The Christian Church in the early centuries underwent continual change. In the book of Acts we read that many of the churches were held in individual's homes. There were no professionally trained clergy. There is no mention of a human head of the Church.

Whereas Christianity emerged from Judaism, Gentiles (non-Jews) were members of the Church. The differences between Jews and Gentiles created difficulty resulting in a council being called and an amicable resolution of the matter.

Satan tried from the beginning to stop the Church through persecution. It is a very compelling support for the truthfulness of the accounts of the Gospels that the disciples were willing to go forward spreading the Gospel despite the very real threat of execution. It is hard to conceive that anyone would go that far if Christ's life was a cunningly devised fable.

Since persecution failed to stop the Church, Satan turned to a more subtle and arguably more effective means of derailing Christianity. Instead he moved to corrupt the Church from the inside out.