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I'll take that as a serious question. Yes, there was a need to have an accepted, universal version -- there were spurious writings such as the Gnostic gospels claimed by some on this post to be true -- the Gospel of Thomas the twin, which was regarded by the early Church fathers as false (and since it was written intheir times, they'd be better judges than us) and conflicting views -- read the conflicts between Monophysites and us and other Christian thoughts (www.newadvent.com).

Gnostics had some good ideas as did adoptionists, ebionites, Netzarim, coptics etc etc. No reason for the Orthodox to get their underwear in wad. But when we witness how their descendants carry on its certainly understandable.

I dont' follow it very well, but here goes: Nestorians: One person, two hypostases, two natures. Catholics: One person, one hypostasis, two natures. Monophysites: One person, one hypostasis, one nature.

Blah blah blah.

This was a big debate in the 1st century and H*****, I barely get it. Well it clears out like this -- the church says that Christ was ONE man wholly human and wholly divine, the Monophysites (the Ethiopian Church) says that he was completely divine,only one nature -- divine. The Nestorians (who still exist in Persia) say that Christ was wholly human and wholly divine but that his earthly body was discarded (not sure about this)

And we'd know a whole lot more about this if the heretics were allowed to live and their writings weren't destroyed.

So, you see, these were the issues they debated about in the first centuries. The reason brought forth by many 'reformers' were already answered in these early debates.

Ya mean like the debate in Nicea where the majority did not believe in deity of Yeshua yet the minority opionion prevailed. Seems to have been hammered out in a "fair" manner.

Sure I have questions but I'd rather hear/read from more learned folks who debated this in earlier times.

Yep. The learned Orthodox who knew how to coerce politicians to enforce their belief. No thanx.

Gnostics had some good ideas

I'll take THAT as ignorance or acceptance of Gnostic teaching. THe Gnostics believed that the world was an illusion.

They believed that in the beginnign there was a god and the Universe is part of that god's body. The god created sub-gods who created sub-gods. One of those sub-gods was yhwh -- the God of the Bible. So, it says that the Christian God is a false God, a Pretender. Next it says that the way to escape this world of illusion is to become one with the main divinity whose body forms the universe.

Sound familiar? WEll it is Hindu belief twisted around. Hindu's believe in Maya, the illusion, that is the world. They also believe that there is NO DISTINCTION BETWEEN THE CREATOR AND HIS CREATION, unlike Christians.

They also believe that in the end we lose our individuality and get subsumed into the Creator. That is NOT Christian belief.

Gnosticism cannot be reconciled with Christianity. It is NOT Christianity.

Coptics are NOT Gnostics

About the different Eastern Churchs

The Orthodox Church now counts about a hundred millions of members. It is the main body of Eastern Christendom, that remained faithful to the decrees of Ephesus and Calcedon when Nestorianism and Monophysitism cut away the national Churches in Syria and Egypt. It remained in union with the West till the great schism of Photius and then that of Caerularius, in the ninth and eleventh centuries. In spite of the short-lived reunions made by the Second Council of Lyons (1274) and the Council of Florence (1439), this Church has been in schism ever since.

the great Orthodox communion consists of sixteen independent Churches.

Nestorians

The Nestorians are now only a pitiful remnant of what was once a great Church. Long before the heresy from which they have their name, there was a flourishing Christian community in Chaldea and Mesopotamia. According to their tradition it was founded by Addai and Mari (Addeus and Maris), two of the seventy-two Disciples. The present Nestorians count Mar Mari as the first Bishop of Ctesiphon and predecessor of their patriarch.

