Apologetic debates between Catholics and Protestants typically revolve around two questions: (a.) what was the original content of the apostolic deposit, and (b.) who is more faithful to it? Those debates usually cycle through proof texts and come to no substantive conclusion for a host of reasons.
However, if we consider the concept of a “deposit” a bit more deeply, we should immediately ask: “what type of account were the apostles depositing their ministry into?—a mere savings account that gives back whatever was put in with minimal interest, or a high yield investment account that not only gives back the deposit but also all of the compound interest that organically grew out of it? The former ecclesiological schema is a schema of “the Primitive church” (or the “undivided Church” concept Anglicans often invoke). I would argue that that is not the type of account the prophets or apostles envisioned (Daniel 2:35; 1 Cor 3:10). Whether one takes the “primitive church” approach (destined for a whole host of anachronisms, idiosyncratic iterations, and endless revisions and schisms) or the “undivided Church” approach, both will yield a church frozen in time, subject to the failures or triumphs of human effort, dependent on new and fresh “movements.” Ultimately, it yields a church disconnected from its Head, subsisting on artificial life support.
A church whose identity depends on its members’ ability to consistently mold and shape it back into “primitiveness” is a church without grace and ultimately founded on works (a “tradition of men” Col 2:8; Mt 15:9). As Newman put it, primitiveness is not a religion. True religion requires growth, maturity, trust in providence, intellectual and cultic depth, and a confident, palpable continuity across space and time. Whether you try to make the church freeze frame in the first century, the 5th century, or the 11th century—pick your “primitive church”—the end results are the same.
“You ought to have invested my money with the bankers, and at my coming I should have received what was my own with interest. So take the talent from him and give it to him who has the ten talents.” Mt 25:27-28