gnostic messages are are also explained away by theologians, sometimes by making them say the opposite of what they really say in the biblical text. For example, why did Jesus speak in parables? We are frequently told that he did so in order that all the simple people should understand his message. Read the passage for yourself and you will see that the truth is exactly the opposite. According to Jesus himself in all the synoptic gospels, he spoke in parables so that certain people would not understand him (Luke 8:9-10, Matthew 13:10-13 or Mark 4:10-12).
Although there are others, this passage alone (if accurately recorded in the cannonical gospels) proves conclusively that at least part of Jesus's message was a gnostic.
The Church Father Clement of Alexandria is known to have suppressed gospel material that did not suit him. As he explained in a letter, referring to the Secret Gospel of Mark:
During Peter’s stay in Rome he wrote an account of the Lord’s doings, not however declaring all of them, nor yet hinting at the secret ones, but selecting those he thought most useful for increasing the faith of those who were being instructed. But when Peter died as a martyr, Mark came over to Alexandria, bringing his own notes and those of Peter, from which he transferred to his former book the things suitable to whatever makes for progress towards gnosis. Thus he composed a more spiritual gospel for the use of those who were being perfected…
(Morton Smith, The Secret Gospel ( London, 1974)). Note not only the use of the word gnosis but the use of the word perfected (cf Parfaits).
There are of course, a whole library of gnostic gospels, once thought "lost" (ie suppressed by the mainstream Church), but preserved in the desert and rediscovered in the twentieth century. According to these gospels too, Jesus was a gnostic teacher.
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