Nestorius, who gave his name to the Nestorian heresy, was born at Germanicia, in Syria Euphoratensis (date unknown); died in the Thebaid, Egypt, c. 451. He was living as a priest and monk in the monastery of Euprepius near the walls, when he was chosen by the Emperor Theodosius II to be Patriarch of Constantinople in succession to Sisinnius

Within a few days of his consecration Nestorius had an Arian chapel destroyed, and he persuaded Theodosius to issue a severe edict against heresy in the following month. He had the churches of the Macedonians in the Hellespont seized, and took measures against the Qrartodecimans who remained in Asia Minor

Nestorius was a disciple of the school of Antioch, and his Christology was essentially that of Diodorus of Tarsus and Theodore of Mopsuestia, both Cilician bishops and great opponents of Arianism. Both died in the Catholic Church. Diodorus was a holy man, much venerated by St. John Chrysostom. Theodore, however, was condemned in person as well as in his writings by the Fifth General Council, in 553. In opposition to many of the Arians, who taught that in the Incarnation the Son of God assumed a human body in which His Divine Nature took the place of soul, and to the followers of Apollinarius of Laodicea, who held that the Divine Nature supplied the functions of the higher or intellectual soul, the Antiochenes insisted upon the completeness of the humanity which the Word assumed. Unfortunately, they represented this human nature as a complete man, and represented the Incarnation as the assumption of a man by the Word. The same way of speaking was common enough in Latin writers (assumere hominem, homo assumptus) and was meant by them in an orthodox sense; we still sing in the Te Deum: "Tu ad liberandum suscepturus hominem", where we must understand "ad liberandum hominem, humanam naturam suscepisti". But the Antiochene writers did not mean that the "man assumed" (ho lephtheis anthropos) was taken up into one hypostasis with the Second Person of the Holy Trinity. They preferred to speak of synapheia, "junction", rather than enosis, "unification", and said that the two were one person in dignity and power, and must be worshipped together. The word person in its Greek form prosopon might stand for a juridical or fictitious unity; it does not necessarily imply what the word person implies to us, that is, the unity of the subject of consciousness and of all the internal and external activities. Hence we are not surprised to find that Diodorus admitted two Sons, and that Theodore practically made two Christs, and yet that they cannot be proved to have really made two subjects in Christ. Two things are certain: first, that, whether or no they believed in the unity of the subject in the Incarnate Word, at least they explained that unity wrongly; secondly, that they used most unfortunate and misleading language when they spoke of the union of the manhood with the Godhead -- language which is objectively heretical, even were the intention of its authors good.

Nestorius, as well as Theodore, repeatedly insisted that he did not admit two Christs or two Sons, and he frequently asserted the unity of the prosopon.

This was the Persian church. the Persians who appeared at the Holy Places as pilgrims or at Constantinople must have seemed like Catholics on account of their hatred to the Monophysites, who were the great enemy in the East. The official teaching of the Nestorian Church in the time of King Chosroes (Khusran) II (died 628) is well presented to us in the treatise "De unione" composed by the energetic monk Babai the Great, preserved in a MS. From which Labourt has made extracts (pp. 280-87). Babai denies that hypostasis and person have the same meaning. A hypostasis is a singular essence (ousia) subsisting in its independent being, numerically one, separate from others by its accidents. A person is that property of a hypostasis which distinguishes it from others (this seems to be rather "personality" than "person") as being itself and no other, so that Peter is Peter and Paul is Paul. As hypostases Peter and Paul are not distinguished, for they have the same specific qualities, but they are distinguished by their particular qualities, their wisdom or otherwise, their height or their temperament, etc. And, as the singular property which the hypostasis possesses is not the hypostasis itself, the singular property which distinguishes it is called "person". It would seem that Babai means that "a man" (individuum vagum) is the hypostasis, but not the person, until we add the individual characteristics by which he is known to be Peter or Paul. This is not by any means the same as the distinction between nature and hypostasis, nor can it be asserted that by hypostasis Babai meant what we should call specific nature, and by person what we should call hypostasis. The theory seems to be an unsuccessful attempt to justify the traditional Nestorian formula: two hypostases in one person. As to the nature of the union, Babai falls on the Antiochene saying that it is ineffable, and prefers the usual metaphors -- assumption, inhabitation, temple, vesture, junction-to any definition of the union. He rejects the communicatio idiomatum as involving confusion of the natures, but allows a certain "interchange of names", which he explains with great care.

