“Wherefore it is incumbent to obey the presbyters who are in the Church, – those who, as I have shown, possess the succession from the apostles; those who, together with the succession of the episcopate, have received the certain gift of truth, according to the good pleasure of the Father. But [it is also incumbent] to hold in suspicion others who depart from the primitive succession, and assemble themselves together in any place whatsoever, [looking upon them] either as heretics of perverse minds, or schismatics puffed up and self-pleasing, or again as hypocrites, acting this for the sake of lucre and vainglory.” Irenaeus, Against Heresies, IV, 26:2, ANF, 1:497
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