tration was needed to show
that the Churches founded by the Apostles had really at all times
faithfully preserved their genuine teaching. General considerations, as,
for instance, the notion that Christianity would otherwise have
temporarily perished, or "that one event among many is as good as none;
but when one and the same feature is found among many, it is not an
aberration but a tradition" ("Nullus inter multos eventus unus est ...
quod apud multos unum invenitur, non est erratum sed traditum") and
similar ones which Tertullian does not fail to mention, were not
sufficient. But the dogmatic conception that the _ecclesiae_ (or
_ecclesia_) are the abode of the Holy Spirit,[133] was incapable of
making any impression on the heretics, as the correct application of
this theory was the very point in question. To make their proof more
precise Tertullian and Irenaeus therefore asserted that the Churches
guaranteed the incorruptness of the apostolic inheritance, inasmuch as
they could point to a chain of "elders," or, in other words, an "ordo
episcoporum per successionem ab initio decurrens," which was a pledge
that nothing false had been mixed up with it.[134] This thesis has quite
as many aspects as the conception of the "Elders," e.g., disciples of
the Apostles, disciples of the disciples of the Apostles, bishops. It
partly preserves a historic and partly assumes a dogmatic character. The
former aspect appears in the appeal made to the foundation of Churches
by Apostles, and in the argument that each series of successors were
faithful disciples of those before them and therefore ultimately of the
Apostles themselves. But no historical consideration, no appeal to the
"Elders" was capable of affording the assurance sought for. Hence even
in Irenaeus the historical view of the case had clearly changed into a
dogmatic one. This, however, by no means resulted merely from the
controversy with the heretics, but was quite as much produced by the
altered constitution of the Church and the authoritative position that
the bishops had actually attained. The idea was that the Elders, i.e.,
the bishops, had received "cum episcopatus successione certum veritatis
charisma," that is, their office conferred on them the apostolic
heritage of truth, which was therefore objectively attached to this
dignity as a _charism_. This notion of the transmissibility of the
charism of truth became associated with the episcopal office after it
had becom