(5) When Paul had so many testimonies in which God surely rejects those sacrifices, the times of the new moon, the Sabbaths, the festivals, why did he omit all these and mention just that one text? Many of the infidels and many of the Jews themselves who are now doing battle with me maintain that their commonwealth and way of life was not abolished because it was imperfect or its place taken by a greater way of life-I mean ours-but because of the sinfulness of those who offered the sacrifices in those days. And Isaiah certainly did say: 'If you stretch out your hands, I will turn away my eyes from you: and if you multiply your prayers, I will not hear.' Then, to give the reason for this, he went on to say: 'For your hands are full of blood.' These words are not an accusation made against the sacrifices; they are an indictment of the sinfulness of those who offered them. God rejected their sacrifices because they offered them with bloodstained hands.
(6) Again, when David said: 'I will not take calves from your house nor goats from your flocks,' he went on to add: 'But to the sinner God said: 'Why do you declare my justices and take my covenant in your mouth? You hated discipline and cast my words behind you. If you saw a thief, you ran along with him and you threw in your lot with adulterers. Your mouth abounded with injustice and your tongue wrapped up deceits in your words. You sat down and spoke slander against your brother and set a stumbling-block for your mother's son.' This makes it clear that in this instance God did not simply reject sacrifices, but that he rejected them because those who offered them were adulterers and thieves and plotted against theirs brothers. So these enemies of mine maintain that, since each prophet accuses those who offer the sacrifices, his prophecy is saying that this is the reason why God rejected their sacrifices.
IV
(1) This is what my opponents say to me. But Paul dealt them a knockout blow and said enough to shut their shameless mouths when he cited as his witness the text I have discussed. When Paul wished to prove that God had rejected the old commonwealth and way of life, because it was imperfect, and that he had rendered it inoperative, he took as testimony that text in which no accusation is made against those who offered the sacrifices. He used a text which makes it clear that the sacrifice was in itself imperfect. For the prophet David made no accusation against the Jews; he simply said: 'Sacrifice and oblation you did not desire, but a body you fitted to me: in holocausts and sin offerings you had no pleasure.'
(2) In explanation of this text Paul said: ' He annuls the first covenant in order to establish the second.' If David had said: 'Sacrifice and oblation you did not desire,' and than said no more, their argument would have some place to defend itself. But since he also said: 'But a body you fitted to me,' and showed that another sacrifice was brought in to replace it, he left no hope for the future that the old sacrifice would return. And in explaining this, Paul said: 'Through this offering we have been sanctified in the will of Christ;' and also: 'If the blood of bulls and goats and the sprinkled ashes of a heifer sanctify the unclean for the cleansing of the flesh, how much more will the blood of Christ, who through the Holy Spirit offered himself unblemished, cleanse our conscience from dead works? This gives us abundant proof, then, that those old rituals have stopped, that a new rite has been brought forward to replace them, and that the old will not hereafter be restored.
(3) What is left to discuss now? For some time I have been anxious to prove to you that their kind of priesthood has disappeared and will never return. Let me make this expressly clear from the Scriptures themselves. First I must preface this with a few remarks, so that my explanation of the scriptures say may be even more obvious.
(4) On his return from Persia, Abraham begot Isaac; Isaac then begot Jacob; Jacob begot the twelve patriarchs from whom arose the twelve tribes-or, rather, the thirteen, because, in Joseph's place, his two sons, Ephraim and Manasseh, became leaders of tribes. A tribe was named after each of Jacob's sons: for example, the tribe of Ruben, of Simeon, of Levi, of Judah, of Naphthali, of Gad, of Asher, of Benjamin. So also in Joseph's case, his two sons, Manasseh and Ephraim, gave their names to two tribes; one was called the tribe of Ephraim and the other the tribe of Manasseh. Of these thirteen tribes all but one had fields and large incomes, all but one tilled the fields and devoted themselves to all the other secular pursuits. But the tribe of Levi was honored with the priesthood; it alone was freed from secular work. They did not till the farms, nor do anything else of the sort, but devoted their attention exclusively to the priesthood. Form all the people they received tithes of wine and wheat and barley and everything else; all gave them tithes and this was their income. No one from any other tribe could ever become a priest. From this tribe-I mean the tribe of Levi-came Aaron, and by succession, his descendants received the priesthood; no one from another tribe ever becomes a priest. And so these Levites received tithes from the rest and, in this way, supported themselves.
