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 records331    Origines, “the originals” (Dodgson). 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 theirs332    Ille. A touch of irony occurs in the phrase “primus ille episcopus.”] 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 transmit333    Deferunt. their registers:334    Fastos. 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.335    [Linus and Cletus must have died or been martyred, therefore, almost as soon as appointed. Our author had seen these registers, no doubt.] 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 contrive336    Confingant. 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 proof337    Probabuntur. Another reading is provocabuntur, “will be challenged.” [Not to one particular See, but to all the Apostolic churches: Quod ubique.] 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.338    Pro consanguinitate doctrinæ. Then let all the heresies, when challenged to these two339    That is, the succession of bishops from the apostles, and the identity of doctrine with the apostolic. 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.340    Sacramenti.

CAPUT XXXII.

Si interim quaedam sint haereses etiam inde ab aetate apostolica; praescribendum uti evolvant ordinem episcoporum suorum, ita per successiones ab initio decurrentem, ut primus ille episcopus aliquem ex Apostolis aut apostolicis viris habeat antecessorem, quemadmodum Smyrnaeorum et Romanorum Ecclesiae; quod cum probare non possim, in communicationem non recipiantur.

Caeterum, si quae audent interserere se aetati apostolicae, ut ideo videantur ab Apostolis traditae, quia sub Apostolis fuerunt, possumus dicere: Edant ergo 0044C origines Ecclesiarum suarum: evolvant ordinem episcoporum suorum, ita per successiones ab initio decurrentem , ut primus ille episcopus aliquem ex Apostolis, vel apostolicis viris, qui tamen cum Apostolis perseveraverit , habuerit auctorem et antecessorem. Hoc enim modo Ecclesiae apostolicae census 0045A suos deferunt: sicut Smyrnaeorum Ecclesia Polycarpum ab Joanne conlocatum refert: sicut Romanorum, Clementem a Petro ordinatum edit ; proinde utique et caeterae exhibent quos ab Apostolis in episcopatum constitutos apostolici seminis traduces habeant . Confingant tale aliquid Haeretici. Quid enim illis post blasphemiam inlicitum est? Sed etsi confinxerint, nihil promovebunt. Ipsa enim doctrina eorum cum apostolica comparata, ex diversitate et contrarietate sua pronuntiabit, neque apostoli alicujus auctoris esse, neque apostolici; quia sicut Apostoli non diversa inter se docuissent, ita et apostolici non contraria Apostolis edidissent, nisi illi qui ab Apostolis didicerunt aliter praedicaverunt. Ad hanc itaque formam 0045B probabuntur ab illis ecclesiis, quae licet nullum ex Apostolis, vel apostolicis, auctorem suum proferant, ut multo posteriores, quae denique quotidie instituuntur; tamen in eadem fide conspirantes, non minus apostolicae deputantur, pro consanguinitate doctrinae. Ita omnes haereses ad utramque formam nostris Ecclesiis provocatae, probent se quaqua putant apostolicas. Sed adeo nec sunt, nec probare possunt quod non sunt, nec recipiuntur in pacem et communicationem ab Ecclesiis quoquo modo apostolicis, scilicet ob diversitatem sacramenti nullo modo apostolicae.