Paul reshaping the church

[athrock]

And while I'm here athrock, why don't you explain this to me:

And we now know it wasn't just two factions "Orthodox" and "Gnostic", but rather many more than that. And if we are to believe the number of Gnostic texts that didn't survive much past the fifth century, versus the smaller number of Orthodox texts that are lost, it leaves us to conclude that the Gnostics may have been the more mainstream version of early Christianity. You have to realise that Gnosticism was a valid form of Christianity. I see in another thread you denounced anything that is Unitarians as being "not Christian" and that's not so. We don't even have evidence that the Trinity was an established doctrine in the first, second, or third centuries. Coming to agreement of the Trinity within the Orthodox church took centuries, even if the idea had existed early on. Gnosticism survived until the fifth century or so. A lot can happen over 400 years. We just have to look at how Judaism grew, and then split into factions as well before that.

I could go on burying you with the clear teaching of the earliest Christians who destroy your position with their clear teaching, but I'll leave you with this commentary from Irenaeus on Apostolic Succession:

Irenaeus

"It is necessary to obey those who are the presbyters in the Church, those who, as we have shown, have succession from the apostles; those who have received, with the succession of the episcopate, the sure charism of truth according to the good pleasure of the Father. But the rest, who have no part in the primitive succession and assemble wheresoever they will, must be held in suspicion" (Against Heresies 4:26 [A.D. 180]).