Hebrews 7:9
And (as it may be said) even Levi who received tithes, paid tithes in Abraham:
Open Hebrews 7:9 in the Motif Searcher, word by word across all five texts →Show on the spiral →The verse in its languages
- Vulgate (Clementine)
- Et (ut ita dictum sit) per Abraham, et Levi, qui decimas accepit, decimatus est :
- Greek New Testament (SBLGNT)
- καὶ ὡς ἔπος εἰπεῖν, διʼ Ἀβραὰμ καὶ Λευὶ ὁ δεκάτας λαμβάνων δεδεκάτωται,
The Fathers on this verse
St John Chrysostom The Homilies of St. John Chrysostom on the Epistle to the Hebrews, Hebrews 7.1-3
( Ver. 8 ) “And here men that die receive tithes: but there he of whom it is testified that he liveth.” But lest we should say, Tell us, why goest thou so far back? He says, ( ver. 9 ) “And as I may so say” (and he did well in softening it) “Levi also who receiveth tithes payed tithes in Abraham.” How? ( Ver. 10 ) “For he was yet in his loins when Melchisedec met him,” i.e. Levi was in him, although he was not yet born. And he said not the Levites but Levi.
St Gregory of Nyssa Against Eunomius, Answer to the question he is always asking, “Can He who is be begotten?”
Since, then, He who is with the Father, in some inconceivable category, before the ages admits not of a ‘sometime,’ He exists by generation indeed, but nevertheless He never begins to exist. His life is neither in time, nor in place. But when we take away these and all suchlike ideas in contemplating the subsistence of the Son, there is only one thing that we can even think of as before Him, i.e. the Father. But the Only-begotten, as He Himself has told us, is in the Father, and so, from His nature, is not open to the supposition that He ever existed not. If indeed the Father ever was not, the eternity of the Son must be cancelled retrospectively in consequence of this nothingness of the Father: but if the Father is always, how can the Son ever be non-existent, when He cannot be thought of at all by Himself apart from the Father, but is always implied silently in the name Father. …