Panarion (Against Heresies) 1 part 35/82

Therefore, confirming this in advance, he says: 'But whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven him, either in this age or in the age to come' -- not commending those who blaspheme him, but demonstrating his foreknowledge and his love for mankind, which secures beforehand the salvation of those who repent from their blasphemy against him.

For he himself again says: 'Whoever denies me before men will be denied before my Father,' and again, 'I will deny him,' and again, 'whoever confesses in me, I will confess him before my Father.'

And again the same Theodotus says:

and the law spoke concerning him:

'The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet from among your brothers, like me;'

'The Christ, then, who is raised up by God -- this one,' he says, 'was indeed he, but a man, since he was from among them, just as Moses too was a man.'

And Theodotus, having fallen into transgression, does not perceive within himself how, on the contrary, each expression carries its own safeguard;

for that the Lord raised him up 'from among the brothers' is because he was born of Mary, as it says, 'Behold, the virgin shall conceive in the womb, and shall bear a son;'

and remaining a virgin she shall conceive, not of the seed of a man, and shall bear a son -- clearly, in the flesh, the offspring born of the virgin -- but 'they shall call his name Emmanuel,' which is translated, 'God with us.'

For he is both God and man;

God, begotten of the Father without beginning and without time; man, from Mary, on account of his coming in the flesh.

And the Gospel itself said to Mary:

'The Spirit of the Lord will come upon you,' and it did not say:

'The Spirit of the Lord will come to be in you.'

Therefore, contending on every side, this senseless man falls away from the truth.

For Scripture, safeguarding our life on every side, in order to show the Trinity as being together with itself in every way and in every form, and as working together -- lest some should say, as indeed many contrive evils for themselves, alienating the Holy Spirit from Christ and the Father -- for this reason the angel says to Mary: 'The Spirit of the Lord shall come upon you, and the power of the Most High shall overshadow you,' and then afterward, 'Therefore also the holy thing that is born shall be called the Son of God.'

And it did not say merely 'the thing that is born,' but 'therefore also the thing that is born,' so as to show that the Word, who is God from above, both came to be in the womb and, according to his own good pleasure, formed for himself his own becoming man;

and on account of that for which he economically arranged his own becoming man for our salvation, it adds: 'therefore also the thing that is born, holy, shall be called the Son of God.'

For if it had said, 'The Holy Spirit will enter into you,' it would no longer have been possible to consider that the Son of God had come in the flesh, but rather that the Holy Spirit had come in the flesh.

And that the Word came from above, John, clarifying the angel's evangelical utterance, says: 'In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.'

'All things were made through him, and without him was not anything made that was made.'

Then after this, also, 'And the Word became flesh;'

and it did not say, 'the Spirit became flesh,' nor did it say, 'Christ was born a man.'

For divine Scripture, safeguarding this in every way, knows him as both God and man;

God, coming from above, from God; and man, born of Mary without the seed of a man.

Whoever steps outside these two truths does not belong to the truth.

Again the wretched Theodotus makes an excuse, saying that Jeremiah too said concerning him, 'He is a man, and who shall know him?' And this man, who has estranged himself from the truth, does not know that, as I have said, each expression has its own force of interpretation.

For a man, being such, is altogether known by the many who know him;

I mean, by father and mother, brothers and kinsfolk, tent-companions and neighbors, fellow-citizens and household servants.

But here Scripture, narrating the wondrous nature of his whole undertaking, called him 'man' on account of his coming in the flesh, but by the words 'who shall know him?' it signified concerning his incomprehensible deity.

For since 'no one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son, and whomever he wills to reveal him,' therefore no one will know him unless he himself reveals it to him.

And through the Holy Spirit he reveals to his servants his own deity and glory and that of his Father, and his eternal life to come, and his mysteries and teaching, and his true coming in the flesh for our sake -- namely, that he is God from above and man from Mary.

