[metmom]

They are the writings closest in place, time, and culture to the New Testament and show us how the New Testament was interpreted and lived out while it was written, and for several centuries afterward.

So what?

[Claud]

So what?

Yep. That's the attitude right there.

So what. Who cares. We can just categorically assert that the early Church was "corrupted" and changed its theology without a stitch of historical proof.

Basically the idea of the pre-Catholic "Biblical Church" that you are carrying around is fake. 100% categorically fake. It never existed except in the imaginations of people like Luther.