The Persian Christians were called "Orientals", or "Nestorians", by their neighbours on the west. They gave to themselves the name Chaldeans; but this denomination is usually reserved at the present day for the large portion of the existing remnant which has been united to the Catholic Church.

The Coptic, Ethiopian and Nestorian churchs are not Orthodox churchs like the Russian, GReek etc.

The Coptic church is a Monophysite church -- They believe in ONE Nature of Christ -- wholly divine.

So, this is why I say it's best if we read the early history of the church to understand why the Catholic church teaches what it teaches -- it IS confusing but the best place to read it is at ww.newadvent.com

And we'd know a whole lot more about this if the heretics were allowed to live and their writings weren't destroyed.

Oh, they weren't destroyed. There are still Monophysites -- the Coptic and Ethiopian Churches. There are still Nestorians in Persia and India. There are no Arians or Gnostics though. To be honest, from whatever I've read, the difference between Monophysites, Nestorians and Orthodox (the modern Orthodox+Catholic+mainstream Protestant church) seem to be differences in interpretation, not in the central theme of Christianity, so I have no hesitation in accepting Copts or Chaldeans or Ethiopians as Christian.

Arians, well, I would hesitate since they seem to emphasise that Christ's body was just a tool. I denounce Gnostics, for the reasons I've stated in an earlier post. Gnostics most definitely were NOT Christian,

Blah blah blah.

If you want to debate on these points you MUST read the arguments for and against. Otherwise it just seems that you like Gnostics because "they're cool, dude" without knowing anythign. The same reason as why folsk join the Hare Krishna's -- "they're cool dude".

The differences are highly based on words, intrepretations etc, but if you don't bother to understand them, you cannot argue about them. It's like someone arguing that the Germans should have occupied Poland because it was wrong to split Prussia -- they haven't read the history BEFORE that, so an argument would be an argument with an ignorant person.

Gnostics had some good ideas as did adoptionists, ebionites, Netzarim, coptics etc etc. No reason for the Orthodox to get their underwear in wad. But when we witness how their descendants carry on its certainly understandable

Islam is also a heresy, so I suppose you'd also say there's no need to get mad about it? Christ's teachings are powerful and when twisted by the enemy they become dangerous as in the case of slam

The council at Nicea

St. Athanasius, a member of the council speaks of 300, and in his letter "Ad Afros" he says explicitly 318 attended.

This figure is almost universally adopted, and there seems to be no good reason for rejecting it. Most of the bishops present were Greeks; among the Latins we know only Hosius of Cordova, Cecilian of Carthage, Mark of Calabria, Nicasius of Dijon, Donnus of Stridon in Pannonia, and the two Roman priests, Victor and Vincentius, representing the pope. The assembly numbered among its most famous members St. Alexander of Alexandria, Eustathius of Antioch, Macarius of Jerusalem, Eusebius of Nicomedia, Eusebius of Caesarea, and Nicholas of Myra.

The emperor began by making the bishops understand that they had a greater and better business in hand than personal quarrels and interminable recriminations. Nevertheless, he had to submit to the infliction of hearing the last words of debates which had been going on previous to his arrival. Eusebius of Caesarea and his two abbreviators, Socrates and Sozomen, as well as Rufinus and Gelasius of Cyzicus, report no details of the theological discussions. Rufinus tells us only that daily sessions were held and that Arius was often summoned before the assembly; his opinions were seriously discussed and the opposing arguments attentively considered. The majority, especially those who were confessors of the Faith, energetically declared themselves against the impious doctrines of Arius. (For the part played by the Eusebian third party, see EUSEBIUS OF NICOMEDIA. For the Creed of Eusebius, see EUSEBIUS OF CAESAREA.) St. Athanasius assures us that the activities of the Council were nowise hampered by Constantine's presence.

