MELCHISEDEC, (p*iX - O⅛α, rex justitiae), the name of an individual who occupies an important place amongst the characters which appear in the Old Testament history, as typical of Christ. Very little, however, is said in Scripture regarding him personally; his name occurs only twice in the Old Testament, (in Gen. xiv. 18, and in Ps. ex. 4); and the reference to him in the New, (in Heb. vii. 20. and vii. 1.), has respect only to his typical character. His name is mentioned for the first time in the sacred history, on the occasion of the return of Abraham from the defeat of the four kings or sheikhs who had invaded the district of Sodom, and carried captive his nephew Lot. In the valley of Sha-veh, or “the king’s dale,” probably the same valley as that mentioned under the same name in 2 Samuel (xviii. 18), the victor was met by Melchisedec, who is described as “the king of Salem,” and who, with the generous readiness of [7:14:538]eastern hospitality, set before him and his troop “bread and wine,” that is, a plentiful repast.^[1. Patrick, in loc. Josephus, Antiq. i. 9. ] The Salem here mentioned is not to be confounded with the Salem spoken of in Psalm lxxvi. 2, where it is plainly Jerusalem that is referred to, but must have been some city, unknown to general history, which lay somewhere between Damascus and Sodom, to which district the narrative of Moses fixes the route of Abraham’s march.^[2. See this clearly shewn by Bochart, Ρhaleg, 1. ii c. 4. ] In addition to his royal dignity he sustained also the sacerdotal office: “he was priest of the most high God and in this capacity he pronounced a benediction on Abraham. In return for his kindness, and especially from reverence to his priestly office, the patriarch gave him a tithe of all the spoil he had taken in that expedition, from which he was then returning.

This is the sum of what Moses records respecting Melchisedec; and the only addition that can be made to the recital from the other passages above referred to is, that his priesthood was not derived from hereditary descent, but had been conferred on him by the immediate appointment of God.^[3. Heb∙ vii. 3. Fuller on Gen. xiv∙ 18. ] Meagre, however, as this account is, there is something in the character and position of the individual to whom it refers of so singular a nature, as at once to excite curiosity and stimulate further investigation. That in a land inhabited by the accursed race of Canaan, and at a time when the knowledge of the true God was confined apparently to Abraham and his dependents,^[4. Josh, xxiv. 2. ] an individual descended from that race should have been found, uniting in himself the two offices of priest and king, worshipping the true God of heaven and of earth,^[5. Gen. xiv. 19 ] and so eminent in dignity and piety, that his blessing was gratefully received by Abraham, and the divinity of his priesthood acknowledged on the part of the patriarch, by an offering to him of tithes, is a circumstance which cannot fail to excite the surprise of every reader of the sacred narrative. It is natural for him to ask, Who or what was this extraordinary character? From what race did he spring? Whence did he derive his knowledge of the true God? Or how came he to be “a king of righteousness,” and “a king of peace,” as well as a priest of God, in the land of Canaan? To these questions the narrative of Moses furnishes no reply, and what is said of him in other parts of Scripture^[6. ¢ Ps. ex 4. Heb. vi. 20. ] only tends to heighten our curiosity, by the elevated rank which is there assigned to him, as a type of the Messiah. Our only resource in such a case is probable conjecture, and to this it is not surprising that expositors of the Scriptures, both in ancient and modern times, should have had recourse; nor is it to be wondered at that the opinions which they have advocated on the subject have been both numerous and discordant. To recapitulate the whole of these would only be to occupy space which might be far more usefully filled; we shall, therefore, confine ourselves to a statement of one or two of the most prominent, with a brief view of the arguments by which they have been enforced.

1. By the Jewish expositors generally, Melchisedec is said to have been Shem, the son of Noah, and this, as we learn from Epiphanius, (Haeres, lv. p. 205), was also the opinion entertained by the Samaritans. It has likewise been held by a few Christian interpreters, amongst whom is Luther. The passages from Jewish writers advocating it, have been carefully collected by Bochart, (Phaleg. lib. ii. c. 1), who has also very satisfactorily shewn its absurdity; apart from the decisive evidence furnished against it by the statement of Paul, that Melchisedec was one whose descent could not be identified with that of the Levites, (μὴ γεvε α λ o γ o ύ μ ε vo ς ἐ ξ ὐ υτωv, Heb. vii. 5), a statement which is not true of Shein, who was in the regular line of Levi’s progenitors. It seems highly unreasonable that Moses, who often mentions Shem, should here introduce him under another name, without giving any explanation as to the person really intended; nor is it easily conceivable that Abraham should have been described as “sojourning in g strange country,” if he had been in the immediate vicinity of his ancestor Shem. The Jews, moreover, are not unanimous in this opinion, for Josephus tells us that Melchisedec was a prince of the Canaanites;^[7. Xavavalωv δυνάστης. De bell Jud. vii. 18. ] and in one place of the rabbinical book Sohar,^[8. Lech· lécha, fol. 60, col. 237, ed. Sulz., quoted in Professor Tholuck’s Comment, zιιm briefe an d. Heb- in loc. ] he is spoken of as a type of the king of true. peace.

2. Augustin and Theodoret severally inform us of a class of heretics in the early church, who received the name of Melchisedechians, from their holding the opinion that Melchisedec was a mighty divine power, ( dei virtutem, μeγαληv uva καί βtiav δυνάμιν), superior to Christ, and the model after which Christ was formed. The founder of this sect was one Theodotus, an usurer, who seems to have flourished about the year 174.^[9. Theodoret, Haer fab. lib. iĭ. cap. 6. ap. Suicer. Thes. Eed∙ ] An advance upon this opinion was made by Hicrax, who, as we learn from Epiphanius, identified this divine power with the Holy Spirit. (Haer. lv. p. 304). The sect seems to have commanded little attention, and their opinion is worthy of notice only as forming one of the heresies of the early church.

