Sea Breeze : There have always been heretics, malcontents, and cult followers trying to infiltrate Christians since the beginning. They do not, nor have ever represented Christians. The early church elders wrote thousands of pages of information to each other to combat their influence. I own a complete set of their writings - 12 hard-bound volumes.
That the "early church elders" wrote thousands of pages to combat the influence of "heretics", shows clearly the existence of rival groups in virtually every region of Christendom of which they had knowledge. Do you think that these many groups considered themselves orthodox (i.e. representing the teachings of Christ and the apostles) or heretical? Of course, each one considered themselves orthodox and their detractors heretical. At the time of the second and third centuries there was no dominant group. Those believing in the non-Jewish Logos theology were dominant in Rome, but other groups were dominant in Edessa, Egypt, Antioch, Asia Minor and Macedonia. Eventually, the non-Jewish Logos theology acquired domination which is why you have access to their writings rather than the writings of Marcion, Valentinus and scores of others who all believed themselves to be the "orthodox" faith.