Questions on the Old and New Testament 108.1–109.21

Everything that is from God is rational, and a cause gives each thing its beginning, which is its origin, so that a thing may not seem to be named or to exist absurdly, but so that the name may show the thing, which is understood to be the head of that name. The nature of man, then, is the cause by which he consists. He consists of four elements, earth, air, water, and fire, with God alone as their author; the fifth is the mind, like a charioteer, to drive the compacted and shaped body as its commander. From this first man we have all taken our beginning, and we are named by his name. We are called homines because of humus, the soil, from which our father had his outward origin. So cause and reason bring it about that from one person’s name those who exist after him are called by the same name, signifying him in themselves.

Let us see, then, whether it is fitting, as some think, that the Hebrews were named after Heber. As far as the name goes, the origin of this name does seem to come from him, for Heber is earlier than Abraham. If this were true, those of the tribe of Heber ought to have been called by the same name after him; for Abraham was born in the seventh generation from Heber. If, then, people before Abraham, or Abraham himself, were called Hebrews, the Hebrews are without doubt named from Heber; but if we do not read that people were called Hebrews before Abraham, but after him, then the Hebrews are named not from Heber but from Abraham, since the sons of Abraham are known to have been the first to be called by this name. For in Genesis Joseph and his brothers are called Hebrews. People knew that Abraham was the man who had come down from Syria into Canaan and multiplied; who, because of his faith, was filled with every abundance and was called king and prophet and father of many nations; who with three hundred and eighteen men born in his house routed five kings. Because these things were not done and said in a corner, so as to remain hidden, they called those of his seed Hebrews. It was owing to Abraham’s rank and merit that he became the head of those who descend from him. By God’s judgment he was set up in the land of Canaan as prince and origin, so that those born of him would be of another profession and way of life than he himself had been before he came down into Canaan; for he himself, made new, was to establish a new people in devotion to God. Hence the apostle Paul confesses that he is a Hebrew of Hebrews; for this seemed to be a title of dignity. It was a testimony and nobility of race to be named after one who had pleased God in many ways and who was their origin.

Let the view be rejected if it does not agree with reason, spurned if it is unequal to the case, overturned if it is foreign to Abraham’s merits, and let us be refuted as his flatterers. What is this enmity against Abraham, what rivalry by which his enemies disparage him? And who are they, if not those who are called his sons? What is there in Abraham that displeases, that this glory should be thought foreign to him? And what pleases in Heber, that he should be said to hold this primacy? If his way of life could be inquired into, he would perhaps be found to have worshiped idols, like Terah and Nahor and Nahor’s father, who certainly lived not long after him; for Joshua son of Nun testifies that these worshiped idols.

Or else let those on the other side show by what reasoning this is to be claimed for Heber, lest perhaps we suppress his merit. But there is none, because the Scriptures are common to us, and what is owed to each is in plain view. If they think the claim should be defended from the name alone, it is weak and unproven. It would rightly be claimed for his name if some facts stood as witnesses to confirm it; for others of the same name could claim for themselves what is not theirs, and therefore that is true which is confirmed not by name alone but by clear reasoning. No one doubts that by God’s favor it came about that the human race was visited in Abraham, and a pattern of salvation made for men. Therefore in him was restored what had been lost through the fault of human frailty. He was set up as a kind of image, so that in his likeness the human race might return to God, and so that he might recover for men both the worship of God and the language that had first been given for human use. Just as in the beginning God’s image was in Adam, so that knowledge of him might be on earth, so after the ruin of the human race and the forgetting of the truth it was re-formed in Abraham, so that from him faith in God, begun again, might sprout into fruit. Hence it is not absurd that the people begun from him should take its name from his.

But lest they be troubled by the name Heber, because Heber sounds more like Hebraei, since they are called Hebraei and not Habraei, let them recognize in turn that they are called Hebraei, not Heberei; for he was called Heber, not Hebrer. If they think the case should be fought on this ground, they suffer what they inflict, and neither of us will win here, except the one who gives his reasons in order and shows that what he asserts is true. One who is equal on one point must be said to have lost if he is found unequal on another. For the letter was changed for the sake of sound, so that they were called Hebraei instead of Habraei, because it sounds better; just as from Iuda they are called not Iudai but Iudaei. Wherever something seemed awkward, a letter was changed so that the word would have a well-formed sound; for we say meridie instead of medidie, and there are many such cases. It is fitting, then, as has been shown, that both the language and the people were called after Abraham.

