Letter 73. To Evangelus.

Evangelus had sent Jerome an anonymous treatise in which Melchisedek was indentified with the Holy Ghost, and had asked him what he thought of the theory. Jerome in his reply repudiates the idea as absurd and insists that Melchisedek was a real man, possibly, as the Jews said, Shem the eldest son of Noah. The date of the letter iS 398 a.d.

The below translation made by ChatGPT 3.5 from this Latin text.

1. You sent me the volume ἀνώνυμον ἀδέοσποτον, anonymous and authorless, and I do not know whether you have removed the author's name from the title, or whether the writer himself, to avoid the danger of controversy, did not want to confess his authorship. When I read it, I realized that the most famous question about High Priest Melchizedek had been discussed there with many arguments, in an attempt to teach that he who blessed the great Patriarch was of a more divine nature and should not be considered among men. And in the end, he dared to say that the Holy Spirit appeared to Abraham, and that he was the one who appeared in the form of a man. However, the Holy Spirit, when he brought forth bread and wine, and received the tithes of the spoils that Abraham had brought back from the victory over four kings, did not want to touch them at all: and you ask me to respond to what seems to me, either about the writer or about the question. I confess that I wanted to conceal my opinion, nor to mix myself in dangerous and contentious discourse, in which I would have had reprovers whatever I had said. But again, when I read the letter and found myself adjured with remarkable entreaties in the last little page not to spurn the petitioner, I searched through the books of the Ancients to see what each one said, and I answered you, as it were, with the counsel of many.

2. And immediately on the first page of Genesis I found an exegesis by Origen concerning Melchizedek, in which he discusses the matter in many words and comes to the conclusion that he was an angel. With almost the same arguments your author has employed on the Holy Spirit, he speaks on the heavenly powers. I went on to his follower Didymus, and came to a like result. I turned to Hippolytus, Irenaeus, Eusebius of Caesarea, and Emisenus, Apollinaris also, and our Eustathius, who first sang the war trumpet against Arius as the Bishop of Antioch's Church: and I found that all of their opinions, with different arguments and byways, had arrived at one intersection, to say that Melchizedek was a Canaanite man, the king of the city of Jerusalem, which was first called Salem, then Jebus, and finally Jerusalem. It is not surprising if a priest of the most high God is described without circumcision and legal ceremonies, and without being of the family of Aaron, since Abel, Enoch, and Noah also pleased God and offered sacrifices, and in the book of Job we read that he himself was an offerer of gifts and a priest, and daily sacrificed offerings for his sons (Job. 1). And they say that Job himself was not from the tribe of Levi, but from the lineage of Esau: although the Hebrews think otherwise.

3. But how Noah, being intoxicated in his house and stripped and ridiculed by his middle son, offered a figure of the Savior and of the synagogue of the Jews; and Samson also, the lover of the harlot and poor Delilah, killed many more of his enemies after he was dead than when alive, to represent the passion of Christ; and nearly all the holy patriarchs and prophets expressed a figure of the Savior in some way. So also Melchizedek, because he was a Canaanite and not of the Jewish race, offered a type of the priesthood of the Son of God, of whom it is said in the 109th Psalm: You are a priest forever, according to the order of Melchizedek. However, his order is interpreted in many ways, in that he alone was king and priest, and served as a priest before circumcision: so that not the Gentiles from the Jews, but the Jews from the Gentiles received the priesthood; Nor was he anointed with priestly oil, as the precepts of Moses set forth (Lev. 8: 1): but with the oil of exultation, and by the purity of faith; nor did he sacrifice the flesh and blood of victims, and take in the entrails of brute animals: but, he dedicated the sacrament of Christ with bread and wine, a simple and pure sacrifice; and many other things which brevity of an epistle does not contain.

4. Furthermore (perhaps overlooking) it is treated more thoroughly in the Epistle to the Hebrews (Chapter 7), which all Greeks receive, and some Latins, that this Melchizedek, that is, the righteous king, was the king of Salem, that is, the king of peace, without father, without mother, and how this is to be understood, summed up in one word ἀγηνεαλόγητος, not that he was without a father and mother, since Christ also had both a father and a mother according to both natures, but that he suddenly appears in Genesis as Abraham returns from the slaughter of the enemy; and not before. And his name shall not be mentioned afterwards. But the Apostle affirms that Aaron had the priesthood, that is, the people of the Jews, both as its beginning and end, whereas Melchizedek, that is, of Christ and the Church, is eternal, having no author, and that with the change of the priesthood, there is also a change of the law, so that the word of God may not go forth from Hagar the handmaid and Mount Sinai, but from Sarah the free woman and the citadel of Zion, and the law of God from Jerusalem. And he exaggerates the difficulty of the matter at first, saying: On which there is much talk amongst us, and it is ininterpretable (Hebrews 5:11): not because the Apostle could not interpret it, but because it was not the time for it. For he was persuading the Hebrews, that is, the Jews, not anymore the Faithful, among whom the sacrament was everywhere evident. Nevertheless, if the vessel of election is struck by the mystery and confesses the ineffable concerning what it is discussing; how much more do we worms and fleas need to confess only the knowledge of ignorance and to show the most ample house through a small opening: so that we may say, "Two priesthoods have been compared to each other by the Apostle, that of the former people and that of the latter?" And he accomplishes this by his whole discussion so that Melchizedek, a priest from among the Gentiles, would be prior to Levi and Aaron, whose merit is so great that he blessed Abraham in his loins before the future priests of the Jews. And everything that follows in praise of Melchizedek is referred to the type of Christ, of whom the sacraments of the Church are the progress.

