A Source Book for Ancient Church History - Mirrors

132 A Source Book for Ancient Church HistoryHe sent forth to preach what, of course, He had revealed to them.Now, what they should preach, that is, what Christ revealed tothem, can, as I must likewise here enter as a demurrer, properlybe proved in no other way than by those very churches which theApostles themselves founded by preaching to them, both vivavoce, as the phrase is, and subsequently by epistles. If this is so,it is evident that all doctrine which agrees with those apostolicchurches, the wombs and origins of the faith, must be reckonedfor truth, as undoubtedly containing what the churches receivedfrom 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], agreeswith the tradition of the Apostles, and likewise whether theothers come from deceit. We hold fast to the apostolic churches,because in none is there a different doctrine; this is the witnessof the truth.(c) Tertullian, De Præscriptione, 36. (MSL, 2:58.)[116]It should be noted that the appeal to apostolic churches isto any and all such, and is accordingly just so much thestronger in the controversy in which it was brought forward.The argument, whenever it occurs, does not turn upon theinfallibility of any one see or church as such. That point is nottouched. Such a turn to the argument would have weakenedthe 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 youwould apply it to the business of your salvation, run over theapostolic churches, in which the very thrones of the Apostles arestill pre-eminent in their places, in which their own authenticwritings are read, uttering the voice and representing the face ofeach of them severally. Achaia is very near you, in which you