This, then, is the language which we say was first given to Adam and the others, and which we believe was scattered and confused into many because of the presumption of building the tower, so that it no longer existed as such, but many languages arose from it through changes in certain words; so that it lost its form and yet did not perish, but was wholly mingled with the other languages. This was done then so that people would not understand one another and dare greater things. As many languages, then, are understood to have arisen then as there were men, who, dispersed to the places where they lived, each established his own language.

But if it is not thought to be the very language which Scripture says was then the only one, it will remain that it was gathered piece by piece from the other languages and put together into the form of the one language Abraham used, so that, because he was the father of many nations, he would have a speech composed of many languages and be renewed in all things. But since those whom the book of Genesis mentions as having one voice and speech are read to have migrated from the east and from there to have been scattered again by God over the face of the whole earth, there certainly did not remain there anyone who kept the language first given. Indeed it has no land among men, as other languages do, nor any nation except the Jews, because it was given to the first man in paradise. And after the languages were confused, the language now called Hebrew was found nowhere. If, then, it has no place or nation (and Abraham was a Syrian by nation), from where did this language come to Abraham and the rest of his seed, unless either it is the original one or else it was fitted together from many? For we see that a number of languages have features similar to it.

But the second view does not agree with reason as well as the first, that it is the original language itself; for reason shows that this did not happen without purpose. Abraham had to have the very language that the first man had, so that Moses, when he came to describe creation and the man made by God, would use the speech in which God spoke and called the man Adam, and Adam’s wife was called Eve; so that the speech in Moses’ book would be the same as that of those he describes, and so teach that the first state and God’s benefit were truly restored in Abraham in all things.

We read in the book of Genesis about Melchizedek, and likewise in the letter to the Hebrews: “Melchizedek, priest of God most high, met Abraham returning from the slaughter of the kings, and brought out loaves and wine and offered them to him, and blessed him, saying: Blessed are you, Abraham, by God most high, who made heaven and earth, who delivered your enemies into your hands.” And to indicate how this Melchizedek is to be understood, the letter added: “For without doubt,” it says, “the lesser is blessed by the better.” This he certainly did not refer to the handing on of the church’s office. Who would doubt that the rule of the Lord’s handing on, by which those subject to the Lord are blessed, is better than those blessed by it? For the mystery of the Lord works in these words, which contain and commemorate him. But he wished to show the proper merit and power of Melchizedek’s person.

Who, then, is this, and how great, compared with whom Abraham is called least, though he is known to bear among all the faithful the sign of the testimony of nobility and faith! This Melchizedek is certainly not understood to have blessed Abraham as human priests do, giving a blessing by delegation with solemn words, but as his own, a blessing he received not through words but substantially, by nature, so that it is proper to him. But priests, whom we call overseers, have a rule set down in solemn words and handed on to them, which they pronounce over people and so bless them, not those whom they wish but sometimes even those whom they do not wish, because the giver of the rule himself knows to whom the most sacred blessing ought to be given or poured out.

But he who has the blessing substantially in his nature, whom it calls priest of the most high God, gives the blessing by his will. The words of the blessing and his nature agree with his will. Nor does he err, willing where he ought not or not willing where he ought; to whomever he gave the words, he gave the effect. But our priests every day pronounce the Lord’s name and the words of blessing over many, yet the effect is found in few; and again there are times when they bless people better than themselves. For although someone is holy, he still bows his head to receive the blessing, because it is not the priest’s own but God’s institution. Eli the priest blessed Hannah, and the effect followed, certainly not by the merit of the priest but by that of Hannah herself, whose pure heart God beheld.

So Melchizedek is said to be better than Abraham not only because of the office of priesthood, but he is also placed before him by nature, so that he may be understood to be beyond men. In no way can one who is set above so great a friend of God be thought a man, above one so faithful that for love of God he did not hesitate to kill his dearest son. By what righteousness, by what works could anyone merit more than Abraham merited? There was nothing more he could do to commend his merits than Abraham did. First, when he did not know God and had not seen any sign to persuade him, and God said to him, “Go out from your land and from your kindred and from your father’s house,” he did not delay but obeyed at once, fulfilling the will not only of the God present to him but of the Lord who was to come. For the Lord says: “Whoever puts home or parents or brothers or relatives before me is not worthy of me.” What kind of man, then, was Abraham, and of what merit, who fulfilled the Savior’s commandments before they were preached!

