Tertullian, Prescription against Heretics 20
Let Christ Jesus our Lord permit me to speak for a moment—whoever he is, the Son of whatever God, a man and God of whatever substance, the teacher of whatever faith, the promiser of whatever reward—to declare what he was, what he had been, what will of the Father he carried out, what he prescribed for humanity to do, as long as he walked the earth, whether he was addressing the crowds openly or his disciples in private. From these he chose twelve chief men to stand at his side, destined to be masters for the nations. Then, after one of them was struck down, he commanded the remaining eleven, as they were departing to the Father after the resurrection, to go and teach the nations, baptizing them in the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Immediately, therefore, the Apostles—this title means 'those sent'—took up Matthias by lot as the twelfth man in place of Judas, acting on the authority of the prophecy in the Psalm of David (Psalm of David). Having received the promised power of the Holy Spirit for miracles and speech, they first testified to the faith in Jesus Christ throughout Judea and established churches. Then they set out into the world and proclaimed the same doctrine of the same faith to the nations, and accordingly founded churches in every city. From these churches, all other churches have borrowed the tradition of the faith and the seeds of doctrine, and continue to borrow them daily so that they may become churches; and by this very fact they themselves are accounted apostolic, as offspring of the apostolic churches. Every kind must be traced back to its own origin; that is a necessity. And so, numerous and great as these churches are, there is one single first church from the Apostles, from which all the rest proceed. Thus all are primitive, and all are apostolic, so long as they prove their unity by maintaining communion of peace, the name of brotherhood, and the bond of hospitality—rights which are governed by no other principle than the one tradition of the same sacrament.
Latin
Christus Jesus Dominus noster permittat dicere interim, quisquis est, cujuscumque Dei Filius, cujuscumque materiae homo et Deus, cujuscumque fidei praeceptor, cujuscumque mercedis repromissor, quid esset, quid fuisset, quam Patris voluntatem administraret, quid homini agendum determinaret, quamdiu in terris agebat, ipse pronuntiabat, sive populo palam, sive discentibus seorsum; ex quibus duodecim praecipuos lateri suo adlegerat destinatos nationibus magistros. Itaque, uno eorum decusso, reliquos undecim, digrediens ad Patrem post resurrectionem, jussit ire et docere nationes, intinguendas in Patrem et in Filium et in Spiritum Sanctum. Statim igitur Apostoli (quos haec appellatio missos interpretatur), assumpto per sortem duodecimo Matthia in locum Judae, ex auctoritate prophetiae quae est in psalmo David, consecuti promissam vim Spiritus Sancti ad virtutes et eloquium primo per Judaeam contestata fide in Jesum Christum et ecclesiis institutis, dehinc in orbem profecti, eamdem doctrinam ejusdem fidei nationibus promulgaverunt, et proinde ecclesias apud unamquamque civitatem condiderunt, a quibus traducem fidei et semina doctrinae, caeterae exinde ecclesiae mutuatae sunt, et quotidie mutuantur ut ecclesiae fiant: ac per hoc et ipsae apostolicae deputantur, ut soboles apostolicarum ecclesiarum. Omne genus ad originem suam censeatur necesse est. Itaque tot ac tantae ecclesiae, una est illa ab Apostolis prima, ex qua omnes. Sic omnes prima, et apostolicae, dum una omnes probant unitatem; dum est illis communicatio pacis, et appellatio fraternitatis, et contesseratio hospitalitatis: quae jura non alia ratio regit, quam ejusdem sacramenti una traditio.