because he "without father without mother, without genealogy, having neither beginning of days nor end of life, but likened unto the Son of God, continueth a priest forever." (v. 3).
The silence of Scripture about the facts of Melchisedech's birth and death was part of the divine plan to make him prefigure more strikingly the mysteries of Christ's generation, the eternity of His priesthood. Abraham, patriarch and father of nations, paid tithes to Melchisedech and received his blessing. This was all the more remarkable since the priest-king was a stranger, to whom he was not bound to pay tithes, as were the children of Israel to the priests of the Aaronic line. Abraham, therefore, and Levi "in the loins of his father" (Heb. vii, 9), by acknowledging his superiority as a type of Christ (for personally he was not greater than Abraham), thereby confessed the excellence of Christ's priesthood. Neither can it be fairly objected that Christ was in the loins of Abraham as Levi was, and paid tithes to Melchisedech; for, though descended from Abraham, he had no human father, but was conceived by the Holy Ghost. In the history of Melchisedech St. Paul says nothing about the bread and wine which the "priest of the most High" offered, and on account of which his name is placed in the Canon of the Mass. The scope of the Apostle accounts for this; for he wishes to show that the priesthood of Christ was in dignity and duration superior to that of Aaron, and therefore, since it is not what Melchisedech offered, but rather the other circumstances of his priesthood which belonged to the theme, they alone are mentioned. MCEVILLY, An Expos. Of the Eps. Of St. Paul (Heb., vii); PICONIO, Triplex Expositio (Heb., vii); HOONAKER, Le Sacerdoce Levitique (1899), 281-287; HASTINGS, Dict. Of the Bible, s.v.; Rabibinic references in Jew. Ency., s.v.; St. Thomas, III, Q. xxii, a. 6; HOMMEL, The ancient Heb. Tradition (tr. From the Ger., 1897), 146.
This page was last edited on 21 April 2013, at 15:04.