The apostle earnestly teaches that hospitality is to be pursued: Abraham practised it so devotedly that the apostle seems to have learned from him that it should be preached. Then, advanced in years, he believed that his seed would be multiplied like the stars of heaven, which seems foolish to the prudent of the world; so that, before sentence was passed on the prudent of this age, they seem to have been condemned by him. For afterward it was said: “I will destroy the prudence of the prudent.” At God’s command he is circumcised, which is certainly not done without pain, and he does not resent it, so as to give his descendants a pattern of patience. A son is promised him from Sarah his wife, already an old woman, and he does not doubt, so as to show to those to come that one must yield to God’s authority so completely that, even if he commands or promises things that seem unreasonable, there is no doubt; because his person is to be considered more than the words, so that what seems weak or impossible in the words, his person confirms and makes to seem possible. For it is God who promises, and of him it must be believed that he can do what seems impossible to men. What offense can be judged when humanity thinks more highly of God than of itself?

Because of this, when God commanded him to kill the son God had given him, Abraham does not hesitate, does not delay, does not wonder at God’s will, that he should order the son whom he had given as a great gift and a marvel to be killed; for he was sure that God’s will ought not to be revised by man and that God’s command and act are not without providence. And to fulfill it quickly with all devotion, he does not tell the boy’s mother, his wife, knowing that women are more tender toward their children and could hinder this devotion by the pity of their tears; and he also hides it from the boy himself until the hour of slaughter, so as to obey God’s command with the full submission of his mind, reckoning this not the murder of a son but a holocaust, performed on the authority of a just judge.

What greater things than these could Melchizedek do, to surpass Abraham, who, as we see, is known to have been disobedient in nothing? Moses, to whom the Lord is read to have spoken face to face, did not want to go when he was sent to his nation and his brothers. The prophet Jonah likewise broke away from the command given him to preach to the Ninevites and went to another place to which he had not been sent. Job, plainly outstanding in all things, was yet moved by the loss of his children, tore his garments, and shaved the hair of his head; but Abraham is not read even to have been saddened at the death of his dearest son, whom he himself had been commanded to kill, nor is he read anywhere to have trembled when God gave him a command.

From these things it appears that Melchizedek is beyond man, because there was no way he could be better than Abraham unless he surpassed him by nature alone. An impassible nature has blessedness by its substance, but what is born human acquires blessedness through deeds. Because it does not have the perfection of deity, it advances through exercise and struggle to become better, when it conquers more often than it is conquered. If it could act (which is impossible) so as never to sin, it would become better than God, far be it! For a nature that can sin, as it can also not sin, if it always conquered, would have to be placed above the nature that does not sin because it is impassible. It would not seem great not to sin because one cannot; but it would be magnificent if one could sin and did not.

This, then, is the difference between the substance of God and that of man: God’s substance is always blessed, in the security of its invincible eternity; but man’s substance becomes blessed in another way, through labor. One blessedness must be impassible, the other that of one who is worn by tribulations so that he may at some time rejoice. Impassible blessedness consists in always being blessed; but the passible rejoices after great trials that it has escaped death. It is saddened, then, in order to be able to rejoice, and is never perpetually secure because of the passibility of its nature; but the impassible is always blessed, because it neither knows sadness nor suspects that it can be saddened. Human nature, although it attains blessedness through labor, will nevertheless not be untouched, nor will it lack scars. How can one who has often fought and sometimes been conquered not be wounded? But the impassible always remains untouched, unharmed, inviolable.

So Abraham would not be called least in comparison with Melchizedek unless Melchizedek’s nature were superior to Abraham’s. What we have said may perhaps seem a matter of ingenuity; but if we look to the law, many more and weightier things can be said. For “this Melchizedek, king of Salem, priest of God most high, who met Abraham returning from the slaughter of the kings, and who blessed him, is first by interpretation king of righteousness, then king of Salem, that is, king of peace, without father, without mother, and without genealogy, having neither beginning of days nor end of life; but made like the Son of God he remains a priest for ever.” And to commend what he had indicated in these passages, he added about him: “You see,” he says, “how great this one is, to whom Abraham the patriarch gave a tenth of the firstfruits.” To show with what power and how great Melchizedek is, he praises Abraham, calling him the chief of the fathers; that is, Abraham is better than all others, yet least in comparison with Melchizedek.

Is it not plain that he is not a man but something greater? For what does Scripture say of him, that he is king of peace and king of righteousness? Come closer and look. Seeing the sun from afar, you think it a lamp, and looking at silver you suppose it tin. Can any human being be called king of peace and righteousness? Peace is preached to men, and likewise righteousness; but he is called king of peace and righteousness so that righteousness and peace may be known to have their origin from him. What is ruled by him cannot be said to be above him. Human beings are trained to win God’s favor by righteousness and peace as their teachers. This righteousness, then, the teacher of men, has Melchizedek as its king. How much better than a man, then, is Melchizedek, when the governess of men is under him! This is to be king of kings.

