Page "Tertullian" Paragraph 24

# Tertullian was a defender of the necessity of apostolicity.

In his Prescription Against Heretics, he explicitly challenges heretics to produce evidence of the apostolic succession of their communities.

" Let them produce the original records of their churches ; let them unfold the roll of their bishops, running down in due succession from the beginning in such a manner that first bishop of theirs 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 steadfast with the apostles.

For this is the manner in which 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 apostles, they regard as transmitters of the apostolic seed.