Corpus of Latin Ecclesiastical Writers, Vol. LV: The Letters of Augustine, Part II

of Melchisedech. They interpret his order in many ways: because he was both king and priest alone, and exercised the priesthood before circumcision, so that the nations did not receive the priesthood from the Jews, but the Jews from the nations; and because he was not anointed with priestly oil, as the precepts of Moses establish, but with the oil of exultation and the purity of faith; and because he did not sacrifice victims of flesh and blood or receive the entrails of brute animals, but dedicated the sacrament of Christ with bread and wine, a simple and pure sacrifice, along with many other things which the brevity of a letter cannot contain.

4. Furthermore, it has been treated more fully in the Epistle to the Hebrews, which all the Greeks and some of the Latins accept, that this Melchisedech—that is, "righteous king"—was king of Salem—that is, "king of peace"—without father, without mother. How this is to be understood is explained immediately by a single word: agenoalógētos without genealogy. This does not mean he was without father or mother, since Christ also had both father and mother according to both natures, but that he is suddenly introduced in Genesis as having met Abraham returning from the slaughter of the enemy, and his name is recorded neither before nor after. The Apostle asserts that the priesthood of Aaron—that is, of the people of the Jews—had both a beginning and an end, but that Melchisedech, that is, the church of Christ, had it in the past