Cap. IX: Melchizedek over Levi; mediate propagation close — before Caput X

You will ask, then: what is the Apostle's reasoning? The aim is to prove that the dignity of the Levitical priesthood is less than Melchizedek's. He draws the argument from this: that tithes were paid by Abraham to Melchizedek. To explain that and bring it into the light, he sets a comparison between Levi and Melchizedek with an eye to their priestly office. By the name Levi he takes in the Levitical priests and their whole priesthood. If Melchizedek received tithes, the Levitical priests also used to receive tithes. So far, then, they were equals in a way. But the Apostle notes four differences that raise Melchizedek immensely above the Levitical priests. First: to these a command had been given to receive tithes, while of him no such command stands. Second: these received tithes from their brothers, come out of Abraham's loins and therefore equal to them by nature and origin; but he, not being of the same stock, received tithes not from the Levites' brothers, but from their father himself — Abraham, who had the promises. So these received their priesthood and dignity from Abraham as his heirs; he had his from elsewhere. These drew every blessing they gave their brothers from Abraham who had the promises; but he did not receive blessing from Abraham — on the contrary, Abraham received it from him, though Abraham had the promises. Third: these receive tithes as men liable to death, and therefore needing them; but he as one whom Scripture testifies lives continually, or is immortal — so that tithes could not be given him except to declare his dignity. Fourth: even Levi himself, who received tithes, can be said in a way to have been tithed by Melchizedek through Abraham who was tithed. For he was still in his father's loins when Melchizedek met Abraham. This happened before Isaac was begotten. Without doubt that came about not by chance but by God's singular providence, lest, once Levi was separated from him, the dignity of the Levitical priesthood should seem already separated from him then. So God chose that time when, in one Abraham, with no separation of heirs yet made from him, the whole dignity of his posterity according to the flesh was contained as one — which in its time was so distributed among his sons that Levi became heir of the priestly dignity, Judah of the royal. If anyone demands that I cast the Apostle's reason in syllogistic form, it can be framed thus: Whoever by God's singular providence was then tithed when he still contained in himself the whole dignity of the Levitical priesthood, no separation yet made from him — in him, being tithed, the Levitical priesthood itself, or the Levite priests, so to speak, were tithed. But by God's singular providence Abraham was then tithed when he still contained in himself the whole dignity of the Levitical priesthood, no separation yet made from him. Therefore in him, being tithed, the Levite priests, so to speak, were tithed. For this, so to speak, was the homage the Levitical priesthood paid Melchizedek through Abraham, in whom it was contained. For Levi had no other priesthood than what, received from Abraham by hereditary right, God assigning and forming it, was inducted into him. Hence, kind reader, I think you see clearly both that the Apostle's reason is invincible, and that in his words there is no imputation properly so called — unless perhaps a mediate one. For as in Abraham was the Levitical priesthood, and from him it was derived to Levi, so in Adam was sin, and from him it has been propagated to us. Therefore as the same judgment was to be made of Levi the priest and of Abraham the priest as to the dignity of the priesthood, so the same judgment is to be made, as to guilt, of Adam the sinner and of us sinners on account of the inherent vice drawn from him. If someone were said, while still hiding in his father's loins, so to speak, to have paid the lord of a fief the homage they call homage, and so to be that lord's vassal, as they speak: would the argument not proceed rightly? And yet the homage paid by the father would not be imputed to the son: for if it were, it could no more be required of the son that he pay it again himself than it could be required of the parent.