Melchisedech's Offering and the Priesthood of Christ

Old Testament: Genesis 14:18; Psalms 109:4

But Melchisedech the king of Salem, bringing forth bread and wine, for he was the priest of the most high God. ... The Lord hath sworn, and he will not repent: Thou art a priest for ever according to the order of Melchisedech.

New Testament: Hebrews 7:1-3, 17

For this Melchisedech... Without father, without mother, without genealogy, having neither beginning of days nor end of life, but likened unto the Son of God, continueth a priest for ever.

The connection

A priest-king who offers bread and wine and has no recorded genealogy prefigures Christ's eternal, non-Levitical priesthood. The letter to the Hebrews builds an entire argument for Christ's priesthood on this figure. Foundational for understanding the Mass as sacrifice.

Moral sense

Receive access to God as gift, not earned by lineage or merit.

Anagogical sense

The unending liturgy of heaven, which every Mass foreshadows.

The Fathers

St Cyprian, Letter 63 to Caecilius, 4: "For who is more a priest of the most high God than our Lord Jesus Christ, who offered a sacrifice to God the Father, and offered that very same thing which Melchizedek had offered, that is, bread and wine, to wit, His body and blood?" St Augustine, City of God XVI.22, on Melchisedech's blessing of Abraham: "For then first appeared the sacrifice which is now offered to God by Christians in the whole wide world."

Warrant

Checked in the Greek: taxis, order, stands at Psalm 109:4 in the Septuagint and again at Hebrews 7:17, with hiereus shared across Genesis 14:18, Psalm 109:4 and Hebrews 7:1, 7:3 and 7:17, and hypsistos, Most High, across Genesis 14:18 and Hebrews 7:1. Two names carry across, which for this entry is the heart of the matter. Melchisedek stands at Genesis 14:18 in the Septuagint and at Hebrews 7:1 and 7:17, and Salem at Genesis 14:18 and Hebrews 7:1-2. Hebrews is not alluding to a figure; it is naming him and his city in the words the Greek Genesis uses. Hebrews names Melchisedech, his city and his priesthood but never his bread and wine, so the scriptural grade covers the priesthood according to the order of Melchisedech, while the reading of his bread and wine as a figure of the sacrifice of the Mass rests on Genesis 14:18 read with the Fathers, St Cyprian in his Letter 63 to Caecilius, St Jerome in his Letter 46, and St Augustine in the City of God XVI.22 and XVII.20.

Catechism of the Catholic Church, paragraph 1544.

The verses

Genesis 14:18 · Psalms 109:4 · Hebrews 7:1 · Hebrews 7:2 · Hebrews 7:3 · Hebrews 7:17

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Texts. Latin: Clementine Vulgate, public domain. Hebrew: Westminster Leningrad Codex via morphhb, text public domain, morphology CC BY 4.0. Greek New Testament: SBLGNT, CC BY 4.0. Septuagint: Swete 1909 via lxx-swete, CC BY-SA 4.0, with Wisdom 3:4 to 17 and Ecclesiastes from LXX-Swete-1930. Verse mapping between the numbering systems: UBS versification tables, MIT. Dictionary words: Latin from William Whitaker's WORDS via Open Words, MIT; Hebrew lemmas from morphhb with glosses from Strong's Hebrew dictionary via the Open Scriptures Hebrew Lexicon, public domain; Greek lemmas from MorphGNT, CC BY-SA 3.0, with glosses from Dodson's Greek Lexicon, public domain.
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