Concerning him he said that he is a man, speaking thus:

'that he is a man who knows how to bear sickness;'

'and we saw him in affliction and in ill-treatment, and he was despised and not esteemed.'

But this brutish man does not know how, in turn, he is refuted.

For in these very words Isaiah spoke thus: 'He was led as a sheep to the slaughter, and as a lamb before its shearer is silent,'

'so he does not open his mouth;'

'In his humiliation his judgment was taken away.'

Then it says, 'Who shall declare his generation?' -- 'for his life is taken away from men' -- and it did not say 'his life is taken away from him,' but 'from men.'

For the Word always exists as living, having life from himself, and giving life to those who have loved him;

his life was taken away from men, though he himself is life from himself.

For the Word is living, and grants life to all who have truly hoped in him.

And as for the words, 'Who shall declare his generation?' --

if he were a mere man born of Mary, then his birth would surely be easy to declare.

Then, when they marveled and said, 'You are not yet fifty years old, and have you seen Abraham?' -- refuting Theodotus and the unbelieving, god-denying Jews, he said: 'Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I am.'

For he truly existed before Abraham, and before Noah, and before Adam, and before the world, and before heaven, and before the time of the world, and before all created things, being without time -- wherefore he is also proclaimed as ineffable by the Holy Spirit through Isaiah: 'For who shall declare his generation? For his life is taken up from the earth.'

'But,' he says, 'the apostles said, "a man attested to you by signs and wonders,"' and they did not say:

But you are refuted again, Theodotus, because those same apostles, in that same book of Acts, said -- as the blessed Stephen says -- 'Behold, I see the heavens opened, and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God.'

Again he makes an excuse, saying that the apostle said concerning him, 'the mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus,' and he does not realize how, once again, he raises this up against himself.

For the one who said, 'the mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus,' himself made this clear, saying, 'who was declared to be the Son of God with power, according to the Spirit of holiness, by his resurrection from the dead, Jesus Christ our Lord,' and again, 'born of a woman, born under the law.'

And securing the certainty of these words, he says: 'Even if there are so-called gods many and lords many, yet for us there is one God, from whom are all things, and one Lord Jesus Christ, through whom are all things, and we through him.'

But if it is 'through whom are all things, and we through him,' then the Only-Begotten cannot be a mere man, existing only from Mary and onward, nor from the seed of a man.

For how could all things -- things that came into being before him, according to your reasoning -- have come to be through him, if he were a mere man? Or how could all the things known and made before him be 'unto him'? And so this man's nonsense collapses on every side.

Having thus, within this very discourse, at once set forth both the knowledge concerning him and the refutation according to each expression, we shall pass on, according to our accustomed order, having struck down and destroyed, as it were, some part of a serpent still writhing, by the hope and faith of the truth; and let us now examine the sects that follow, and hasten to look about at the most savage heresies.

Against the Melchizedekians, the thirty-fifth [heresy in this book], but the fifty-fifth in the sequence.

Others again call themselves Melchizedekians, having probably broken off from those called Theodotians.

These people glorify the Melchizedek spoken of in the Scriptures, considering him to be some great power.

And they assert, in their own error, that he exists above in unnameable places, and that he is truly not only some power, but even greater than Christ.

having been deemed worthy of that one's order -- supposedly on the basis of the saying, 'You are a priest forever after the order of Melchizedek;'

so that he, they say, is inferior to Melchizedek.

For if he were not placed in some secondary rank, he would not have needed that one's order.

And concerning Melchizedek himself they say that he was 'without mother, without father, without genealogy,' wishing to establish this from the holy Paul's Epistle to the Hebrews.

And they fabricate for themselves counterfeit books, deceiving themselves.

But from the very sayings [they cite], their refutation comes about.

For it is found immediately saying, 'being made like the Son of God, he remains a priest continually.'

But if he is made like the Son of God, he does not turn out to be equal to the Son of God.

