What about 2 John? I'm fascinated with his deference to 'the lady' and change of tone. It's clear enough that this group is not as fussy as he is because he has to implore them to have nothing to do with his opponentsIf there really was a transition from a celestial/mystical Jesus to a historical man, or even from a fuzzy non-specific man to a specific, definite man, it had to have been a messy, divisive process. So yeah, no universal approval.
There is an interesting verse in Acts where Paul, in his emotional farewell speech to the Ephesians, predicts future schisms and internecine strife. It is entirely believable that the author of Acts had this Johannine schism in mind:
Acts 20:30
καὶ ἐξ ὑμῶν αὐτῶν ἀναστήσονται ἄνδρες λαλοῦντες διεστραμμένα τοῦ ἀποσπᾶν τοὺς μαθητὰς ὀπίσω αὐτῶν.
and from among your own selves will arise men speaking perverse things, to draw away the disciples after them.
Here the insinuation of novelty, the “perverse things,” is more concrete. But orthodoxy has a forked tongue.
So now there are three parties involved. If 1 John himself is innovating then the 2 John group is in the middle of both of the others and it would be this group that had probably been around longer. Recreating the beliefs of these is even harder than 1 John's opponents but i recon its the Johannine community (the whole of this Johannine schism might be a split within groups attached to this community).
the wackiest thing i believe is the Ignatian epistles to and from the virgin Mary are genuinely late 1st century and are the communications between the same lady in 2 John and some other early orthodox leader whatever their names really were, because of the encoded information she dishes out