Well, the Apostles weren't Apostles back in those days.
They are called "apostles" in Mark 6:30, three chapters prior to my citation.
They were merely disciples and had no authority over the Church, an authority which Jesus gave them later.
Going back further, in Mark Chapter 3, Jesus appoints the twelve, and gives them authority to cast out demons. The parallel passage in Luke has the apostles being given
authority over all devils, and to cure diseases. And he sent them forth to preach the Kingdom of God and to heal the sick...And going forth, they went about from village to village, preaching the gospel and working cures everywhere. (Luke 9:1-6)
So perhaps they had no authority over the church at this point, but they certainly had some authority.
There were similar people back in the early days of the Church. They were called "wanderers," and they went around on their own, preaching Christ. In order to get some sort of handle on these guys, the Church set up some regulations on how members were to deal with them
So it seems that there were followers of Jesus who were operating outside the confines of the church, even in apostolic times. Do you know of any mention of these people in the writings of the church fathers?
But we all know that bureacratic authority is the really important kind of authority :) Not some silly authority that deals with miracles and the like