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to be most likely, he was an Amorite, the fact that he had preserved a true faith becomes more impressive. On this point however Scripture is wholly silent. The lessons of his appearance lie in the appearance itself. Abraham marks a new departure, the beginning of a new discipline, in the divine history of mankind starting from a personal call. The normal development of the divine life has been interrupted. But before the fresh order is established we have a vision of the old in its superior majesty; and this, on the eve of disappearance, gives its blessing to the new. So the past and the future meet: the one bearing witness to an original communion of God and men which had been practically lost, the other pointing forward to a future fellowship to be established permanently. At the same time the names of the God of the former revelation and of the God of the later revelation are set side by side and identified (Gen. 14:22; comp. Deut. 32:8 f.).

2. The writer of the Epistle interprets the Scriptural picture of Melchizedek, and does not attempt to realise the historical person of Melchizedek. He starts from the phrase in the Psalm after the order of Melchizedek ( kata; tavxin Melcisedevk ), and determines the ideas which such a description was fitted to convey from a study, not of the life of the king- priest, which was unknown, but of the single record of him which had been preserved. By the choice of the phrase the Psalmist had already broadly distinguished the priesthood of the divine king from the Levitical priesthood. It remained to work out the distinction. Therefore the writer of the Epistle insists upon the silence of Scripture. He draws lessons from the fact that in the narrative of the O. T. no mention is made of the parentage or genealogy of Melchizedek or of the commencement or close of his priestly office. He seeks to set vividly before his readers the impression conveyed by the remarkable phenomena of his unique appearance in patriarchal life, and the thoughts which they might suggest.

At the same time this mode of treatment leaves the actual human personality and history of Melchizedek quite untouched. The writer does not imply that that was true of him literally as a living man which is suggested in the ideal interpretation of his single appearance in the Bible. He does not answer the question Who and what was Melchizedek? but What is the characteristic conception which can be gained from Scripture of the Priesthood of Melchizedek?

The treatment of the history of Melchizedek is typical and not allegorical. The Epistle in fact contains no allegorical interpretation. The difference between the two modes is clear and decisive. Between the type and the antitype there is a historical, a real, correspondence in the main idea of each event or institution. Between the allegory and the application the correspondence lies in special points arbitrarily taken to represent facts or thoughts of a different kind. A history, for example, is taken to illustrate the relation of abstract ideas (comp. Gal. 4). The understanding of the type lies in the application of a rule of proportion. The law by which it is regulated lies in the record, which is taken to represent the life. The understanding of the allegory depends on the fancy of the composer. He determines which of many possible applications shall be given to the subject with which he deals.

A type presupposes a purpose in history wrought out from age to age. An allegory rests finally in the imagination, though the thoughts which it expresses may be justified by the harmonies which connect the many


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