(5) But in the time of Abraham, before the day of Jacob and Isaac, before the coming of Moses, when the Law had not yet been written, when the priesthood did not clearly to the Levites, when there was no Meeting Tent or Temple, before the division of the people into tribes, before Jerusalem existed, before anyone at all had yet taken control of the government among the Jews, there was a man named Melchizedek, a priest of the Most High God. This Melchizedek was at the same time both priest and king; he was to be a type of Christ, and Scripture makes clear mention of this. For Abraham attacked the Persians, rescued his nephew Lot from their hands, seized all the spoils, and was returning from his mighty victory over his foes. After describing those events the Scripture had this to say about Melchizedek. 'Melchizedek, the king of Salem, brought out bread and wine, for he was a priest of the Most High God. He blessed Abraham and said, 'Blessed by the Most High God, creator of heaven and earth: blessed be the Most High God who has delivered your enemies into your hand.' Then Abraham gave him a tenth of everything.'
(6) If, then, any prophet clearly says that after Aaron, after that priesthood, after those sacrifices and oblations, there will rise up another priest, not from Levi's tribe but from another tribe from which no one ever became a priest, a priest not according to the order of Aaron but according to the order of Melchizedek, it is just as clear that the old priesthood has ceased to exist and another, a new priesthood has been brought in to take its place. If the old priesthood were going to remain effective, it would have to be called a priesthood according to the order of Aaron and not according to the order of Melchizedek. Did any prophet speak of this new priesthood? Yes, that same prophet who before spoke about the sacrifices and who was speaking of Christ when he said: 'The Lord said to my Lord: 'Sit at my right hand.'
V
(1) To prevent anyone from suspecting that this was said about some ordinary man, it was not Isaiah nor Jeremiah, nor any prophet who was a common man that said it, but King David himself. But a king cannot call any man his Lord; it is God alone whom he can call Lord. If David were a common man, perhaps one of those shameless people would have said that he was talking about a mere human being. But now, since David was a king, he would not have called a man his Lord. If David were talking about some ordinary person, how could he have said that this person sat at the right hand of that ineffable and mighty Majesty? That would have been impossible. But of this person said: 'The Lord said to my Lord: 'Sit at my right hand till I make your enemies your footstool.'
(2) Then, to keep you from thinking that this person was weak and powerless, David went on to say: 'With you is the principality in the day of your strength.' And he made it still clearer when he said: 'From the whom before the daystar I begot you.' But no mere man was begotter before the daystar. 'You are a priest forever, according to the order of Melchizedek.' He did not say: 'According to the order of Aaron.' So ask the Jews why David brought in another priest, according to the order of Melchizedek, if the old priesthood was not going to be abolish.
(3) At any rate, see how Paul made this clearer when he came to this text. After Paul said of Christ: 'As he (David) says also in another place. 'You are a priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek,' the Apostle went on to say: 'On this point we have much to say, and it is difficult to explain it.' After he reproved his disciples-but I must cut the account short-he went on to tell them who Melchizedek was and to tell the story. 'He met Abraham returning from the slaughter of the kings and blessed him; to whom Abraham divided the tithes of all.' Then, to give some insight into Melchizedek, the type, he said: 'Now consider how great this man is, to whom even Abraham the patriarch gave tithes of all.' He did not say this for no purpose but because he wanted to show that our priesthood is much greater than the Jewish priesthood. And the excellence of the realities is shown beforehand in the very types which foreshadow them.
(4) Abraham was the father of Isaac, the grandfather of Jacob, and the ancestor of Levi, for Levi was Jacob's son. The priesthood among the Jews began with Levi. So this man Abraham was the ancestor of the Levites and the Jewish priests. But in the time if Melchizedek, who is the type of our priesthood, Abraham had the rank of a layman. Two things make this clear. First, he gave tithes to Melchizedek, and it is the laymen who give tithes to the priests. Second, he was blessed by Melchizedek, and laymen are blessed by priests.
(5) We again see the excellence of our priesthood when we find Abraham, the patriarch of the Jews, the ancestor of the Levites, receiving a blessing from Melchizedek and giving tithes to him. Surely the Old Testament says that Melchizedek blessed Abraham and exacted a tenth part from him. And Paul brought these very points to the fore and said: 'Consider how great this man is.' Who is 'this man'? Paul told us. Melchizedek, 'to whom even Abraham their patriarch gave tithes from the best portion of the spoils.' 'And indeed they who are of the priestly sons of Levi have a commandment to take tithes from the people, that is, from their brethren, though these also have come from the loins of Abraham.'
