Against the heretics claims to secret knowledge and revelation, Irenaeus points to the public teaching and tradition of the church. Essentially he defends the following sequence:
Jesus--->Apostles--->Bishops
To support his claims he points to:
(1) The apostolic succession in the church of Rome, deriving from Peter and Paul. Of particular significance is our old friend Clement, whom Irenaeus believes to have known the apostles and whose epistle to Corinth he cites.
(2) Polycarp: He is presented as someone who knew the apostles, and who Irenaeus knew personally. Such was Polycarp's authority that on a visit to Rome many "heretics" were converted due to his teaching. [It is from Polycarp that Irenaeus claims to know the story of John fleeing a bath house when the heretic Cerenthius arrived]
(3) The antiquity of the church in Ephesus points to the apostolic tradition.
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