Epistle to the Hebrews.--"God, having in time past spoken to the fathers by many fragments and divers ways in the prophets, at the end of these days spake unto us in Son whom he constituted heir of all things, by whom also he fashioned the ages; who, being the brightness of his light and the image of his substance, and guiding all things by the word of his authority, having made purification of sins, sat on the right of majesty in high places." (i. 1-3.) Epistle to the Colossians.--"Who (the Father) delivered us out of the power of darkness, and translated us into the kingdom of his son of love, in whom we have our redemption, the forgiveness of our sins: who is the image of the invisible God, the first-born of all creation; for in him were all things created, in the heavens and above the earth, things visible and things invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers; all things have been created through him and unto him; and he is before all things, and in him all things hold together." (i. 13-17.) Fourth Gospel.--"In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him, and without him was not anything made. That which hath been made was life in him, and the life was the light of men. And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld his glory--glory as of an only begotten of a Father full of grace and truth." (i. 1-15.) It appears to me that the evolution is represented in the order given. Paul's phrase, "first-born of all creation," is an amplification of the word "first-born" used in the Epistle to the Hebrews, but there used in another connection,--and not solely, as we shall see, relating to Christ. Paul's phrase corresponds with "the only-begotten," etc., of John, and with the "son constituted heir" of the Epistle to the Hebrews, though the latter is a different Christological conception. When this writer's doctrinal statement is finished, and after his argument is begun, he says (i. 6), "But when of old bringing the first-born into the inhabited earth, he saith, And pay homage to him all angels of God." The word "first-born" here is probably the seed from which Paul develops his full flower of doctrine, given above. Paul's conception of a creative Christ seems later than the "guiding" Christ (Heb. i. 3), which recalls the function of Wisdom as "director" at the creation (Prov. viii. 30); and the idea in this epistle to the Hebrews of a previous and historical Christophany, while harmonious with that of the "Wisdom of Solomon" (vii. 27),--that she (Wisdom) "in all ages enters into holy souls,"--is so primitive, unique, and so foreign to Paul, that the writer may have been one of those accused by him of preaching "another Jesus" (2 Cor. ii. 4). [30]