Researched by the Ignaria Editorial Team · Published 2026-03-12
Apostolic succession — the transmission of apostolic authority through the laying on of hands from bishop to bishop — was a key anti-heretical argument before it became a formal ecclesiological principle. Tertullian deployed it in his legal framework: the rule of faith "was taught by Christ, and raises amongst ourselves no other questions than those which heresies introduce" — heretics have no standing because they stand outside the apostolic transmission. Cyprian developed the episcopate's role further: he resolved from the beginning of his bishopric to do nothing without the counsel of his clergy and the consent of the people, grounding episcopal authority in communal accountability. Eusebius's Church History preserved bishop-lists and succession records as historical evidence of apostolic continuity against innovation.
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What the primary sources show
"This rule, as it will be proved, was taught by Christ, and raises amongst ourselves no other questions than those which heresies introduce, and which make men heretics" — Tertullian's foundational argument that the apostolic rule of faith, transmitted through succession, is the criterion for distinguishing orthodoxy from heresy.
"I have resolved from the beginning of my episcopate to do nothing without your counsel and without the consent of the people by my own private judgment" — Cyprian's statement of episcopal authority as exercised in communal accountability, the third-century model of succession-in-community.