head everywhere, and had now come to assail him on his own ground, he set himself to understand its system thoroughly, that, by refuting it both in its principle and in its details, he might completely disabuse the Christian world, do away with the divisions, and impurities, and calumnies, arising from it, and thus afford the freer scope for the power of truth upon the hearts and practice of men. He was the more determined upon doing this by the solicitations of a friend, who appears to have lived more in the heart of the mischief than himself(64). Who he was we are not told. That he had some pastoral charge is most probable, from the concluding portion of the preface to the first book, in which Irenæus speaks to his friend as having spiritual care of others, and as able, both by his station and by his abilities, to turn to the best account the hints he was able to furnish him. That the native, or at least customary, language of his friend was Greek, may be inferred from the work being in that language, and by the apology made for the imperfections of the style; and altogether, it seems most probable that he was a bishop of one of the Greek colonies of southern Gaul. In the accomplishment of this work he no doubt made use of the treatise of Justin Martyr against the Marcionites, now lost to us, because superseded by the completer work of Irenæus. But he derived the greatest help from the writings of the Gnostics themselves, from which he learnt their scheme without any possibility of doubt or gainsaying, and thus was enabled, by the mere _statement_, in open light, of its fantastic puerilities, to unclothe it of the mystery which was one of its chief recommendations, to demonstrate more clearly its self‐contradictions, and to contrast it in its naked folly with the simplicity of acknowledged truth(65). To the ascertaining of the date of this composition we have but two certain guides. One is, the list of bishops of Rome given in the beginning of the third book(66). The catalogue closes with the name of Eleutherus, and thus shows that that book, at least, was begun, and most probably published, under his pontificate, which began about A.D. 177. The other is, that in the same book the author mentions the translation of the Old Testament by Theodotion(67). Now that translation was not made till about A.D. 184(68). Irenæus would not become acquainted with it immediately; so that we are driven towards the end of the pontificate of Eleutherus, who died A.D. 192, for the publication of the third book. The work appears to have grown upon the hands of the writer, and to have become more than twice as voluminous as when it was first planned(69). The books were written separately, as he found his matter arrange itself, and the two first apparently sent first(70), followed by the three others at distinct intervals(71).