{"author":null,"canonical_references":[],"database_sha256":"8cfbe7284c6936871d57c02dc6aa63ebbdfd4722422d539dd9f716e46e91112e","date_end":null,"date_start":null,"edition_year":null,"id":"sermonindex-ecf-6714","native_reference":{"book_number":650,"chapter_from":7,"chapter_to":7,"system":"MyBible module coordinates (mapping unverified)","verse_from":16,"verse_to":16},"public_import_allowed":false,"record_kind":"verse-keyed-module-record","review_required":["English edition and exact text","author/work attribution","dating","verse mapping and citation kind","reuse and attribution","split author quotations and deduplicate"],"review_status":"unreviewed","source_html":"<p><b>Ephrem the Syrian</b>: Paul says, \"If perfection had been attainable\" through the Levitic house, \"for under it the people received the law\"—that is, through its agency the law of the people was declared—\"what further need would there have been\" to elevate another priest from another place, \"rather than one named after the order of Aaron,\" who was the patriarch of those priests, \"but after the order of\" the uncircumcised \"Melchizedek\"?After thus proving the necessity to change priesthood, Paul begins again to prove that, with this change in the priesthood, the law is changed too. \"When there is a change in the priesthood,\" he says, \"there is necessarily a change in the law as well.\" Is there need of a sacrificial law, if sacrifices and priesthood have been abolished?<br/>So Melchizedek, \"of whom these things are spoken\" even though he was from that generation, came \"from another tribe from which no one has ever served at the altar,\" and the one who received his priesthood was certainly not from the Levites, lest he might be estranged from Melchizedek because of his origin.<br/>In fact, \"it is evident that our Lord\" Jesus Christ \"was descended from Judah, and in connection with that tribe Moses said nothing about priests.\"<br/>For this reason Uzziah was stricken with leprosy, because he wanted to transfer priesthood by his action and move it to the house of Judah, before Jesus, who was from Judah, came and took it in his hour.<br/>\"This becomes even more evident\" because \"another priest arises in the likeness of Melchizedek, who has become a priest not according to a legal requirement concerning bodily descent,\" that is, not by being appointed before the people through the aspersion, sanctification, and blood and anointment of priesthood, and through its garments. Our Lord, on the contrary, was appointed and accepted the priesthood \"by the power of a life\" which is not broken down by death.<br/>He accepted the priesthood through the oath proffered by David, \"You are a priest forever after the order of Melchizedek.\" Therefore, \"a former commandment is set aside,\" as well as the previous priesthood, \"because of its weakness and uselessness\" as a rule.<br/><i>— COMMENTARY ON THE EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS</i></p><p><b>John Chrysostom</b>: Yea and I am showing another difference also (he would say): not only from the tribe, nor yet only from the Person, nor from the character of the Priesthood, nor from the covenant, but also from the type itself. \"Who was made not according to the law of a carnal commandment, but according to the power of an endless life. He became\" (he says) \"a priest not according to the law of a carnal commandment\": for that law was in many respects unlawful.</p><p>What is, \"of a carnal commandment\"? Circumcise the flesh, it says; anoint the flesh; wash the flesh; purify the flesh; shave the flesh; bind upon the flesh; cherish the flesh; rest as to the flesh. And again its blessings, what are they? Long life for the flesh; milk and honey for the flesh; peace for the flesh; luxury for the flesh. From this law Aaron received the priesthood; Melchisedec however not so.<br/><i>— Homily on Hebrews 13</i></p><p><b>John Chrysostom</b>: \"But according to the power of an endless life. For He testifieth, Thou art a Priest for ever after the order of Melchisedec\"; that is, not for a time, nor having any limit, \"but according to the power of an endless life,\" that is, by means of power, by means of \"endless life.\"</p><p>And yet this does not follow after, \"who was made not according to the law of a carnal commandment\": for what would follow would be to say, \"but according to that of a spiritual one.\" However by \"carnal,\" he implied temporary. As he says also in another place, \"carnal ordinances imposed until the time of reformation.\"</p><p>\"According to the power of life,\" that is, because He lives by His own power.<br/><i>— Homily on Hebrews 13</i></p><p><b>Oecumenius</b>: \"who has not become a priest according to the law of a fleshly commandment.\" For Christ has become a high priest, not according to the law of a commandment concerning flesh, but according to the power of an everlasting life. What is according to the law of a fleshly commandment? That the law had commandments concerning the flesh, such as circumcision, rest, this one to eat, and that one not to eat. Which was of the flesh and did not come to the purification of the soul, therefore he says, a priest according to the law of a fleshly commandments. For he knew the Levites as priests. But he says, Christ has become a priest, both by his own power and that of the Father, and by eternal life.<br/><i>— The Pseudo-Oecumenian Catena on Hebrews</i></p><p><b>Theodoret of Cyrus</b>: He is saying it is possible to bring out the likeness between the one and the other: as one did not have successors to his priesthood, so neither did the other transmit it to another—which he referred to as \"bodily descent\" because the law required on account of the mortality of human beings that after the death of the high priest his son would succeed to the priesthood. Now, in my view this phrase has another meaning as well: the priests cleansed the body in particular, sprinkling and washing it; they offered sacrifices for it. In other words, it was not for murderers or wreckers of others' marriages that they were in the habit of performing sacrifices, but for menstruating women, lepers and people who touched the bones of the dead.<br/><i>— INTERPRETATION OF Hebrews 7</i></p>","source_html_sha256":"aea48d50aa80593756cbcb1e59f49597da8c368f63a4b7986517ae80c1782057","source_module":"ECF","source_row_id":6714,"source_url":"https://www.sermonindex.net/commentary/ecf/","text_sha256":"b78dd8493e49d984c1f5ed769e249a8b46a66eb7e09a0d14199aec66f482a12a","translator":null,"work":null}