Hebrews 7:3

New Testament

1 Now this Melchizedek, king of Salem, priest of the most high God, met Abraham as he was returning from defeating the kings and blessed him. 2 To him also Abraham apportioned a tithe of everything. His name first means king of righteousness, then king of Salem, that is, king of peace. 3 Without father, without mother, without genealogy, he has neither beginning of days nor end of life but is like the son of God, and he remains a priest for all time. 4 But see how great he must be, if Abraham the patriarch gave him a tithe of his plunder.

Apocalypse of Abraham 17:10

Pseudepigrapha

7 And I recited, and he himself recited the song: 8 “O, Eternal, Mighty, Holy El, God Autocrat, 9 Self-Begotten, Incorruptible, Immaculate, Unbegotten, Spotless, Immortal, 10 Self-Created, Self-Illuminated, Without Mother, Without Father, Without Genealogy, 11 High, Fiery, 12 Wise, Lover Of Men, Favorable, Generous, Bountiful, Jealous Over Me, Patient, Most Merciful, 13 Eli {that is, my God,} Eternal, Mighty, Holy Sabaoth, Most Glorious El, El, El, El, Yahoel. 14 You are he whom my soul has loved, the Guardian, Eternal, Fiery, Shining, Light-Formed, Thunder-Voiced, Lightning-Looking, Many-Eyed, 16 receiving the entreaties of those who honor you and turning away from the entreaties of those who besiege you by the siege of their provocation,

 Notes and References

"... Without Father or Mother or Genealogy - The terms "without father" and "without mother" most commonly refer to children, either illegitimate, orphaned or abandoned. That shameful sense is totally absent from Heb 7:3 ... There are two texts which describe a true deity in this fulsome fashion. Lactantius quotes an ancient oracle of Apollo about god: "Self-produced, untaught, without a mother, unshaken." But this cannot refer to Juppiter, who had a mother. Lactantius quotes Mercury to the effect that a true god must be without both mother and father ... We find evidence from ancient Greek sources, then, that it belongs to a true deity to be both "without father" and "without mother." A comparable passage occurs in the Apocalypse of Abraham ... The form is clearly "negative theology," even if some of the terms suggest a certain transcendence, such as "self-originate," "self-perfected," and "self-devised." We easily recognize phrases about the true eternity of this god -- (a) eternal in the past: "unbegotten," "self-originate" and (b) imperishable in the future: "incorruptible" and "immortal." In addition, this god is "without mother, without father, ungenerated," that is, sourceless. Both Lactantius' citations from Greek theology and the Apocalypse of Abraham suggest that when some figure is acclaimed "without father or mother or genealogy," such a one is a true deity ..."

Neyrey, Jerome H. "Without Beginning of Days or End of Life" (Hebrews 7:3): Topos for a True Deity (pp. 439-455) The Catholic Biblical Quarterly Vol. 53, No. 3, 1991

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