5. I have read these things in the books of the Greeks. And since the vast extent of the world cannot be compressed within brief limits, I have wished to show, in a shortened sketch, these points beyond the field of ordinary knowledge... However, since you ask kindly, and because everything that I have learned must be poured into faithful ears, I will also give the opinion of the Hebrews. And lest you should miss anything in your eagerness for knowledge, I will add the Hebrew words themselves: 'And Melchizedek, king of Salem, brought forth bread and wine, for he was the priest of the most high God. And he blessed him and said, "Blessed be Abram of the most high God, possessor of heaven and earth. And blessed be the most high God, who hath delivered thine enemies into thy hand."' (Genesis, 14:18-20). Which is translated into Latin in this way: And Melchizedek, king of Salem, brought out bread and wine; and he was a priest of the Most High God. And he blessed him and said, “Blessed be Abram to God Most High, Creator of heaven and earth. And blessed be God Most High, who delivered your enemies into your hand.” And he gave him a tenth of all. And they say that this was Shem, the first son of Noah, and at the time when Abram was born, he was 390 years old, reckoning them thus. After the flood, in the second year, Shem, having lived for 100 years, begot Arphaxad; And after Arphaxad was born, he lived for 500 years, that is, a total of 600 years. And when Arphaxad was thirty-five years old, he begot Salah, who also thirty years old, begot Eber, and we read that Eber begot Peleg at the age of 34. Again, Phaleg, having completed thirty years, begot Rehu: who himself, after his thirty-second year from his birth, begot Serug: of whom, when he had arrived at his thirtieth year, was born Nachor: who, when he was twenty-nine years old, begot Thare: whom we read, at the age of seventy, to have begotten Abram, and Nachor, and Aran. Calculate the number of years through each age, and you will find from the birth of Shem to the generation of Abram, three hundred and ninety years. Now Abraham died in the hundred and seventy-fifth year of his age. By calculation, it is found that Shem, his tenth-degree grandson, survived Abraham by thirty-five years.

6. At the same time they relate this, that until the priesthood of Aaron, all the firstborn of the race of Noah, whose series and order are described, were priests, and offered victims to God: and that these were the firstborn, which Esau sold to his brother Jacob (Gen. 27). It is not surprising if Melchizedek went out to meet the victorious Abram and brought out bread and wine for refreshment, for himself as well as his fighters, and blessed him, since he owed this right to his great-nephew: and received tithes of the spoils and victory from him: either because it is uncertain, he gave him tithes of his substance, and showed avuncular generosity to his nephew. For both indeed can be understood, both according to the Hebrews and according to the Septuagint interpreters, that he himself also received tithes of spoils, and gave tithes of his substance to Abraham: although the Apostle in his Epistle to the Hebrews (Ch. 7) most clearly defines that not Abraham had received tithes of his riches from Melchizedek, but had received a part of the spoils of the enemies from the High Priest.

7. But Salem, as Josephus and all of us think, is not Jerusalem, but a name composed of Greek and Hebrew, which shows it to be absurd, a mixture of foreign languages: it is a town next to Scythopolis, which until today is called Salem, and the palace of Melchizedek is shown there, showing the magnificence of the old work from the ruins' size: about which it is also written in the later part of Genesis. Jacob came to Socoth, that is, to the tents, and made houses and tents for himself there, and went to Salem, a city in the region of Sichem, which is in the land of Canaan. (Genesis 33:17-18)

8. "Also to be taken into consideration is the fact that, when Abraham returned from fighting against the enemy whom he pursued as far as Dan (Gen. 14), which today is called Paneas (Pameas), he was not off the route to Jerusalem but was in the city of Sichem, a metropolis; and in the Gospel we also read: 'Now John also was baptizing at Aenon near Salem, because there was an abundance of water there'" (John 3). It doesn't matter whether it is called Salem or Salim, since the Hebrews rarely use vowels in the middle of words and the same words can be pronounced differently in different regions, depending on the reader's preference and accent.

9. These things we have learned from the most learned of that nation, who hold that the Holy Spirit or Angel was Melchizedek, so they even attribute the most certain human name to him. And truly it is foolish, what is said in typology: because the priesthood of Christ has no end; and he himself has given us both king and priest, so that we may be a royal and priestly lineage (1 Peter 2:9), and as if an angular stone (Isaiah) has joined both walls, and the good shepherd of the two flocks has made one flock (Ephesians 2:16); thus some refer to the ἀναγωγην, so that they may take away the truth from the stories, and say that there was not a king, but an image of a man demonstrated by an angel: since the Hebrews so try to show Melchizedek, the king of Salem, the son of Noah, Sem, that they refer to it like this before this scripture: Now the king of Sodom went out to meet him (no doubt, Abraham) after his return from the slaughter of Chedorlaomer, and the kings who were with him in the valley of Save: this is the valley of the king; immediately followed by: And Melchizedek, king of Salem, brought forth bread and wine (Genesis 14), and so forth. Therefore, if this is the city of the king, and the valley of the king, or as the Septuagint translated it, the plain, which is called Aulon of the Philistines today, it is clear that there was a man who ruled (or had ruled) in both the earthly valley and the city.

10. You have what I have heard, what I have read about Melchizedek. It was my responsibility to cite (or repeat) witnesses; it is your responsibility to judge the credibility of the witness. But if you should reject all of them, you certainly will not receive that spiritual interpreter who, without eloquence or profound knowledge, pronounced with such arrogance and authority that Melchizedek had the Holy Spirit, in order to support that most true statement sung among the Greeks, "Ignorance creates confidence; knowledge creates fear." After a long illness, I could hardly be without fever during the forty days of Lent, and when I prepared for another task, I spent the few remaining days in an exposition of Matthew: and I resumed my studies with such avidity that what had benefited my language practice was harmful to the health of my body.