The Cave of Treasures 44
Melchisedek
Simple folk mistakenly concluded Melchisedek was God because Scripture said he had neither beginning of days nor end of life.
1ow, as concerning what the Apostle said, “there was no beginning to his days, and no end to his life” (Heb. vii. 3), it has been thought by simple folk that he was not a man at all, and in their error they have said concerning him that he was God. God forbid that there should have been no beginning to his days or end to his life.
2 [The Apostle spake thus] because when Shem, the son of Noah, took away Melchisedek from his parents, no word is said as to how old he was when he went up from the East, and it is not said how old he was at the time of his departure from this world. Now, he was the son of Málákh, the son of Arpakhshar, the son of Shem, and he was not the son of one of the Patriarchs.
3 And the Apostle said that none of his father’s family had ever ministered at the altar (Heb. vii. 6). The name of his father is not written in the genealogies, because Matthew and Luke, the Evangelists [only] wrote down the [names of the] Fathers [in chief, 1.e. Patriarchs]; and for this reason neither the name of his father, nor the name of his mother, is known. The Apostle did not say that he had no parents, but [only] that they were not written down in Matthew and Luke.
Did You Know?
Simple folk mistakenly concluded Melchisedek was God because Scripture said he had neither beginning of days nor end of life.
When Shem son of Noah took Melchisedek from his parents, no record states his age leaving the East or dying.
Melchisedek was the son of Málákh, grandson of Arpakhshar and great-grandson of Shem, not a Patriarchs son.
Matthew and Luke omitted Melchisedeks parents from their genealogies, recording only the chief Patriarchs, so their names remain unknown.
The Apostle never claimed Melchisedek had no parents, only that their names were absent from Matthew and Luke.
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