(6) What Paul means in this. He said that the Levites, who were priests among the Jews, received a commandment, according to the Law, to take tithes from the other Jews. Although they all were descended from Abraham, both the Levites and the rest of the people, nonetheless the Levites took tithes from their brothers. But Melchizedek, who was not of their descent, because he was not a descendant of Abraham, and who was not of the tribe of Levi but from another nation, exacted a tenth part from Abraham, that is, he took tithes from him.
(7) Not only this, but he did something further. What is that? He again blessed Abraham, even though it was Abraham who had received the promises. What does this show? That Abraham was much inferior to Melchizedek. How can this be? 'Beyond all contradiction, that which is less is blessed by the superior, ' so that, unless Abraham, the ancestor of the Levites, were inferior to Melchizedek, Melchizedek would not have blessed him, nor would Abraham have given tithes to Melchizedek. But Paul wished to show that, because of the excellence of Melchizedek, that inferiority might have continued, so he went on to say: 'Even Levi, the receiver of tithes, was also, so to speak, made subject to tithes, though Abraham.'
(8) What does he mean by 'was made subject to tithes'? Although Levi was not yet born, through his father, he, too, gave tithes to Melchizedek. As Paul said: 'He was still in the loins of his father when Melchizedek meet him.' This is why Paul was careful to say: 'So to speak.' He went on to tell why he said this. 'If the perfection was by the Levitical priesthood (for under it the people received the Law), what further need was there that another priest should rise, according to the order of Melchizedek, and said not to be according of Aaron?'
(9) What is it that Paul Meant? He meant this. If the Jewish religion was perfect, if the Law was not a foreshadowing of future blessing but had been efficacious in every respect, if it was not going to yield to another Law, if the old priesthood was not going to disappear and make way for another priesthood, why did the prophet say: 'You are a priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek?' He should have said: 'according to the order of Aaron.' This is why Paul said: 'If then perfection was by the Levitical priesthood, what further need was there that another priest should rise, according the order of Melchizedek, and said not to be according to the order of Aaron.'
(10) This surely made it clear that the old priesthood was ended and that another much better and more sublime priesthood has been brought in to replace it. When we admit this, we would also agree that another way of life suited to the new priesthood will be brought in and another Law given, and clearly this is ours. Paul prepared us for this when he said: 'When the priesthood is changed, it is necessary that a change of law be made also, for the author of these is one.'
(11) Many of the prescriptions of the Law were devoted to the ministries of the priesthood, and the old priesthood has been abolished. Since another priesthood was brought in to replace the old, it is clear also that a greater Law had to be brought in to replace the old. To make clear who it was of whom these words were spoken, Paul said: 'For he of whom these things are said is from another tribe, from which no one has ever done service at the altar. For it is evident that our Lord has sprung out of Judah, and Moses spoke nothing at all about priests when referring to this tribe.'
(12) Christ clearly is sprung from that tribe, namely the tribe of Judah; Christ surely is a priest according to the order of Melchizedek; Melchizedek is surely much more venerable than Abraham. Then we must also admit from every angle that one priesthood is being brought in to replace another and that it is much more sublime than the old priesthood. If the type was such, if it was more magnificent than the Jewish priesthood, the reality which it foreshadowed is itself still much more magnificent. This is the point which Paul was making when he said: 'And it is yet far more evident if there arise another priest, according to the likeness of Melchizedek, who has become so not according to the Law of carnal commandment, but according to a life that cannot end.'
(13) What did Paul mean when he said: 'Not according to the Law of carnal commandment, but according to a life that cannot end'? He meant that none of Christ's commandments are carnal commandments. He did not order the sacrifice of sheep and calves; he ordered us to worship God through the virtue of our lives; as our reward for this, he set the prize of a life that cannot end. And again, after he had died as the price of our sins, he came and raised us up; he saved us by freeing us from a double death: the death from sin and the death of the flesh. Since he came bringing us such gifts, Paul said: 'Not according to the Law of carnal commandment, but according to a life that cannot end.'
VI
(1) I have, therefore, now proved what was left to be proved. I have proved that, because the priesthood was changed, it was reasonable and necessary that there also be a change of Law. And again I was able to prove this very point by bringing forward as my witnesses the prophets. They testified that the Law will be changed, that the old commonwealth and way of life will be transformed for the better, and that never again will a king arise for the Jews.