So when he is called king of righteousness and peace, he is shown to be their author; so that, as the Lord Jesus is the author of life, so Melchizedek is the author of righteousness and peace, because those who live through Christ are ruled by the dispensing of righteousness and peace. He pours righteousness and peace into the hearts of God’s servants to adorn the Lord’s discipline. We read written in the eighty-fourth psalm that righteousness and peace have embraced, and truth has sprung up from the earth; and to show what righteousness he meant, it says that righteousness has looked down from heaven. Scripture shows that this concerns the Savior’s time, when God’s righteousness was given to the world through Christ in the knowledge of the mystery of the one God, which he had promised before (for it is righteous that the creature should know the truth of its Creator). This righteousness, manifested on earth, removed the discord that had been bred by the unrighteousness of ignorance of God, and made peaceable those who were at variance, when it established in one faith those long divided. So “righteousness and peace embraced, and the truth of the one God sprang up from the earth,” with righteousness as its teacher. For the incarnation of Christ showed what truth was to be known about God himself. This, then, is certainly the righteousness of God. Likewise peace too, as the apostle says: “But the God of peace himself will crush Satan.”

How this can be distinguished I do not see: since the God of peace is the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, and also Christ himself (for he says, “My peace I give you”), and Melchizedek is said to be king of righteousness and peace, I do not understand by what reasoning he is set apart. For I think that, as regards the reality, a king of peace differs in nothing from the God of peace. Because no one in the world ought to be called god, so that this name might be reserved to the one alone from whom all things are, God nevertheless established a king who would bear his image and have all his power except the name of God. But because he is earthly, he is a king of men, not of peace and righteousness, because he too has righteousness as his leader, which he may not despise. Righteousness is God to him. Righteousness is God’s affair, and whoever transgresses it becomes guilty by God’s judgment. But Melchizedek, as we are given to understand, is not called king in the human way, because he has under him righteousness, which rules over kings. No one can have righteousness under him unless his nature is such that he cannot sin. It is said to be under him because it was devised by him in the form of a law, by which those who can sin may be governed. So the king of righteousness is the governor of the words he himself devised, by which one may both live and believe well and blessedly.

We labor long and hard and still say too little about Melchizedek, unless we return to Scripture, which itself knocks and cries out at length to rouse those weighed down by heavy sleep to an understanding not of night but of day. It says that Melchizedek is “without father, without mother, without genealogy,” and, lest he be understood otherwise than is fitting, it added: “having neither beginning of days nor end of life.” By this it shows that Melchizedek was neither born nor died. What does human subtlety argue against things so plain? What is this crafty cleverness that dares resist what is plain, so as not to take its sense from the reading but to give a sense to the reading? Violence is done to the Lord’s Scriptures, so that they find enemies even in those who seem to bow to their authority. For some say that one should not believe about Melchizedek what the Scriptures report, and so they turn the Scriptures to their own sense. It would be better for them openly to reject the Scriptures than to act deceitfully against them, so that war is prepared under the name of peace and an enemy hides under the cover of friendship.

They say, then, that his being read to have been without father and mother concerns not Melchizedek’s nobility but the lowliness of his descent. They claim it was written so to show that he was of foreign stock, not of the tribe from which Abraham came, because his descent is not found in the law. “That is why,” they say, “it added ‘and without genealogy,’ so that it would be understood that his origin is not described in the law at all, so that he may be believed to have become a good man by himself, from parents of whatever kind.” Yet Scripture is so “careless” that it sets down in order everything the case requires! First it says, “without father, without mother.” Let us see whether the mothers of the others are given in the law: who the wife of Nahor, Abraham’s grandmother, the mother of Terah, was, we do not read, nor who Abraham’s mother was, to say nothing of the others. Must these be said to have been without mothers? If it had said only “without father,” would their view not have had some color? Because the law gives the fathers of all who lived, it adds, “and without genealogy.” If it said these things to show that his descent is not in the law, it would have been enough to say “without father,” because if no one knows a man’s father, much less does anyone know his grandfather.

To make it plain it says, “having neither beginning of days nor end of life.” Tell me, whoever you are who do violence to the text, how do you interpret this? What is it to have neither beginning of days nor end of life? It would surely have been enough to say that his generation is not written in the law, and so his origin would have to be believed to be from foreigners. It can be said that he was “translated” like Enoch and therefore did not die. So be it. But what is it not to have a beginning of days of life? Perhaps you will say it is because his birthday is not written. Whose is written in the law? Is this a reason, that one whose birthday is not written should be said to have no beginning of days of life? Then the same could be said of all the others. And if he had been translated as a man, still he would not be without an end of life, because whatever is subject to the prospect of death has an end.

