In addition, they say that in the
letter to the Hebrews, received by all the Greeks and some Latins, there is
more detailed discussion. This Melchizedek, that is, “Just king,” was king of
Salem, that is, “king of peace.” He is “without a father, without a mother.”
How this should be understood is explained immediately by the single word, αγενεαλογητος (“without a recorded genealogy”), not that he
was without father and mother, since Christ too has a father and a mother
according to each of his natures. Instead, this is said because he is
introduced abruptly in Genesis, that he met Abraham when he was returning from
the slaughter of his enemies, and neither before nor afterward is his name
written down. Now the Apostle establishes that the priesthood of Aaron, that is
to say, of the Jewish people, had a beginning and an end. But that of
Melchizedek, that is, of Christ’s Church, is eternal, for the past and the
future, and it has no author; and that when [the Levitical] priesthood is
transferred, there must also be a change of law. Thus does the word of the Lord
go forth out of the citadel of Zion, and the law of God from Jerusalem; and it
does so from Sarah, who is free, not from Hagar the handmaid and Mount Sinai.
And he emphasizes the difficulty of the matter with his prefatory words when he
says: “About which we have much to say, and it is inexplicable.” If the vessel
of election is seized with astonishment before the mystery, and if he confesses
that this discussion above his thoughts and expressions, how much more ought we
who are worms and fleas admit that the only thing we know is that we do not
know anything! Let us be content with offering a glimpse of a vast palace
through a tiny keyhole, as it were. Thus we should say that the Apostle has
compared the two priesthoods: that of the first people and that of the second.
And his whole discussion is carried out to show that Melchizedek had been a
priest from the Gentiles before Levi and Aaron. His previous merit was so great
that Abraham blessed the future priests of the Jews in his loins, and all that
follows in praise of Melchizedek is applied to his being a type of Christ, the
development of which are mysteries of the Church. (Jerome, “Epistle
73 to Evangelus the Priest Concerning Melchizedek,” A.D. 398, in St. Jerome:
Exegetical Epistles, 2 vols. [trans. Thomas P. Scheck; The Fathers of the
Church 147; Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 2023],
1:310-11)