For how can the servant be equal to the master? Melchizedek was a man; and he is called 'without father, without mother' not because he had no father or mother, but because in the divine Scripture he was not named according to what is most evident.

For the deepest and most glorious things of divine Scripture, surpassing the understanding of human nature, have led many into fanciful imaginings.

Thus those in Petra of Arabia, called Rekem and Edom, marveling at Moses on account of his divine signs, once fashioned an image of him and worshiped it, having gone astray -- not because the righteous man himself was the cause for them, but because their error, through ignorance, gathered for them, by means of the righteous man, a mere fantasy of the matter.

And in Sebaste, once called Samaria, they deified the daughter of Jephthah, and to this day hold an annual festival in her honor.

So too these men, hearing the glorious and wise words of Scripture, have twisted them into foolishness, and, being carried away into inflated notions, have abandoned the way of truth; and having fashioned myths for themselves, they will be refuted in every respect.

Indeed, among some, both a father and a mother of Melchizedek are mentioned.

But this is not found according to the explicit and canonical Scriptures.

Some have said that his father was called a certain Heraclas, and his mother Astarth, who is also called Astoriane.

And he was one of the native sons, at that time, of those who dwelt in the plain of Shaveh.

And the city was called Salem, concerning which one man has given one account, and another a different one.

For some say that it is the city now called Jerusalem, once called Jebus; but others have said that there is a different Salem in the plain of Shechem, opposite the city now so called Neapolis.

Whether therefore it be the one or the other -- for the places are not far distant from one another -- nevertheless the subject matter makes the event clear.

For it says: 'he brought forth to Abraham bread and wine, and he was priest of the Most High' at that time, 'who blessed Abraham and received a tithe from him.'

For it was necessary that the priest of the Most High be honored by a servant of God, and that Abraham should first make his offering to the priest who officiated in uncircumcision, since from Abraham the priesthood was destined to arise by way of circumcision -- so that every high thing exalted against the knowledge of God might be humbled, in order that circumcision, boasting on account of the priesthood, might not be able to speak against the priesthood of the holy Church of God, which does not observe circumcision or uncircumcision of the flesh, but possesses the greater and most perfect circumcision, the washing of regeneration.

For the priesthood was transferred to the order that existed before Levi and before Aaron, the order of Melchizedek, which is now exercised in the Church, from the time of the Lord's incarnate coming until now -- no longer being chosen by succession of seed, but sought according to a pattern of virtue.

For the first priesthood is exercised in uncircumcision through Abel, and next in order through Noah.

And the third through Melchizedek, who ministered as priest to God not in circumcision, but in perfection of righteousness and in virtue, while in uncircumcision of the flesh.

And that Melchizedek was a man, the holy apostle of God himself will make clear in his epistle.

For he speaks thus: 'but he whose descent is not counted from them has taken tithes from the patriarch.'

It is clear, then, that his descent is not counted from them, but is counted from others.

For in all the explicit books, nowhere are the fathers or mothers of these persons mentioned.

But so that no error may arise on this account, it will do no harm to relate also what we have received in the traditions.

As for Elijah, we have likewise found his patriarchal descent by nature, which I shall now set forth in order, as follows:

Elijah the Tishbite was the brother of Jehoiada the priest, being himself of priestly descent, and son of Ahinaam.

Ahinaam was son of Zadok; Zadok was son of Ahitob, son of Amaria; Amarias was son of Amaria, son of Razaza; Razaza was son of Aazia; Aazia was son of Phinees; Phinees was son of Eleazar; Eleazar was son of Aaron, that is, the priest.

Aaron was son of Amram; Amram was son of Kohath; Kohath was son of Levi; Levi was the third son of Jacob.

Jacob was the brother of Esau, and son of Isaac; Isaac was son of Abraham.

But in the explicit books their genealogies are not set forth very clearly, except only in Chronicles, where portions of the account concerning Elijah are found.

