Homilies on Leviticus: 1-16

About the great priest.

EVERYONE who is a priest among men is small and insignificant [compared] to that priest about whom God said, "You are a priest forever after the order of Melchizedek." ^1. For that one is "a great priest" ^2. who can "enter into heaven," ^3. go beyond every creature, and ascend to him who "dwells in inaccessible light," ^4. the God and Father of the universe. Because of that the one who was called "a great priest" ^5. among the Jews entered a holy place, but one made by hand, constructed with stones; he did not ascend into heaven nor could he stand before "the Father of lights." ^6. But since he fulfilled the shadow ^7. and image of these, he also bore the name "the great priest" through the shadow and image. Whence also the Jews through the fact that they ought to have been closest to the faith, since among them a certain outline and image of the truth had shone forth as long as they regard the types as the truth, they rejected the truth itself as a lie. But we who receive "the great priest" ought to understand how this one is truly "the great priest." Truly he is "the great priest" who sent sins away, not "by the blood of bulls and goats, but by his own blood." ^8. Therefore, because we know who "the great priest is" and affirm that the things written in the Law are written about "the great priest," that is, about the Savior whom the preceding discussion shows to be "the great priest," let us now see what those things are which the Law in a prophetic spirit writes about him.

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