“It is incumbent to obey the presbyters who are in the Church—those who, as I have shown, possess the succession from the apostles.”21 Irenaeus and Tertullian functioned in a highly polemical context, striving to protect orthodox teaching over and against Gnostic and other heretical groups that had arisen. For them, a recognition of succession of public office from the apostles was a means of protecting the succession of the true faith over and against Gnostic claims of private revelation.
Important context.
