Of course, before Martin Luther, the RCC had no problem with heresies. What a ridiculous statement. There always has been and always will be theological error, some of it damnable error. To imply that theological error somehow came into fashion with Luther's theses is just silly.
Of course, you will respond that Mt. 16:18 does refer to the RCC because that's the church Christ founded. The following is from the book God's Peoples: A Social History of Christians by Paul R. Spickard & Kevin M. Cragg.
Christians in the Non-Christian World to 1500You can say that these groups were heretical and thus not real Christians. However, then you run into the same problem you accuse the Proddies of when they claim to have the truth. How could half of all "Christianity" be wrong? Did the heretics outnumber the true believers? Did God allow that part of His church to drift into error and thus not protect His church from the gates of hell? Just some random thoughts which aren't well formulated. Have at them.Western Christians are accustomed to thinking of Christianity as a European religion. But in its first few centuries it thrived mainly in the Middle East, North Africa, and Asia. Around A.D. 500 one-half of the world's 40 million Christians lived in South Asia, from India to Persia. By contrast, only one-third lived in Europe. One of the neglected truths of history is that where the church first flowered, it later almost ceased to exist. The early churches of Asia, North Africa, and the Middle East can be described under three categories:
1. long-term minorities (for example, the Copts in Egypt)Chapters 1-3 told the story of the rise of Christianity to dominance in the Roman world. While Christianity was becoming identified with Rome, several of the Eastern and North African churches split away from the Roman Church and from each other, ostensibly over matters of doctrine. While no one can deny the sincerity of these theological quarrels, the disputes often masked underlying ethnic divisions and nationalist aspirations. Two major factos account for the decline (in some cases, the demise) of these churches. One factor was that the center of gravity in Christendom shifted to the north and west, beginning with the Roman acceptance of Christianity in the fourth century. The other was the rise of Islam three centuries later.
2. isolated majorities (the Ethiopian church); and
3. extinct churches (the Nestorians in Central Asia),