The Gnostics claimed apostolic authority for their teaching and appealed to successions of teachers who had handed down their teachings. This procedure forced the Church to lay stress upon the obvious fact that its doctrine was derived from the Apostles, a matter on which it never had had any doubt, but was vouched for, not by obscure teachers, but by the churches which had been founded by the Apostles themselves in large cities and by the bishops whom the Apostles had instituted in those churches. Those churches, furthermore, agreed among themselves, but the Gnostic teachers differed widely. By this appeal the bishop came to represent the apostolic order (for an earlier conception _v. supra_, § 14, _b_, _c_), and to take an increasingly important place in the church (_v. infra_, § 31). Additional source material: For Gnostic references to successions of teachers, see Tertullian, _De Præscr._, 25; Clement of Alexandria, _Strom._, VII, 17; Hippolytus, _Refut._, VII, 20. (= VII, 8. ANF.) (_a_) Irenæus, _Adv. Hær._, III, 3: 1-4. (MSG, 7:848.) _Cf._ Mirbt, n. 30. The first appearance of the appeal to apostolic tradition as preserved in apostolic sees is the following passage from Irenæus, written about 175. The reference to the church of Rome, beginning, “For with this Church, on account of its more powerful leadership,” has been a famous point of discussion. While it is obscure in detail, the application of its general purport to the argument of Irenæus is clear. Since for this passage we have not the original Greek of Irenæus, but only the Latin translation, there seems to be no way of clearing up the obscurities and apparently contradictory statements. The text may be found in Gwatkin, _op. cit._, and in part in Kirch, _op. cit._, §§ 110-113. Ch. 1. The tradition, therefore, of the Apostles, manifested throughout the world, is a thing which all who wish to see the facts can clearly perceive in every church; and we are able to count up those who were appointed bishops by the Apostles, and to show their successors to our own time, who neither taught nor knew anything resembling these men’s ravings. For if the Apostles had known hidden mysteries which they used to teach the perfect, apart from and without the knowledge of the rest, they would have delivered them especially to those to whom they were also committing the churches themselves. For they desired them to be very perfect and blameless in all things, and were also leaving them as their successors, delivering over to them their own proper place of teaching; for if these should act rightly great advantage would result, but if they fell away the most disastrous calamity would occur.