***I could see it within the catholic or universal church but certainly not the Roman Catholic church. There were many churches at that time.***
And St. Paul spent most of his time cudgeling them into line. Into the Church’s line. They either practiced the newly evolving Christianity or they were deemed heretical and thrown out of the Church.
The Church spent most of the first 300 years defining exactly what it was that they believed and enforcing it. There was one Church and one Church only.
But if that’s true, it’s not the “roman catholic church.”