[papertyger]

This is a false argument you are presenting. The letters were circulated. From them truth was understood. Doctrines were believed. It was during the time of attacks from within that the councils delineated the doctrine from all of Scripture.

If your supposition about distribution and doctrine were true, codification of the Bible would have presented no remedy to the heresy problems as the early Church would have already possessed that which you claim addressed the problem, or at the very least would mean the Church is still subject to the same heretical influences to this day.

Be that as it may, we both know you can not bring anything to substantiate your rather counter-intuitive claim about the dissemination of what came to be the Scripture. Indeed, the only thing such a questionable claim accomplishes is that which it was invented for...making the doctrine of Sola Scriptura somewhat plausible.

[aMorePerfectUnion]

“codification of the Bible would have presented no remedy”

Knowing what is Scripture, and what it states, fights heresy.