Incorruptness

"Equally satisfactory is the evidence for the integrity and incorruptness of the New Testament.

To make their proof more precise Tertullian and Irenaeus therefore asserted that the Churches guaranteed the incorruptness of the apostolic inheritance, inasmuch as they could point to a chain of "elders," or, in other words, an "ordo episcoporum per successionem ab initio decurrens," which was a pledge that nothing false had been mixed up with it.