Ch. 2. Wherefore it is incumbent to obey the presbyters who are in the Church, those who, as I have shown, possess the succession from the Apostles; those who together with the succession of the episcopate have received the certain gift [charisma] of the truth according to the good pleasure of the Father; but also to hold in suspicion others who depart from the primitive succession and assemble themselves together in any place whatsoever.…
Ch. 5. Such presbyters does the Church nourish, of whom also the prophet says: “I will give thy rulers in peace, and thy bishops in righteousness” [cf. Is. 60:17]. Of whom also the Lord did declare: “Who, then, shall be a faithful steward, good and wise, whom the Lord sets over His household, to give them their meat in due season? Blessed is that servant whom his Lord when he cometh shall find so doing” [Matt. 24:45 f.]. Paul, then, teaching us where one may [pg 129] find such, says: “God hath placed in the Church, first, Apostles; secondly, prophets; thirdly, teachers” [I Cor. 12:28]. Where, then, the gifts of the Lord have been placed there we are to learn the truth; namely, from those who possess the succession of the Church from the Apostles, and among whom exists that which is sound and blameless in conduct, as well as that which is unadulterated and incorrupt in speech.
(b) Tertullian, De Præscriptione, 32. (MSL, 2:52.)
In Tertullian's statement as to the necessity of apostolic succession, the language is more precise than in Irenæus's. Bishop and presbyter are not used as interchangeable terms, as would appear in the passage in Irenæus. The whole is given a more legal turn, as was in harmony with the writer's legal mind.
But if there be any heresies bold enough to plant themselves in the midst of the apostolic age, that they may thereby seem to have been handed down from the Apostles, because they were in the time of the Apostles, we can say: Let them produce the originals of their churches; let them unfold the roll of their bishops, running down in due succession from the beginning in such manner that that first bishop of theirs shall be able to show for his ordainer or predecessor some one of the Apostles or of apostolic men—a man, moreover, who continued steadfast with the Apostles. For in this manner the apostolic churches transmit their registers; as the church of Smyrna, which records that Polycarp was placed therein by John; as also the church of Rome, which makes Clement to have been ordained in like manner by Peter. In exactly the same way the other churches likewise exhibit their several worthies, whom, as having been appointed to their episcopal places by the Apostles, they regard as transmitters of the apostolic seed.
Chapter IV. The Beginnings Of Catholic Theology
The theology of the Church, as distinguished from the current traditional theology, was the statement of the beliefs commonly held by Christians but expressed in the more [pg 130] precise and scientific language of current philosophy, the co-ordination of those beliefs as so stated together with their necessary consequences, and their proof by reference to Holy Scripture and reason. In this attempt to build up a body of reasoned religious ideas there were two lines of thought or interpretation of the common Christianity already distinguished by the middle of the second century, and destined to hold a permanent place in the Church. These were the apologetic conception of Christianity as primarily a revealed philosophy ([§ 32]), and the so-called Asia Minor school of theology, with its conception of Christianity as primarily salvation from sin and corruptibility ([§ 33]). In both lines of interpretation the Incarnation played an essential part: in the apologetic as insuring the truth of the revealed philosophy, in the Asia Minor theology as imparting to corruptible man the divine incorruptibility.