The third book against Heresies contains twenty-five chapters, which are extended through one hundred and seventeen pages, and throughout there is but one idea presented, and the proof offered in its support; and from the first to the last, there is a studied effort to turn the plain import of biblical passages from their true meaning into the support of the doctrines in the fourth Gospel. Thus this father of the church, in about seven years after this Gospel appeared, came to its defence, and for that purpose wrote a book, which must have cost him much time and study, for in its way it is a work of great research, and required an intimate acquaintance with the Old and New Testaments, and the writings of the Gnostics, which were numerous in his day. From the zeal which is shown throughout, it is evident that the writer had some personal interest in the subject, and that he was defending his own doctrines, and not those of St. John or any one else. We do not detect in the work against Heresies the lofty and sublime tone of the Gospel, and, from the nature of the subject, it could not be expected. He is engaged in an attempt to impose on the world, and as what he declares to be the work of an Apostle has no foundation in truth, nor the doctrines it teaches, he struggles like a man in a morass, who is compelled to seize upon anything to keep him from sinking. No doubt he was pressed hard by his adversaries, and he seems in his defence of the fourth Gospel like a gored bull with a pack at his front and heels. We can detect the keen lance of his adversary, piercing him to the quick, in the repeated cry of Antichrist, which is the favorite weapon when hard pressed by his enemies.