SAINT AMBROSE ‘ON THE MYSTERIES’ ~ 1919; ‘The sacrament of the Eucharist prefigured in Psalm xxiii..…
[St. Ambrose – IV Century AD; born: Augusta Trevrorum, Gallia Belgica, Roman Empire/died: Mediolanum, Italia, Western Roman Empire – Resting Place – Crypt of Basilica Sant’Ambrogio – One of the Great Four Latin Church Fathers – Doctor of the Church – made Bishop by popular acclamation]
Chapter VIII ~ The sacrament of the Eucharist prefigured in Psalm xxiii., in the incident of Melchizedek, and in the manna and water miraculously supplied to Israel in the wilderness.
43. Rich with these adornments the cleansed people hastens to the altar of Christ, saying, And I will go unto the altar of God, even unto the God that maketh glad my youth ; 1 for, putting off the slough of long-standing sin, renewed in the youth of the eagle, she hastens to approach that heavenly banquet. She comes, therefore, and seeing the holy altar duly ordered, cries and says, Thou hast prepared a table before me. z She it is whom David represents as the speaker, in the words, The Lord is my shepherd, and I shall not …More
" For the synagogue derived its origin from the law of Moses. But Abraham is far earlier; who, when he had won the victory, defeating the enemy and recovering his own nephew, was then met by Melchizedek who brought forth the gifts which Abraham received with reverence.
It was not Abraham that brought them forth, but Melchizedek, who is represented as being without father, without mother, having neither beginning of days nor end, but like unto the Son of God ; of whom Paul says in the Epistle to the Hebrews that he abideth a priest continually, who in the Latin version is called King of righteousness, King of peace."