Chapter III.
He demonstrates that our sacraments are both more ancient and more divine than those of the Jews, by comparing the first part of the institution between Melchizedek and Abraham; where he clearly shows that Melchizedek was both the author of our mysteries and a prefiguration of Christ.
You came to the altar, you saw the sacraments placed on the altar, and indeed you marveled at the very creature; yet a solemn and well-known creature.
Perhaps someone might say: God bestowed such great grace on the Jews that manna rained down for them from heaven (Exod. XVI, 13): what more has God given to his faithful, what more has he granted to those to whom he has made greater promises?
Receive what I say, that the mysteries of Christians are more ancient than those of the Jews, and the sacraments of Christians are more divine than those of the Jews. How so? Receive. When did the Jews begin to exist? From Judah, surely, the great-grandson of Abraham; or, if you prefer to understand it in this way, from the Law, that is, when the Jews began to receive the Law. Therefore, the Jews were called so from the great-grandson of Abraham, or from the time of holy Moses. And if at that time God, with the Jews murmuring, rained manna from heaven, for you, however, the figure of these sacraments preceded, when Abraham was, when he gathered three hundred and eighteen born servants, and pursued your adversaries, delivering his grandson from captivity; then the victorious one came, Melchizedek the priest met him, and offered him bread and wine (Gen. XIV, 18). Who had bread and wine? Abraham did not have. But who had? Melchizedek. He is therefore the author of the sacraments (Heb. VII, 1 et seq.). Who is Melchizedek? He is the one who is signified as the king of righteousness, the king of peace. Who is this king of righteousness? Can any man be the king of righteousness? Therefore, who is the king of righteousness, if not the justice of God, who is the peace of God, the wisdom of God? Who could say: My peace I give to you, my peace I leave with you (John. XIV, 27).
Therefore, first understand that the sacraments which you receive are more ancient than the sacraments of Moses, whatever the Jews claim to have; and that the Christian people began before the Jewish people: but we in predestination, they in name.
Therefore Melchizedek offered bread and wine. Who is Melchizedek? Without father, he said, without mother, without genealogy, having neither beginning of days nor end of life: this is said in the Epistle to the Hebrews. Without father, he said, and without mother he is. Similar to whom? The Son of God. Without mother he was born of God, born in a heavenly generation, because he was born only of God the Father: and again without father he was born, when he was born of the Virgin; for he was not generated from male seed: but he was born of the Holy Spirit (Matt. 1:20) and the Virgin Mary, being born in a virginally conceived womb, similar in all ways to the Son of God. The priest was also Melchizedek; because Christ is also a priest, of whom it is said: You are a priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek (Psalm 110:4).