The meaning clearly is that the type presented by Melchisedec (Heb. vii. 3) is fulfilled in Christ. The explanation here given by S. Gregory is the ordinary one found in the Fathers. Thus, e.g., Theodoret says, “Christ our Lord is without Mother as God, for He was begotten of the Father alone; and without Father as Man, for He was born of a pure Virgin.” Œcumenius has almost the exact words of Gregory. So also S. Augustine (Tract in Joann, 8), “Christ was singularly born of a Father without a Mother, of a Mother without a Father; without Mother as God, without Father as Man.”