Dueling Fathers

Previously, one of our debating buddies sent me (by my request) a list of quotations from the church fathers. A number of them looked interesting, though many of them did not prove the point that he wished for them to prove. Some of them, however, looked like they might, and I asked for references. I'm planning on looking these things up and trying to understand them in context, but if you guys want to help with that too, I'd be much indebted.

Here's the compilation of quotations with references. Most of them can be found online here, they say

Irenaeus (~190 AD): "It is possible, then, for everyone in every church, who may wish to know the truth, to contemplate the tradition of the Apostles which has been made known throughout the whole world. And we are in a position to enumerate those who were instituted bishops by the Apostles, and their successors to our own times: men who neither knew nor taught anything like these heretics rave about. For if the Apostles had known hidden mysteries which they taught to the elite secretly and apart from the rest, they would have handed them down especially to those very ones to whom they were committing the self-same churches. For surely they wished all those and their successors to be perfect and without reproach, to whom they handed on their authority."

Iranaeus: Adversus Haereses 3:3:1-2, 4:26:2

Tertullian (200 AD): "Moreover, if there be any [heresies] bold enough to plant themselves in the midst of the apostolic age, so that they might seem to have been handed down by the Apostles because they were from the time of the Apostles, we can say to them: let them show the origin of their churches, let them unroll the order of their bishops, running down in succession from the beginning, so that their first bishop shall have for author and predecessor some one of the Apostles or of the apostolic men who continued steadfast with the Apostles. For this is the way in which the apostolic churches transmit their lists: like the Church of the Smyrnaeans, which records that Polycarp was placed there by John; like the Church of the Romans where Clement was ordained by Peter. In just this same way the other Churches display those whom they have as sprouts from the apostolic seed, having been established in the episcopate by the Apostles. Let the heretics invent something like it. After their blasphemies, what could be unlawful for them? But even if they should contrive it, they will accomplish nothing; for their doctrine itself, when compared with that of the Apostles, will show by its own diversity and contrariety that it has for its author neither an Apostle nor an apostolic man. The Apostles would not have differed among themselves in teaching, nor would an apostolic man have taught contrary to the Apostles, unless those who were taught by the Apostles then preached otherwise. Therefore, they will be challenged to meet this test even by those churches which are of much later date--for they are being established daily--and whose founder is not from among the Apostles nor from among the apostolic men; for those which agree in the same faith are reckoned as apostolic on account of the blood ties in their doctrine. Then let all heresies prove how they regard themselves as apostolic, when they are challenged by our churches to meet either test. But in fact they are not apostolic, nor can they prove themselves to be what they are not. Neither are they received in peace and communion by the churches which are in any way apostolic, since on account of their diverse belief they are in no way apostolic."

Tertullian: The Prescription Against Heretics 19, 32; On Modesty 21:9-10

APOSTOLIC TRADITION

Papias (~130 AD): "Whenever anyone came my way, who had been a follower of my seniors, I would ask for the accounts of our seniors: What did Andrew or Peter say? Or Phillip or Thomas or James or John or Matthew, or any of the Lord's disciples? I also asked: What did Aristion and John the Presbyter, disciples of the Lord say? For, as I see it, it is not so much from books as from the living and permanent voice that I must draw profit."


Papias: quoted by Eusebius Ecclesiastical History 3:39

Tertullian (200 AD): "For wherever both the true Christian rule and faith shall be shown to be, there will be the true Scriptures, and the true expositions of all the true Christian traditions."



Origen (225 AD): "Seeing there are many who think they hold the opinions of Christ, and yet some of these think differently from their predecessors, yet as the teaching of the Church, transmitted in orderly succession from the Apostles, and remaining in the churches to the present day, is still preserved, that alone is to be accepted as truth which differs in no respect from ecclesiastical and apostolic tradition."


Origen: De Principiis Preface 2; Homiles on Jeremias; Homily 1

Eusebius (325 AD): ". . . [Ignatius of Antioch] urged them to hold fast to the tradition of the Apostles to which he thought it necessary, for security's sake, to give form by written testimony."

Eusebius: Ecclesiastical History 3:36

Athanasius (359 AD) (speaking of the Church Fathers agreeing how to set the date for Easter, a matter not falling under Tradition with a capital T): "Without prefixing Consulate, month, and day, they wrote concerning Easter, "It seemed good as follows," for it did then seem good that there should be a general compliance; but about the faith they wrote not "It seemed good" but "Thus believes the Catholic Church," and thereupon they confessed how they