Eran. -I hold it unnecessary to call the Christ `man,'-especially when believer is conversing with believer.
Orth. -Do you consider the divine Apostle a believer?
Eran. -Yes: a teacher of all believers.
Orth. -And do youdeem Timothy worthy of being so styled?
Eran. -Yes: both as a disciple of the Apostle, and as a teacher of the rest.
Orth. -Very well: then hear the teacher of teachers writing to his very perfect disciple. "There is one God, and one mediator between God and man, the man Christ Jesus, who gave himself a ransom for all." Do stop your idle prating, and laying down the law about divine names. Moreover in this passage that very name `mediator' stands indicative both of Godhead and of manhood. He is called a mediator because He does not exist as God alone; for how, if He had had nothing of our nature could He have mediated between us and God? But since as God He is joined with God as having the same substance, and as man with us, because from us He took the form of a servant, He is properly termed a mediator, uniting in Himself distinct qualities by the unity of natures of Godhead, I mean, and of manhood.
Eran. -But was not Moses called a mediator, though only a man?
Orth. -He was a type of the reality: but the type has not all the qualities of the reality. Wherefore though Moses was not by nature God, yet, to fulfil the type, he was called a god. For He says "See, I have made thee a god to Pharaoh." And then directly afterwards he assigns him also a Prophet as though to God, for "Aaron thy brother," He says, "shall be thy Prophet." But the reality is by nature God, and by nature man.
Eran. -But who would call one not having the distinct characteristics of the archetype, a type?
Orth. -The imperial images, it seems, you do not call images of the emperor
Eran. -Yes, I do.
Orth. -Yet they have not all the characteristics which their archetype has. For in the first place they have neither life nor reason: secondly they have no inner organs, heart, I mean, and belly and liver and the adjacent parts. Further they present the appearance of the organs of sense, but perform none of their functions, for they neither hear, nor speak, nor see; they cannot write; they cannot walk, nor perform any other human action; and yet they are called imperial statues. In this sense Moses was a mediator and Christ was a mediator; but the former as an image and type and the latter as reality. But that I may make this point clearer to you from yet another authority, call to mind the words used of Melchisedec in the Epistle to the Hebrews.
Eran. -What words?
Orth. -Those in which the divine Apostle comparing the Levitical priesthood with that of the Christ likens Melchisedec in other respects to the Lord Christ, and says that the Lord had the priesthood after the order of Melchisedec.
Eran. -I think the words of the divine Apostle are as follows;-"For this Melchisedec, king of Salem, priest of the most high God who met Abraham returning from the slaughter of the kings, and blessed him; to whom also Abraham gave a tenth part of all; first being by interpretation king of righteousness, and after that also king of Salem, which is king of peace; without father, without mother, without descent, having neither beginning of days, nor end of life; but made like unto the son of God; abideth a priest continually." I presume you spoke of this passage.
Orth. -Yes, I spoke of this; and I must praise you for not mutilating it, but for quoting the whole. Tell me now, does each one of these points fit Melchisedec in nature and reality?
Eran. -Who has the audacity to deny a fitness where the divine apostle has asserted it?
Orth. -Then you say that all this fits Melchisedec by nature?
Eran. -Yes.
Orth. -Do you say that he was a man, or assumed some other nature?
Eran. -A man.
Orth. -Begotten or unbegotten?
Eran. -You are asking very absurd questions.
Orth. -The fault lies with you for openly opposing the truth. Answer then.
Eran. -There is one only unbegotten, who is God and Father.