Stop, whoever you are who are eager for contention. It is better to be conquered by the truth than to conquer the truth by falsehood. That is losing, not winning; for even if truth seemed to lose before a man, before God it conquers, because its reasoning is invincible. So the mind ought to be conquered by the law, so as to think what the law signifies, not to give the law a sense of its own choosing and so present itself violently to the law. And hear Zerubbabel, who says: “Truth conquers above all things.”

Now Melchizedek showed the future mystery of the Lord’s incarnation and passion when he first handed to Abraham, as the father of the faithful, the Eucharist of the Lord’s body and blood, so that the truth that was to be in the sons would be prefigured in the father. If he is thought to be a man, a priest in the way Aaron was or priests are now, let his dwelling place be shown or read of, or whether there was some temple or synagogue in which he gathered the people and offered their sacrifices, or what people came together to him. If he was a priest on earth, he certainly had a people. And before Abraham, or in his time, there would then have been a people serving God. And how was Abraham made, as it were, the head of faith, so that the people might have knowledge of God from him? Likewise, if there was a Melchizedek teaching the fear of the one God on earth, Abraham was chosen in vain, so that God’s people would be named after him; for he could have been among those who gathered to Melchizedek.

And where is what is read in the song of Deuteronomy: “When the Most High divided the nations, as he scattered the sons of Adam, he fixed the boundaries of the nations according to the number of the angels of God, and his people Jacob became the Lord’s portion”? If, then, there was no people of God in the world except the sons of Abraham, on what ground is another people thought to have existed, descended from Melchizedek’s teaching, when the prophet denies it? When he names all the nations in the world and says that the people of God is none but the sons of Abraham, what remains but that, except for these, the others are denied to have had knowledge of God, because “God is known in Judea”? But Melchizedek, “priest of God most high,” appeared to bless Abraham as a foreshadowing of the saints to come, because a blessing was to be given in the future to God’s people through God’s overseer, whom we call a priest. This Melchizedek, then, appeared as forerunner of the sacrament of the Son of God to come, because the one who follows in order goes ahead to serve. What we have said about Melchizedek is therefore not to be wondered at, since Scripture, to confound those who clamor, adds still more. After all these things worthy of praise, to confound the malevolent, it says: “But made like the Son of God he remains a priest for ever.”

Now see whom you are striving to think ill of; and if you do not revere him, at least fear Christ, to whom Scripture’s authority says he is like. Step by step Scripture comes gradually to his natural dignity, so that if the earlier statements disturbed anyone (that he is called king of righteousness and peace, and that though seen in the flesh he had neither father nor mother, that is, appeared unbegotten, having neither rising nor setting), it might show the earlier statements to be credible by what it added last. Who but a madman would dare to say that all these sublime things are unfitting for one who is designated as like the Son of God, remaining a priest for ever? He cannot be like the Son of God unless he is of the same nature. And what seems incredible if Melchizedek appeared as a man, since he is understood to be the third person? If Christ, who is the second person, was often seen in the form of a man, why is there doubt about what has been said? For we read in the psalm: “You are,” it says, “a priest for ever according to the order of Melchizedek.” None of us doubts that this refers to the person of Christ, because Christ is a priest for ever of the same kind as Melchizedek; but Christ is the high priest, Melchizedek the second. If Melchizedek is a man, how is it fitting that Christ should be a priest for ever according to his order? Both are read to be alike and of one dispensation precisely because they are also of one nature.

But since the authority of the one God must be preserved in every way, the second and third persons are placed under the Father’s name. Christ is the Father’s vicar and overseer, and therefore he is also called priest. Likewise the Holy Spirit, being sent, is called, as overseer, a priest of the most high God, not the high priest, as our people presume to say in the offering; because, although Christ and the Holy Spirit are of one substance, the order of each must still be kept. They are called priests or envoys because they show in themselves the one whose envoys they are; for they are his image. And therefore Christ and the Holy Spirit, having God’s image by nature, are called his priests. In them God is seen, as the Lord says: “Whoever has seen me has seen the Father too”; and if God was seen in the Lord’s deeds, and the deeds of the Holy Spirit are works, as the Lord indicates (“for I cast out demons by the Spirit of God”), then God was seen in the Holy Spirit too.