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It is because of the second of its distinguishing characteristics, therefore, that the earliest Christian witness is uniquely authoritative, i.e., it is thus authoritative because it is the original and originating and therefore constitutive Christian witness by which all other (later) Christian witness is and is to be authorized. If the Christian witness is constituted explicitly as such by the claim expressed or implied by the original and originating and therefore constitutive Christian witness, then this earliest witness is uniquely authoritative for all Christian witness. For even if it, in turn, is authorized by a source beyond itself – -- namely, by the historical event that it attests as the decisive event of salvation – -- it is just as true that the only necessary and therefore sufficient condition of any Christian witness's being authorized by this same primal source is that it agree in substance with this earliest Christian witness.

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