Tertullian · a new plain-English translation from the original language
But if there are heresies bold enough to insert themselves into the apostolic age, so as to seem handed down by the apostles merely because they existed under the apostles, we may say this: let them, then, publish the origins of their churches, let them unroll the list of their bishops, running down in succession from the beginning in such a way that their first bishop had for his author and predecessor one of the apostles or apostolic men — one, that is, who persevered with the apostles. For this is how the apostolic churches present their credentials: as the church of the Smyrnaeans records that Polycarp was placed there by John, as the church of the Romans records that Clement was ordained by Peter. In just the same way the other churches too can point to men whom the apostles set up as bishops, offshoots of the apostolic seed. Let the heretics fabricate something of the sort. What, after all, is off-limits to them after blasphemy? But even if they fabricate it, they will get nowhere. For their doctrine itself, compared with the apostolic, will, by its sheer divergence and clash, betray that neither an apostle nor a man of apostolic standing stands behind it as its source; for just as the apostles did not teach things at variance among themselves, so the apostolic men did not put forth things contrary to the apostles — unless indeed those who learned from the apostles went on to preach differently. It is to this standard, then, that they will be summoned by those churches which, even though they can produce no apostle or apostolic man as their own founder — being far later, and indeed some are founded daily even now — are nonetheless reckoned no less apostolic, because of their kinship in doctrine, since they agree in the very same faith. Let all the heresies, then, when challenged by our churches on both counts, prove themselves apostolic in whatever way they think they can. But they are so far from being so, and so far from being able to prove what they are not, that they are not received into peace and communion by any churches that are apostolic in any sense — precisely because, on account of the difference in their mystery, they are in no way apostolic.