so where were they? were they the vandal hordes?
there is no archeological evidence for such Christians.
the folks who beleived in the interim even remotely as protestants do fall into two groups, heathens who rejected Christianity in their inherit barbarity, and gnostics who reject key princibles of Christianity (for instance by calling the old testament God evil and suggesting Christ revealed a different God entirely.).
That is actually a very good point. The Protestant will reply with speculation that there were always such Christians even within Catholicism and Orthodoxy, those who believed simply that Christ died for their sins and trusted in Christ to save them.
-A8