The Parentless Melchizedek

Paul described Melchizedek as being without father and without lineage. That the greatest of the priests, Melchizedek, did not ascend from the earth, no one has the power to oppose; for he did not grow from an oak nor from a rock, nor, having been taken from the earth, is he fashioned according to Adam, being shaped by hand.

And shortly thereafter: What then could anyone say? For Melchizedek is recorded to us as being without father. Even if he might be pleasing to God and the Word, and the whole universe seems to us to bear his image and to preserve his character, he is not without father, nor is he without lineage; for to Christ there is both mother Mary and the royal lineage of David, and from the root of Jesse the flower of all our fragrance rises, and his fleshly lineage is genealogized, while that of Melchizedek is considered ungenealogized.

Would not someone say that Melchizedek is ungenealogized because he is not from the seed of Abraham, nor is he ever genealogized by Moses, but his race is Canaanite and he springs from that seed? And it is just regarding those appearing by themselves and not springing from ancestors, nor from any righteous seed.

It was not right, therefore, to genealogize and to trace up to the race of Canaan the one emerging into the height of righteousness, for it was not fitting to entwine the one having reached the height of righteousness with the race having reached the height of iniquity. Therefore the Scripture says that he is without lineage and without father, not regarding the ancestors as worthy of the virtue of a righteous and temperate man.