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The Prescription Against Heretics

Chapter XXXII.--None of the Heretics Claim Succession from the Apostles. New Churches Still Apostolic, Because Their Faith is that Which the Apostles Taught and Handed Down. The Heretics Challenged to Show Any Apostolic Credentials.

But if there be any (heresies) which are bold enough to plant themselves in the midst of the apostolic age, that they may thereby seem to have been handed down by the apostles, because they existed in the time of the apostles, we can say: Let them produce the original records ¹ of their churches; let them unfold the roll of their bishops, running down in due succession from the beginning in such a manner that [that first bishop of theirs ² ] bishop shall be able to show for his ordainer and predecessor some one of the apostles or of apostolic men,--a man, moreover, who continued stedfast with the apostles. For this is the manner in which the apostolic churches transmit ³ their registers: ⁴ 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. ⁵ In exactly the same way the other churches likewise exhibit (their several worthies), whom, as having been appointed to their episcopal places by apostles, they regard as transmitters of the apostolic seed. Let the heretics contrive ⁶ something of the same kind. For after their blasphemy, what is there that is unlawful for them (to attempt)? But should they even effect the contrivance, they will not advance a step. For their very doctrine, after comparison with that of the apostles, will declare, by its own diversity and contrariety, that it had for its author neither an apostle nor an apostolic man; because, as the apostles would never have taught things which were self-contradictory, so the apostolic men would not have inculcated teaching different from the apostles, unless they who received their instruction from the apostles went and preached in a contrary manner. To this test, therefore will they be submitted for proof ⁷ by those churches, who, although they derive not their founder from apostles or apostolic men (as being of much later date, for they are in fact being founded daily), yet, since they agree in the same faith, they are accounted as not less apostolic because they are akin in doctrine. ⁸ Then let all the heresies, when challenged to these two ⁹ tests by our apostolic church, offer their proof of how they deem themselves to be apostolic. But in truth they neither are so, nor are they able to prove themselves to be what they are not. Nor are they admitted to peaceful relations and communion by such churches as are in any way connected with apostles, inasmuch as they are in no sense themselves apostolic because of their diversity as to the mysteries of the faith. ¹⁰

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De Praescriptione Haereticorum

XXXII.

[1] Ceterum si quae audent interserere se aetati apostolicae ut ideo uideantur ab apostolis traditae quia sub apostolis fuerunt, possumus dicere: edant ergo origines ecclesiarum suarum, euoluant ordinem episcoporum suorum, ita per successionem ab initio decurrentem ut primus ille episcopus aliquem ex apostolis uel apostolicis uiris, qui tamen cum apostolis perseuerauerit, habuerit auctorem et antecessorem. [2] Hoc enim modo ecclesiae apostolicae census suos deferunt, sicut Smyrnaeorum ecclesia Polycarpum ab Iohanne conlocatum refert, sicut Romanorum Clementem a Petro ordinatum est. [3] Perinde utique et ceterae exhibent quos ab apostolis in episcopatum constitutos apostolici seminis traduces habeant. [4] Confingant tale aliquid haeretici. Quid enim illis post blasphemiam inlicitum est? [5] Sed etsi confinxerint, nihil promouebunt. Ipsa enim doctrina eorum cum apostolica comparata ex diuersitate et contrarietate sua pronuntiabit neque apostoli alicuius auctoris esse neque apostolici quia, sicut apostoli non diuersa inter se docuissent, ita et apostolici non contraria apostolis edidissent nisi illi, qui ab apostolis didicerunt, aliter praedicauerunt. [6] Ad hanc itaque formam prouocabuntur ab illis ecclesiis quae, licet nullum ex apostolis uel apostolicis auctorem suum proferant, ut multo posteriores, quae denique cottidie instituuntur, tamen in eadem fide conspirantes non minus apostolicae deputantur pro consanguinitate doctrinae. [7] Ita omnes haereses ad utramque formam a nostris ecclesiis prouocatae probent se quaqua putant apostolicas. [8] Sed adeo nec sunt nec probare possunt quod non sunt, nec recipiuntur in pacem et communicationem ab ecclesiis quoquo modo apostolicis, scilicet ob diuersitatem sacramenti nullo modo apostolicae.