Tertullian worked out in legal fashion the argument of Irenæus from the testimony of the bishops in apostolic churches. He may have obtained the argument from Irenæus, as he was evidently acquainted with his works. From Tertullian's use of the argument it became a permanent element in the thought of the West.
Ch. 20. The Apostles founded in the several cities churches from which the other churches have henceforth borrowed the shoot of faith and seeds of teaching and do daily borrow [pg 115] that they may become churches; and it is from this fact that they also will be counted as apostolic, being the offspring of apostolic churches. Every kind of thing must be judged by reference to its origin. Therefore so many and so great churches are all one, being from that first Church which is from the Apostles. Thus they are all primitive and all apostolic, since they altogether are approved by their unity, and they have the communion of peace, the title of brotherhood, and the interchange of hospitality, and they are governed by no other rule than the single tradition of the same mystery.
Ch. 21. Here, then, we enter our demurrer, that if the Lord Jesus Christ sent Apostles to preach, others than those whom Christ appointed ought not to be received as preachers. For no man knoweth the Father save the Son and he to whom the Son has revealed Him [cf. Luke 10:22]; nor does it appear that the Son has revealed Him unto any others than the Apostles, whom He sent forth to preach what, of course, He had revealed to them. Now, what they should preach, that is, what Christ revealed to them, can, as I must likewise here enter as a demurrer, properly be proved in no other way than by those very churches which the Apostles themselves founded by preaching to them, both viva voce, as the phrase is, and subsequently by epistles. If this is so, it is evident that all doctrine which agrees with those apostolic churches, the wombs and origins of the faith, must be reckoned for truth, as undoubtedly containing what the churches received from the Apostles, the Apostles from Christ, Christ from God. There remains, therefore, for us to show whether our doctrine, the rule of which we have given above [v. infra, [§ 29, c]], agrees with the tradition of the Apostles, and likewise whether the others come from deceit. We hold fast to the apostolic churches, because in none is there a different doctrine; this is the witness of the truth.
(c) Tertullian, De Præscriptione, 36. (MSL, 2:58.)
It should be noted that the appeal to apostolic churches is to any and all such, and is accordingly just so much the stronger in the [pg 116] controversy in which it was brought forward. The argument, whenever it occurs, does not turn upon the infallibility of any one see or church as such. That point is not touched. Such a turn to the argument would have weakened the force of the appeal in the dispute with the Gnostics, however powerfully it might be used in other controversies.
Come, now, you who would indulge a better curiosity, if you would apply it to the business of your salvation, run over the apostolic churches, in which the very thrones of the Apostles are still pre-eminent in their places, in which their own authentic writings are read, uttering the voice and representing the face of each of them severally. Achaia is very near you, in which you find Corinth. Since you are not far from Macedonia, you have Philippi; there, too, you have the Thessalonians. Since you are able to cross to Asia, you get Ephesus. Since, moreover, you are close upon Italy, you have Rome, from which there comes even into our own hands the very authority of Apostles themselves. How happy is that church, on which Apostles poured forth all their doctrine along with their blood! Where Peter endures a passion like his Lord's; where Paul wins a crown in a death like John's; where the Apostle John was first plunged, unhurt, into boiling oil, and thence remitted to his island exile! See what she has learned, what taught; what fellowship she has had with even our churches in Africa! One Lord God does she acknowledge, the Creator of the universe, and Christ Jesus born of the Virgin Mary, the Son of God the Creator; and the resurrection of the flesh; the law and the prophets she unites in one volume with the writings of Evangelists and Apostles, from which she drinks in her faith. This she seals with the water of baptism, arrays with the Holy Ghost, feeds with the eucharist, cheers with martyrdom, and against such a discipline thus maintained she admits no gainsayer.
§ 28. The Canon or the Authoritative New Testament Writings
The Gnostics used in support of their doctrines writings which they attributed to the Apostles, thus having a direct apostolic witness to these doctrines. This they did in imitation of the Church's practice of using apostolic writings for edification and instruction. Marcion drew up a list of books which were alone to be regarded as authoritative among his followers [v. supra, [§ 23, a]]. The point to be made by the champions of the faith of the great body of Christians was that only those books could be legitimately used in support of Christian doctrine which could claim actual apostolic origin and had been used continuously in the Church. As a fact, the books to which they appealed had been in use generation after generation, but the Gnostic works were unknown until a comparatively recent time and were too closely connected with only the founders of a sect to deserve credence. It was a simple literary argument and appeal to tangible evidence. The list of books regarded as authoritative constituted the Canon of Scripture. The state of the Canon in the second half of the second century, especially in the West, is shown in the following extracts.
Additional source material: See Preuschen, Analecta, II, Tübingen, 1910; Tatian, Diatessaron, ANF, IX; The Gospel of Peter, ibid.