Annotatio XC

”But Melchisedech, king of Salem [brought forth bread and wine].” — Genesis 14:18

Origen, discoursing about Melchisedech the priest, asserted that he was not a man but an Angel.¹ This error Jerome attributes to him in the Epistle to Evagrius, writing thus: “Straightway, at the very front of Genesis, in the first homily of Origen, I found [something] written concerning Melchisedech; in which, disputing with manifold discourse, he slid down to this — that he called him an Angel; and with almost the same arguments by which your author (who makes Melchisedech the Holy Spirit) [argues], I passed over to Didymus, his follower, and I saw that the man went on foot into the opinion of the master.” Thus Jerome — understanding, perhaps, by “the first homily” the first tome; for in the first homily of Origen, which is now had on Genesis, there is no mention of Melchisedech. Origen can be excused by the diversity of opinions which existed on this matter among the ancients — among whom, as Jerome, writing to Evagrius, is witness, there was a most famous question concerning the person of the priest Melchisedech. For indeed, as Epiphanius relates in book 2 against heresies, heresy 55, certain unnamed heretics said that Melchisedech was the Only-begotten himself, and the natural Son of God, who appeared in human form to Abraham.² Hierax the Egyptian, who composed learned but heretical commentaries, in Greek and in Egyptian [Coptic], on the Hexaemeron, thought him to be the Holy Spirit. The Melchisedechian heretics, whose author was Theodorus the money-changer [Argentarius], reckoned him to be a certain great power superior to Christ, from which Christ himself received the order of his eternal Priesthood.

The Samaritans judged him to be the same as Shem, the firstborn son of Noah,³ and [held] that at the time when Abraham was born he had three hundred and ninety years of age, and that to Abraham, his own great-great-grandson [abnepos], he survived by forty years — [Abraham,] his own great-great-grandson [abnepos] of the tenth degree.

The Jews handed down that he was indeed a just man, and priest of God Most High (as the divine Scripture has it), but begotten of an impure harlot and a fornicating man, and that on this account his parents are not mentioned in the sacred letters.⁴ Irenaeus and Hippolytus wrote that he was king of Jerusalem — which was first called Salem, then Jebus, and at last named Jerusalem.⁵ Leaving their opinions aside, Jerome, in the aforesaid epistle to Evagrius, affirms that Melchisedech was not king of the Salem which was afterward called Jerusalem, but that he reigned in the town of Salim near Scythopolis, in the region of Shechem, in the tribe of Ephraim: where that Melchisedech’s palace was magnificent is gathered from the magnitude of its ruins.⁶