And I shall not hesitate to append to the interpretations
all that I have
learnt well from the presbyters and remember well, for of their truth I am
confident. For unlike most I did
not rejoice in them who say much, but in them who teach the truth, nor in them who recount the
commandments of others, but in them who repeated those given to the faith by the
LordÉ; but if ever anyone came who had followed the presbyters, I inquired into the words of the
presbyters, what Andrew or Peter or Philip or Thomas or James or John or Matthew,
or any other of the LordŐs disciples had said, and what Aristion and the presbyter John, the LordŐs
disciples, were saying. For I did
not suppose that information from books would help me so much as the word of a living and
surviving voice.