Upon The Feast Of St. Irenaeus Of Lyons

St. John the Evangelist's "Spiritual Grandson."

"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 to us throughout the whole world. And we are in a position to enumerate those who were instituted bishops by the apostles and their successors down to our own times, men who neither knew nor taught anything like what these heretics rave about....Surely they wished all those and their successors, to whom they handed on their authority, to be perfect and without reproach" (Against Heresies 3:3:1 [inter A.D. 180-199]).