But one might further imagine a host of hungry lawyers, living on large retainers, not being quite happy at such easy settlements, especially if the generous visitor were found wealthy enough to go about buying up and burning claims, and ending litigation. This, to us hardly imaginable, was, however, actually the condition of things reflected in parts of the Epistle to the Hebrews. Therein the bond under which man suffers is clearly to him who hath the Power of Death, the Devil: Jesus ransomed man from the Devil. The anonymous tractate superscribed solely "To the Hebrews," though the last admitted into the New Testament, is probably the earliest document it contains. It has no doubt been tampered with, but the evidences of the early date of its conception of Christ remain. Not only was it evidently written before the destruction of the temple (anno 70), but before there was any thought of a mission to the Gentiles, who, with Paul their apostle, are ignored. Some of its phrases and illustrations are found in epistles of Paul, but, as Dr. Davidson pointed out in his Introduction to the New Testament, the general doctrine of this treatise is far from Pauline, and it is difficult to find any reason for supposing that the few borrowings were not by Paul, other than a preference for Paul, and disinclination to admit that there is any anonymous work in the New Testament. The treatise is without Paul's egotism, or his fatalism, and its conception of the new movement seems decidedly more primitive than that in the recognised Pauline epistles. The sagacious Eusebius, "father of church history," connects the Epistle "To the Hebrews" with the "Wisdom of Solomon," and it seems clear that we have here the bridge between the last abutment of philosophic or "broad" Jahvism, and its "new departure" as Christism. It is not of especial importance to the present inquiry to determine that Paul might not at some youthful period have written this work, though I cannot see how any critical reader can so imagine; but it will bear indirectly on that point if we read successively the following corresponding passages: Wisdom of Solomon.--"For Wisdom, which is the worker of all things, taught me ... she is the breath of the power of God, and a pure influence flowing from the glory of the Almighty; therefore can no unclean thing fall into her. For she is the brightness of the everlasting light, the unspotted mirror of the power of God, and the image of his goodness. And alone she can do all things; herself unchanged, she maketh all things new: and in all ages entering into holy souls, she maketh them friends of God and prophets."--(vii. 25-27.) "And Wisdom was with thee: which knoweth thy works, and was present when thou madest the world." (ix. 9.)