Only Saint Jerome observes that when Saint Paul speaks of him as without parents, without descent, without beginning, and without end, he does not mean to convey that Melchizedec came down from Heaven or was created _ab initio_ like the first man, by the Ancient of Days.

The phrase simply means that he is introduced into the history of Abraham without our knowing whence he came, who he was, when he was born, or at what time he died.
"In fact, the inscrutable part played by this prototype of Jesus in the canonical Scriptures has led to the most grotesque legends and heresies.
"Some have asserted that he was Shem, the son of Noah; others have thought that he was Ham.

Simon Logothetes considers him an Egyptian; Suidas believes him to have belonged to the accursed race of Canaanites, and that this is why the Bible says nothing of his ancestry.
"The gnostics revered him as an Eon superior to Jesus; and in the third century Theodore le Changeur also asserted that he was not a man, but a virtue transcending Christ, because Christ's priesthood was but a copy of Melchizedec's.
"According to another sect, he was neither more nor less than the Paraclete.

But come, in the absence of early Scriptures what do the seers say?
Does Sister Emmerich speak of him ?" "She tells us nothing precise," replied Durtal.

"To her he was a sort of priestly angel charged with the preparation for the great Act of Redemption." "That is very much the view held by Origen and Didymus, who also ascribed to him the angelic nature." "Thus she perceives him long before the advent of Abram in various desert spots of Palestine; he unlocks the springs of Jordan, and in another passage of the life of Christ she adds that it was he who taught the Hebrews the culture of wheat and of the vine.