quam
eiusdem sacramenti una traditio." De praescr. 36: "Videamus, quid
ecclesia Romanensis cum Africanis ecclesiis contesserarit."]

[Footnote 55: We need not here discuss whether and in what way the model
of the philosophic schools was taken as a standard. But we may refer to
the fact that from the middle of the second century the Apologists, that
is the Christian philosophers, had exercised a very great influence on
the Old Catholic Fathers. But we cannot say that 2. John 7-11 and
Didache XI. 1 f. attest the practice to be a very old one. These
passages only show that it had preparatory stages; the main element,
namely, the formulated summary of the faith, is there sought for in
vain.]

[Footnote 56: Herein lay the defect, even if the content of the law of
faith had coincided completely with the earliest tradition. A man like
Tertullian knew how to protect himself in his own way from this defect,
but his attitude is not typical.]

[Footnote 57: Hegesippus, who wrote about the time of Eleutherus, and
was in Rome about the middle of the second century (probably somewhat
earlier than Irenaeus), already set up the apostolic rule of faith as a
standard. This is clear from the description of his work in Euseb., H.
E. IV. 8. 2 ([Greek: en pente sungrammasin ten aplane paradosin tou
apostolikou kerygmatos hypomnematisamenos]) as well as from the
fragments of this work (l.c. IV. 22. 2, 3: [Greek: ho orthos logos] and
Sec. 5 [Greek: emerisan ten henosin tes ekklesias phthorimaiois logois kata
tou theou]; see also Sec. 4). Hegesippus already regarded the unity of the
Church as dependent on the correct doctrine. Polycrates (Euseb., H. E.
V. 24. 6) used the expression [Greek: ho kanon tes pisteos] in a very
wide sense. But we may beyond doubt attribute to him the same conception
with regard to the significance of the rule of faith as was held by his
opponent Victor. The Antimontanist (in Euseb. H. E. V. 16. 22.) will
only allow that the martyrs who went to death for the [Greek: kata
aletheian pistis] were those belonging to the Church. The _regula fidei_
is not here meant, as in this case it was not a subject of dispute. On
the other hand, the anonymous writer in Eusebius, H. E. V. 28. 6, 13
understood by [Greek: to ekklesiastikon phronema] or [Greek: ho kanon
tes archaias pisteos] the interpreted baptismal confession, just as
Irenaeus and Tertullian did. Hippolytus entirely agrees with these (see
Philosoph. Praef., p. 4. v. 50