As for the natural descent of the three youths, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, we have found their fathers neither in the traditions nor in the apocryphal writings.

What then shall we say? Shall these also, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, lead us into fanciful notions we ought not entertain, and cause us to marvel excessively, beyond measure, at every such matter, reckoning them to be without father and without mother? By no means!

For boundaries and foundations have been set for us for the building up of the faith -- the traditions of the apostles, the holy Scriptures, and the successions of teachers; and from every side the truth of God has been secured. Let no one be deceived by empty myths.

But I shall return again to the matters at hand, to what these men imagine concerning Melchizedek.

That this righteous man was holy, and priest of God, and king of Salem, is clear; but he did not belong to a rank existing in heaven, nor had he descended from heaven.

For 'no one has ascended into heaven except him who descended from heaven, the Son of Man' -- thus says the holy and truthful God the Word.

But the divine Scripture, by proclaiming the order of Melchizedek, and the Spirit, by explicitly teaching it, showed the transfer of the priesthood from the old synagogue and nation to a most excellent and supreme nation, one not united by participation in fleshly succession.

For this holy Melchizedek had no successor after him, nor did his priesthood suffer removal.

For he remained priest for the whole time of his life, and even now he is celebrated in Scripture as priest, no one having succeeded him or overturned the priesthood exercised during the time of his service.

So also our Lord -- who is not a mere man, but the holy God the Word of God, the Son of God, begotten without beginning and without time, ever existing with the Father, yet who for our sake became man from Mary, and not from the seed of a man -- offers the priesthood to the Father, having taken the lump of dough from humanity, so that he might be constituted a priest on our behalf, according to the order of Melchizedek, which has no succession.

offering gifts continually, having first offered himself through the cross, so that he might abolish every sacrifice of the old covenant, and having performed the more complete and living sacrifice on behalf of the whole world;

He himself is the victim, he himself the sacrifice, he himself the priest, he himself the altar, he himself God, he himself man, he himself king, he himself high priest, he himself the sheep, he himself the lamb -- becoming all things in all for our sake, so that life might come to us in every way, and so that he might establish the unchangeable foundation of his priesthood forever, no longer dividing it according to seed and successions, but granting it to be kept according to the just ordinance, in the Holy Spirit.

But again, others hold fanciful notions, saying other things about this Melchizedek.

For such men have judged in a fleshly manner, not having understood spiritually the things spoken by the holy apostle in that same epistle to the Hebrews.

And Hieracas the Egyptian heresiarch supposes this Melchizedek to be the Holy Spirit, because -- as he says -- 'being made like unto the Son of God, he remains a priest continually.'

as though from the expression which the holy apostle used: 'but the Spirit itself makes intercession for us with groanings that cannot be uttered.'

'And he who understands the mind of the Spirit knows that it intercedes with God on behalf of the elect.'

But this man too has entirely fallen away from the point at hand.

For the Spirit never at any time put on flesh.

And not having put on flesh, it could not be king of Salem and priest of a particular place.

But at the time when I undertake the refutation concerning this Hieracas and his heresy, then I shall discuss these matters at length; for now, however, I shall resume the sequence of the argument.

But how many other fanciful notions do others also hold concerning this Melchizedek!

For the Samaritans suppose him to be Shem, the son of Noah.

But they too will be found ridiculous.

For the divine Scripture, securing all things with good order, has fortified the truth in every respect, not having arranged the times in vain, nor having numbered the years of each father's life and succession without purpose.

For when Abraham was eighty-eight, or perhaps ninety years old, more or less, Melchizedek met him and brought forth to him bread and wine, prefiguring the riddles of the mysteries:

antitypes of the body of the Lord, our Lord himself saying, 'I am the living bread'; and antitypes of his blood, which flowed from his side for the cleansing of those defiled, and for the sprinkling and salvation of our souls.

Now Abraham's father Terah, at the age of seventy, begot Abraham; and there came to be, more or less, one hundred sixty years.

