the Holy Ghost. “The public teaching of the Church is everywhere uniform and equally enduring, and testified unto by Prophets and by Apostles, and by all the disciples, as we have demonstrated, through the first and intermediate and final period, and through the whole economy of God and that accustomed operation relative to the salvation of man, which is in our faith, which, having received from the Church, we guard (quam pcrceptam ab ecclesia custodimus); and which by the Spirit of God is ever in youthful freshness, like something excellent deposited in a beautiful vase, making even the very vase, wherein it is, seem newly formed (fresh with youth). For this office of God has been entrusted to the Church, as though for the breathing of life into His handiwork, unto the end that all the members that partake may be vivified; in this [office], too, is disposed the communication of Christ, that is, the Holy Spirit, the pledge of incorruption, the ladder whereby to ascend unto God. For in the Church, saith he, God hath placed Apostles, prophets, doctors, and every other work of the Spirit, of which all they are not partakers who do not hasten to the Church, but by their evil sentiment and most flagrant conduct defraud themselves of life. For where the Church is, there is the Spirit of God, and where the Spirit of God is, there is the Church and every grace: but the Spirit is truth. Wherefore they who do not partake of that [Spirit] are neither nourished unto life from a mother’s breasts, nor see the most clear spring which proceeds from Christ’s body; but dig unto themselves broken cisterns out of earthy trenches, and out of the filth drink foul water, fleeing from the faith of the Church lest they be brought back; but rejecting the Spirit that they may not be instructed” (lib. iii., c. 24).
(c) Lastly, Irenæus links together the Apostolic Succession and the supernatural guarantee of the Holy Ghost. “Wherefore we ought to obey those presbyters who are in the Church, those who have a succession from the Apostles, as we have shown; who, with the succession of the episcopate, have received according to the good will of the Father the sure gift of truth; but the rest who depart from the principal succession, and assemble in any
