The Epistle and the Apostles as well as 3 Corinthians take strong stands against the view of Gnosticism.  These teachings also were not offered as “secret teachings”, rather being offered to anyone who wished to accept them.  Arguments made by people on both sides of this issue were extremely aggressive by attacking the other side and calling them “heretics”.  Our author refutes a lot of the claims made by Gnostics by saying “these absurd and contradictory views are derived from faulty interpretations of the sacred Scriptures”.
The setting of these writings plays a huge role in advancing claims of these texts.  The reason being that there had not been an established role of a church yet.  This means that there were many smaller groups of people interpreting the Scriptures in different ways, giving much more variety of belief.  Where now there are larger denominations of worship which agree on more fundamental things in the Scripture.

I believe it was important for second century writers to anchor their writings in apostolic settings because it added legitimacy to their writing.  When you attach an apostolic name to your writing it makes people believe them more readily due to the fact it seems closer to a primary source.  You see examples of this type of act occurring all throughout early century religious writings.