Your definition is generally correct. Up until groups like the Catholic and Latter-day Saint groups there's really no reference to an institutionalised 'body' of Christ which comprises the Church... certainly doesn't make it wrong though.
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...wasn't the dispute between gnostics and "catholic" Christians.
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Well that depends if we're speaking how the Bible tells it, and how history tells it -- because one differs from the other.
Historically the dispute was from the Gnostic Christians and the Literalist Christians. They both claimed to be part of the original church (and the historical evidence more strongly points to the Gnostics having come first). The Gnostic's believed in Jesus in the same way the ancients believed in the Sun God Horus, as a symbolic figure. The Literalists took everything to be grounded in history (i.e., Jesus lived and is exactly who he claimed to be), which is actually not verified by history at all.
That's absolutely a diversion from the topic of this thread, so I just wanted to make a point on that.
(We can have a separate discussion on that in another thread, if anyone wants to)