Driven to the wall by the sharp logic and superior wisdom of that class of Christians who were distinguished by the name of Gnostics, his devious and ingenious mind undertook to cut them off from all claims as members of a Christian church, by interposing the doctrine of the Apostolic succession. This step once taken involved the necessity of repeated forgeries and frauds. Cowardly Peter is to be changed into a hero,--sent to Rome, where death is certain, and there die a Christian martyr. John, who had not life and force enough in him to rise above the masses, and no more knowledge than is wanted to dip a net into the sea, is to be converted into a fiery spirit, and put forth a book which is to fall like a thunderbolt on the heads of the heretics. If anything arises in the course of the debates, which, to ordinary men, would present difficulties, with Irenæus they were easily disposed of by tradition. He had traditions for all emergencies, and when his adversaries dared dispute him, he stands ready to silence them by abuse. He says: "But, again, when we refer them to that tradition which originates from the Apostles, (and) which is preserved by means of the successions of Presbyters in the churches, they object to tradition, saying that they themselves are wiser not merely than the Presbyters, but even than the Apostles, because they have discovered the unadulterated truth. It comes to this, therefore, that these men do now consent neither to Scripture nor to tradition. Such are the adversaries with whom we have to deal, my very dear friend, endeavoring like slippery serpents to escape at all points." (Irenaeus, Vol. I. book iii. page 260.) He brings often and repeated charges against his enemies for forgeries, and at the same time makes more himself than all of them put together. In the disputes about the twofold nature of Christ as he appears in the Synoptics, and as will be fully explained hereafter, the Gnostics had the advantage in the argument. If Christ the God descended upon the man Christ at the baptism in the Jordan, it left him at the crucifixion. Then, say the Gnostics, there _is no atonement_, for the Son of God did not shed his blood. No other man, in that or any other age, could meet the crisis but Irenaeus; and the result is the fourth Gospel.