Chapter 5

The purpose for which any high priest is chosen from among his fellow men, and made a representative of men in their dealings with God, is to offer gifts and sacrifices in expiation of their sins.

He is qualified for this by being able to feel for them when they are ignorant and make mistakes, since he, too, is all beset with humiliations,

and, for that reason, must needs present sin-offerings for himself, just as he does for the people.

His vocation comes from God, as Aaron’s did; nobody can take on himself such a privilege as this.

So it is with Christ. He did not raise himself to the dignity of the high priesthood; it was God that raised him to it, when he said, Thou art my Son, I have begotten thee this day,

and so, elsewhere, Thou art a priest for ever, in the line of Melchisedech.

Christ, during his earthly life, offered prayer and entreaty to the God who could save him from death, not without a piercing cry, not without tears; yet with such piety as won him a hearing.

Son of God though he was, he learned obedience in the school of suffering,

and now, his full achievement reached, he wins eternal salvation for all those who render obedience to him.

A high priest in the line of Melchisedech, so God has called him.

Of Christ as priest we have much to say, and it is hard to make ourselves understood in the saying of it, now that you have grown so dull of hearing.

You should, after all this time, have been teachers yourselves, and instead of that you need to be taught; taught even the first principles on which the oracles of God are based. You have gone back to needing milk, instead of solid food.

Those who have milk for their diet can give no account of what holiness means; how should they? They are only infants.

Solid food is for the full-grown; for those whose faculties are so trained by exercise that they can distinguish between good and evil.