Nahor begot Terah at the age of seventy-nine, and there came to be two hundred thirty-nine years.

Serouch begot Nahor at the age of one hundred thirty, and there came to be three hundred sixty-nine years.

Ragau begot Serouch at the age of one hundred thirty-two, and it became the five hundred and first year.

Phalek begot Ragau at the age of one hundred thirty, and there came to be six hundred thirty-one years.

Heber begot Phalek in the one hundred thirty-fourth year of his life, and there came to be seven hundred sixty-five years.

Sala begot Heber at the one hundred thirtieth year of his age, and there came to be eight hundred ninety-five years.

Kainan begot Sala at the one hundred ninth year of his life, and there came to be one thousand four years.

Arphaxad, being one hundred thirty-five years old, begot Kainan, and there came to be one thousand one hundred thirty-nine years.

And Shem, in the one hundred second year of his life -- the one aforementioned, and fancied by the Samaritans to be Melchizedek -- begot Arphaxad; and altogether there came to be one thousand two hundred forty-one years until the time of Abraham, at which he met Melchizedek on his return from the slaughter of the kings Amraphel, Arioch, Chedorlaomer, and Tidal.

And after this, as the divine Scripture says, he lived five hundred years, and begot sons and daughters, and died.

Since, then, he lived six hundred and two years and died, how could he have reached the year one thousand two hundred and forty-one, so that Shem, the son of Noah, who lived ten generations before Abraham, could be called Melchizedek by these people -- ten generations later, that is, one thousand two hundred and forty-one years later? O the great error of men!

But according to the reckoning of other copies, from the age of Shem -- that is, from the time when Shem himself was born -- until the aforementioned time of Abraham's meeting with Melchizedek, which was in the eighty-eighth year of his life, or the ninetieth, it comes to six hundred twenty-eight years, more or less; so that in every case Shem could not have reached the aforementioned time of Abraham, so as to be reckoned as Melchizedek.

And thus the vulgar talk of the Samaritans has collapsed from every side.

The Jews, again, say that this man was indeed righteous and good, and priest of the Most High, as the divine Scripture has it; but because, they say, he was the son of a harlot, his mother is not recorded, nor is his father known.

But the foolish argument of these men also failed.

For Rahab too was a harlot and is so written, and Zimri is written as having committed fornication, and Cozbi with him, although she was a foreigner and not descended from the race of Israel.

And everyone who does not enter through the door, as the holy Gospel has said, is a thief and not a shepherd.

But within the Church, some define this Melchizedek variously as to his nature.

For some suppose that he is by nature the Son of God, and that he then appeared to Abraham in the form of a man.

But they too fall short of the point at hand;

for no one could ever become like himself, as the divine Scripture has it, that 'being made like unto the Son of God he remains a priest continually.'

In fact, he who is not reckoned by genealogy from them has taken tithes of Abraham;

for since he is not reckoned by genealogy from the Israelites themselves, but is reckoned by genealogy from other men—

Having made a catalogue of all these, whom we have mentioned on account of this heresy, and having related these things as it were in a digression,

Now the aforesaid heresy offers up its oblations in the name of this Melchizedek, and says that he is the one who introduces us to God, and that, they say, it is through him that one must make offering to God, since he is the prince of righteousness, appointed for this very purpose by God in heaven, being a certain spiritual being and ordained to the priesthood of God.

And we must, they say, make offering to him, so that through him it may be offered on our behalf and we may find life through him.

And Christ, they say, was chosen so that he might call us from many ways into this one knowledge, having been anointed by God and having become elect, since he turned us away from idols and showed us the way.

from whom the apostle, having been sent, revealed to us that Melchizedek is great and remains a priest forever.

'And consider how great this man was,' and that the lesser is blessed by the greater; and for this reason, they say, he also blessed the patriarch Abraham, as being the greater, of whom we are initiates, so that we too might obtain the blessing from him.

