Annotatio XCI
”But Melchisedech, king of Salem.” — Genesis 14:18
Augustine, in the book of Questions of the Old and New Testament, question 109, strives with many arguments to prove that Melchisedech was not a mere man,1 but a certain Power of God — namely the Holy Spirit — who then appeared in human form, just as afterward the Son of God appeared in the flesh. Weighing this error, Alphonsus de Castro, in the 10th book Against Heresies, denies that the book which is entitled On the Question of the Old and New Testament is Augustine’s, although it is circulated under his name.2 And besides the other arguments which he brings to prove this, he judges this one most effective: that Augustine, in the book On Heresies to Quodvultdeus, sets down this very opinion in the thirty-fourth place, attributing it to the heretics whom he calls Melchisedechians. It is not likely that Augustine was so stupid as to teach a heretical assertion, and one condemned by himself; and had he ever taught it, he ought to have recanted the same in the books of the Retractations — which, however, is nowhere found done by him in the whole course of that work.