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"From the artist's point of view," Durtal went on, "Melchizedec is one of the best statues in this porch.
He then went to kneel before the Black Virgin, and returning to the North transept near which She stands, he gazed once more in amazement at the incandescent flowers of the windows; again he was captivated and moved by the five pointed windows under the rose, in which, on each side of the Mauresque Saint Anna, stood David and Solomon, a forbidding pair, in a furnace of purple, and Melchizedec and Aaron with tawny complexions and hairy faces, with enormous colourless eyes standing out passionless in a blaze of daylight.
This figure held a censer in one hand, and in the other a chalice covered with a paten on which there was a loaf; and this image of Melchizedec, the King of Salem, threw Durtal into a deep reverie. He was, in fact, one of the most mysterious types of the Holy Scriptures this monarch mentioned in Genesis as the Priest of the Most High God.
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 establishment of the Church in the place of the Synagogue is foretold by Ezekiel, Isaiah, Joel, and Micah; and the Mass, the Eucharistic Sacrament, is plainly adumbrated by Malachi, who declared that for the offerings of the Old Law offered only in the Temple at Jerusalem shall be substituted 'a pure offering to be offered in every place and by all nations' by priests chosen from among all people, Isaiah adds, and David says after the order of Melchizedec.
In fact, it was a misfortune to him that he was the Son of his father and mother at all. Had he been a second Melchizedec, and got into breeches in time, the virtues which circumstances suppressed in his heart might have flourished like cauliflowers, though the world would have lost all the advantages arising from the splendor of his talents at going naked.
But I will say, in the authority of the word of God, that the man who diligently searcheth the Scriptures and sincerely read his Bible and still he insists in holding his sacerdotal office and call himself a priest, he is deceived or he is deceiving. "Thou art a priest for ever after the order of Melchizedec."
He consummates the sacrifice of bread and wine, blesses Abram, receives tithes from him, and then vanishes into the darkness of history. And suddenly his name is found in a psalm of David's, who declares that the Messiah is a priest for ever after the order of Melchizedec, and again he is lost without leaving a trace.
And it seemed as though the sun, as it mounted higher, followed the growth of the Virgin, taking its birth in the window where She was still a babe in that northern transept where Saint Anne, her mother, of the black face, sat between David, the king of the golden harp, and Solomon, the bearer of the blue-lilied sceptre, each against a background of purple, to prefigure the royal birth of the Son; between Melchizedec, the mitred patriarch, holding the censer, and Aaron, in the curious red cap bordered with lemon yellow, representing prophetically the Priesthood of Christ.
Something on that Sabbath morning recalled Melchizedec, the priest without father or mother, of royal descent, and of great length of days. Earnestly hoping for longevity for this feathered mite of princely birth, I called him "Melchizedec." I caught him and was in his toils. He was a tiny tyrant; I was but a slave, an attendant, a nurse, a night-watcher. Completely under his claw!
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