The Nicenece creed states that

We believe in one God the Father Almighty, Maker of all things visible and invisible; and in one Lord Jesus Christ, the only begotten of the Father, that is, of the substance [ek tes ousias] of the Father, God of God, light of light, true God of true God, begotten not made, of the same substance with the Father [homoousion to patri], through whom all things were made both in heaven and on earth; who for us men and our salvation descended, was incarnate, and was made man, suffered and rose again the third day, ascended into heaven and cometh to judge the living and the dead. And in the Holy Ghost. Those who say: There was a time when He was not, and He was not before He was begotten; and that He was made our of nothing (ex ouk onton); or who maintain that He is of another hypostasis or another substance [than the Father], or that the Son of God is created, or mutable, or subject to change, [them] the Catholic Church anathematizes.

The adhesion was general and enthusiastic. All the bishops save five declared themselves ready to subscribe to this formula, convince that it contained the ancient faith of the Apostolic Church. The opponents were soon reduced to two, Theonas of Marmarica and Secundus of Ptolemais,

So, how can you state that the majority did not believe in deity of Yeshua yet the minority opionion prevailed. ?

The Council of Nicea, furthermore, was against Arianism, NOT Gnosticism, SO ALL WOULD HAVE BELIEVED IN YHWH. Sheesh. Gnosticism was never acknowledged as Christian.
To describe ARianism, I'll quote from newadvent:
First among the doctrinal disputes which troubled Christians after Constantine had recognized the Church in A.D. 313, and the parent of many more during some three centuries, Arianism occupies a large place in ecclesiastical history. It is not a modern form of unbelief, and therefore will appear strange in modern eyes. But we shall better grasp its meaning if we term it an Eastern attempt to rationalize the creed by stripping it of mystery so far as the relation of Christ to God was concerned. In the New Testament and in Church teaching Jesus of Nazareth appears as the Son of God. This name He took to Himself (Matthew 11:27; John 10:36), while the Fourth Gospel declares Him to be the Word (Logos), Who in the beginning was with God and was God, by Whom all things were made.

Arian, though he did not come straight down from the Gnostic, pursued a line of argument and taught a view which the speculations of the Gnostic had made familiar. He described the Son as a second, or inferior God, standing midway between the First Cause and creatures; as Himself made out of nothing, yet as making all things else; as existing before the worlds of the ages; and as arrayed in all divine perfections except the one which was their stay and foundation. God alone was without beginning, unoriginate; the Son was originated, and once had not existed. For all that has origin must begin to be

Such is the genuine doctrine of Arius. Using Greek terms, it denies that the Son is of one essence, nature, or substance with God; He is not consubstantial (homoousios) with the Father, and therefore not like Him, or equal in dignity, or co-eternal, or within the real sphere of Deity. The Logos which St. John exalts is an attribute, Reason, belonging to the Divine nature, not a person distinct from another, and therefore is a Son merely in figure of speech. These consequences follow upon the principle which Arius maintains in his letter to Eusebius of Nicomedia, that the Son "is no part of the Ingenerate." Hence the Arian sectaries who reasoned logically were styled Anomoeans: they said that the Son was "unlike" the Father. And they defined God as simply the Unoriginate. They are also termed the Exucontians (ex ouk onton), because they held the creation of the Son to be out of nothing.

This led to Islam -- the Christians that followed Arianism found Islam but a branch of this and so conversion was not a big deal. The drift of all he advanced was this: to deny that in any true sense God could have a Son; as Mohammed tersely said afterwards, "God neither begets, nor is He begotten" (Koran, 112). We have learned to call that denial Unitarianism. It was the ultimate scope of Arian opposition to what Christians had always believed (as Christ said "I and the Father are one".).

Arianism can still be found in traces in Islam.