ned. What is known of him
wonderfully helps the allegorical significance of the intentional
silence of Scripture. He is king and priest, and the one act of his life
is to bestow his priestly benediction on the heir of the promises. No
more appropriate or more striking symbol of Christ's priesthood can be
imagined.

His name even is symbolical. He is "King of righteousness." By a happy
coincidence, the name of his city is no less expressive of the truth to
be represented. He is King of Salem, which means "King of peace." The
two notions of righteousness and peace combined make up the idea of
priesthood. Righteousness without peace punishes the transgressor. Peace
without righteousness condones the transgression. The kingship of
Melchizedek, it appears, involves that he is priest.

This king-priest is a monotheist, though he is not of the family of
Abraham. He is even priest of the Most High God, though he is outside
the pale of the priesthood afterwards founded in the line of Aaron.
Judaism, therefore, enjoys no monopoly of truth. As St. Paul argues that
the promise is independent of the Law, because it was given four hundred
years before, so our author hints at the existence of a priesthood
distinct from the Levitical. What existed before Aaron may also survive
him.

Further, these two men, Melchizedek and Abraham, were mutually drawn
each to the other by the force of their common piety. Melchizedek went
out to meet Abraham on his return from the slaughter of the kings,
apparently not because he was indebted to him for his life and the
safety of his city (for the kings had gone their way as far as Dan after
pillaging the Cities of the Plain), but because he felt a strong impulse
to bestow his blessing on the man of faith. He met him, not as king, but
as priest. Would it be too fanciful to conjecture that Abraham had that
mysterious power, which some men possess and some do not, of attracting
to himself and becoming a centre, around which others almost
unconsciously gather? It is suggested by his entire history. Whether it
was so or not, Melchizedek blessed him, and Abraham accepted the
blessing, and acknowledged its priestly character by giving him the
priest's portion, the tenth of the best spoils. How great must this man
have been, who blessed even Abraham, and to whom Abraham, the patriarch,
paid even the tenth! But the less is blessed of the greater. In Abraham
the Levitical priesthood itself may be said to ackno