And how vain is the reasoning of all these heresies.

For behold, these men too have denied their own Master who purchased them with his own blood — him who did not begin from Mary, as they suppose, but who exists always as God the Word with the Father, begotten of the Father without beginning and without time, as all Scripture recounts;

to whom the Father also said, 'Let us make man according to our image and likeness,' and not to Melchizedek.

For if he is indeed a priest of God Most High, he was born in his own generation and had no successor after him, but he did not come down from above, from heaven.

to him and to those with him, receiving the patriarch as he passed by from the kings;

And he blessed him on account of the righteousness that was in him and the man's faithfulness and piety, because the patriarch, having been tested in all things, fell short of righteousness in nothing, but in this too had God as his helper against those who had †truly† come against the land of the Sodomites and had carried off also his nephew, the holy Lot, whom he brought back together with all the spoil and plunder.

And how shall we not show that the Son was always with the Father? 'For in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God' — and it did not say, 'In the beginning was Melchizedek,' nor 'Melchizedek was God.'

And again, 'The Lord came to Abraham,' and 'The Lord rained fire and brimstone from the Lord upon Sodom and Gomorrah.'

And the apostle himself says, 'There is one God, from whom are all things, and one Lord Jesus Christ, through whom are all things.'

Where, then, is the Spirit, since the text speaks only of the One and the One? The Spirit had no need to be independently set forth by itself;

For the divine Scripture is always preserved so as to become a pattern for us.

The apostle spoke in the Holy Spirit and said, 'There is one God, from whom are all things, and one Lord Jesus Christ, through whom are all things.'

And he was speaking this in the Holy Spirit;

And the Lord himself says plainly, 'Go and baptize all nations in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.'

And again the apostle says, 'But it is one and the same Spirit, apportioning to each one as it wills for what is profitable.'

Behold, then, the Father; behold the Son; behold the Holy Spirit; and nowhere does it say concerning Melchizedek that he bestows †...† among the gifts of grace, nor among the exalted things.

And in vain among these men are chanted the false and contrived stumbling-blocks, which do not come to them from the truth, but from the very hissing of the dragon, insofar as he has been able to deceive and lead astray each heresy.

And again it has come to us that certain people, having gone astray even more than all those mentioned before, and lifted up by an even greater arrogance of thought, have dared to turn to perplexity of reasoning and to arrive at a blasphemous notion, saying that this same Melchizedek is the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.

O the unguarded thinking of men, and their deceived heart, which has no firm stand in the truth!

For because the apostle calls Melchizedek 'without father, without mother, without genealogy,' such men, led astray in their thinking by the grandeur of the expression, and reflecting on what corresponds to the Father of all, have formed within themselves the error of blasphemy.

For since the Father of all, God the Almighty, has neither father nor mother, nor beginning of days nor end of life — for this is confessed by all — likening Melchizedek to him because the apostle spoke thus concerning him, they have fallen into the blasphemy of folly, not understanding the other things said concerning him.

For it is said concerning Melchizedek that he was priest of the Most High.

If then this one is Most High and Father, then, being priest of another Most High, he could no longer himself be the Father of all, since he serves as priest to another Most High.

O the vulgarity of men, which does not understand the true things, but turns itself to error!

For the holy apostle, bringing together the conclusion of the solution of the whole question, said, 'But he who is not reckoned by genealogy from them' — but it is clear;

but he has taken tithes from Abraham though from another lineage; and again, 'who in the days of his flesh,' it says, 'offered up prayers and supplications to him who was able to save him;'

But it is clear that the Father did not put on flesh.

And having sufficiently discussed these matters, let us leave this heresy, having struck it with a stone, as it were a shrew-mouse, by means of the solid faith and firm foundation, and having escaped its venomous poison.

For at the moment it does no harm to the one bitten, but in time it wastes away the body and brings the one who has been attacked to the disfigurement of leprosy, even unto all his members.