>> My point was, it wasn't a heresy until there was someone that (a) disagreed, and (b) had some authority to condemn. <<
But your premise -- that a Church-authority structure evolved only in the fourth century -- is faulty. Protestants who actually READ the church fathers (rather than mining the internet for quotes) are always in danger of becoming Catholics, precisely because the existence of a pre-Nicene authority is so obvious.
But it took the post Nicene government authority to destroy the contrary writings.
Have you read the Coptic Gospels? The Gospel of Peter? The Gospel of Thomas?