3. By some of the fathers, and not a few of the more modern expositors, Melchisedec has been regarded as the Logos or second person of the Trinity, who appeared to Abraham, not incarnate, but only, as Epiphanius expresses it, ' ε v ἰ δ έ α ἀ νθρώπου, in the model of man. In defence of this opinion, its advocates adduce, 1st, the acknowledged fact that such appearances were vouchsafed to the patriarchs, as in the case of Abraham, when “the Lord” communed with him respecting the destruction of Sodom, and of Jacob, when he wrestled with the angel, and saw “ God face to face ;” 2dly, the evident mystery attached in Scripture to the person and character of Melchisedec, “of whom,” says Paul, “we have many things to say and hard to be uttered ;”^[10. Heb. v. 11. ] 3dly, the assertion of the same apostle that Melchisedec was not mortal, implied in his declaration, that'whilst other men who receive tithes die, “it is witnessed of him that he liveth ;”^[11. Heb. vii. 8. ] n 4thly, the strong and unqualified terms in which the unearthly origin of the “order” of his priesthood, and its perpetual duration, are spoken of by the same apostle, as well as by the psaloust;^[12. Heb. vii. 3, &c. Ps. ex. 4. ] 5tbly, the language of Paul in regard to the mysterious existence of Melchisedec, as “without father, without mother, without descent, having neither beginning of days nor end of life,” language strikingly applicable to Christ, “whose goings forth have been of old from everlasting,” but hardly to be understood of a mere man; and, finally, the circumstance of Melchisedec’s receiving tithes as a free-will offering from Abraham, an homage which was rendered by the pious to none but the Almighty. On the side of this theory are ranked some eminent names both in the early and in the modern church. It is enough to mention those of Ambrose, Damianus, Moulin, Cunaeus, Outrein, Hottinger, Starke, Gaillard, Ridgley, Hunter, Henry, and Brown. A very able defence of this opinion has recently appeared in a work entitled, Melchizedek, by the author of Balaam, Elijah, &c. London, 1834, the production, we believe, of a lady.

4. By far the most common opinion is, that Melchisedec was a righteous and powerful king, a worshipper and priest [7:14:539]of the Most High God, in the land of Canaan, and a type of Jesus Christ. In support of this opinion it is contended,-1st, that the mysterious character attributed to Melchisedec in Scripture, is nothing more than belongs to all the prophetical types; and that when Paul says he has many things to say respecting him which are hard to be uttered, he only means that owing to the carnality of those to whom he was writing, the revelation which he was about to give of the spiritual character of Melchisedec as a type of Christ, would not be easily apprehended;^[13. The word he uses is δυσ ε ρ μ ὴ v ε υτo ς which the Vulgate renders ininterpretabilis. ] 2dly, that his being described as ἀ πατωρ κaι ἀ μ ὴτ ωp, implies nothing more than that his descent was not matter of record, in the same way as Sarah is called ἀ μ ὴτ ωp by Philo, because her mother’s name is not known, or as Servius Tullius is said by Livy to have been born patre nullo, matre serva, because only his mother’s name (Cornicula) was matter of history; 3dly, that what is said of his being “without beginning of days or end of life,” refers merely to our ignorance of the time and manner of his birth and of his death, which are purposely left unrecorded in order that he might serve as a type of Christ “who ever liveth ;” 4thly, that in all the certain instances of divine appearances recorded in the Old Testament, the fact of the Deity’s being present is made apparent in the narrative itself, and that this not being done in the case of Melchisedec renders it unjustifiable, without express authority from some other part of Scripture, to suppose that he was such an appearance; 5thly, that had Melchisedec been himself the Son of God, the apostle would not have said that he was “made like ( ἀ φωμo ι ωμ έ νos, assimilatus, likened to, compared to) the Son of God,” for this would have been to compare him with himself; 6thly, that no sufficient reason is apparent from the narrative for so extraordinary a revelation as that of the second person of the Trinity in human shape, nor does any end worthy of such means seem to have been answered by the interview; and, finally, that Abraham’s offering of a tithe of the spoil might with great propriety be presented to Melchisedec though only a man, as an act of homage not to himself, but to that God whose priest he was and in whose name he had blessed the patriarch. This view of the subject has been adopted by a majority of the fathers as well as of modern divines. It has been strenuously defended by Dr. Owen in his work on the Hebrews, where he denounces the opposite opinion as a series of “groundless fables,” and “woful mistakes,” and has received the suffrages of the greater part of those who have commented upon that epistle, amongst whom may be mentioned the names of Calvin, Cameron, Scott, Blomfield, Stuart, Kuinoel, and Tholuck. It may be regarded as the common opinion of the orthodox church.

According to this opinion, the reasoning of St. Paul in the passage referred to goes to establish an analogy between Melchisedec and Christ, in respect of the following points: 1st,of ∕∕√7,wzc and designation, ∖ ιo ∖ )Α being denominated “king of righteousness,” and “king of peace ;” 2dly, of obscurity of descent, both being without beginning of days or end of life, the one because his genealogy is not recorded, the other because with regard to him this was literally true; 3dly, of the homage rendered to both by their receiving tithes as a free-will offering, the one in the name of the God whom he served, the other in his own name; 4thly, of the peculiar character of the office they sustained, neither having had either predecessors or successors, the one, because God arranged it so, the other, because it was of necessity so; and, othly, of the superiority of both to the priests under the law, the one having blessed, as a superior, Abraham the father of Levi, the other having abolished the whole economy of the Levitical priesthood by the sacrifice of himself.^[14. See Chrysostom Horníl. Calvin Comment. Tholuck Comment, in loco, &c. &c. ]