Hunt uses a standard example of typological symbolism in Melchizedek,
a design for a stained-glass window, a pen and wash drawing of which is in the British Museum Print Room. The origins of this undated design are unclear, although it is possible that the artist began it in 1865 for the Rev. W. J. Beamont, who had been appointed vicar of the Church of St. Michael and All Angels, Cambridge, in that year. Pre-Raphaelitism and the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood relates that Beamont asked him to decorate his church, but it does not mention any stained-glass designs, and Melchizedek does not seem to fit in with the paintings Hunt proposed to execute (II.250-2). Whatever its origins, this work is of particular interest, because the nature of stained-glass precluded Hunt's characteristic use of a realistic assemblage of symbolic details. Instead, the artist chose to contrast his chief subject, the encounter of Melchizedek and Abram, with a series of symbols in the upper portion of the window.
Above the figure of Melchizedek, the just king, Hunt provided a Greek inscription which is a conflation of Hebrews 7:1 and 3: "Melchizedek, king of Salem, who has neither a beginning to his days, nor an end to his life, remains as priest forever." (I am grateful to Professor Ernest S. Frerichs for identifying and translating this inscription for me.) This king of Salem, who appears briefly in Genesis 14, received his great importance as type in the Epistle to the Hebrews, where the apostle insists that Christ will be "made an High Priest for ever after the order of Melchisedek" (6:20) rather than that of Aaron. As the Rev. James Brown, a Victorian interpreter, explained in the 1881 Good Words, little is known of the just king, except that "amid the increasing lawlessness of an evil time this Canaanite chief seems to have recognised the righteous law of God, and to have so regulated his conduct and ruled his tribe in obedience to that law, as to have for himself the name of Melchizedek, or King of Righteousness" (442-45). He refused to take part in the various wars of conquest then being fought, and his city was called Salem, or Peace. although he did not involve himself in the wars of his neighbors, he did not stand apart from their troubles, "and when any were passing that way who were wounded and weary, he would go forth with bread and wine to bless them". According to Brown, "it is because Melchizedek thus attained to priestly influence, through no sacerdotal descent and by no official consecration, but by the simple power of his righteous, peaceful, and brotherly life, that a Hebrew psalmist and a Christian apostle unite in recognizing the true type or similitude of the priesthood of Christ, not in the sons of Aaron, who ministered in the pompous ceremonial of the Jewish temple, but in this sheikh of a Canaanite village". In words which Hunt himself might have voiced, the preacher emphasized that so "repugnant" to those who love "officialism" is this glorification of a humble, righteous man, that some have sought to make him in some way of miraculous descent, as though only
something superhuman, or at least preternatural, could be a type of Christ, Who Himself was a poor Galilean peasant . . . It is because there is thus nothing artificial in Melchizedek's priesthood, nothing which does not essentially belong to every priestly life, that it is recognised as the truest type — not a mere "shadow" like the legal types, but a veritable "image" or "similitude" of the highest priesthood . . . So Christ brings God near to us in His words by which He has revealed the Father; but, like Melchizedek, He has not loved in word, neither in tongue, but in deed and in truth; He has made sacrifice for us. Melchizedek made sacrifice of bread and wine. Christ has sacrificed Himself.
In addition, this righteous king prefigures the true priesthood not only by blessing and physically assisting Abram but also by claiming a tithe of this spoils for God.
Such a conception of this just man and his relation to Christ is completely in keeping with Hunt's own beliefs. In particular, his dislike for the "officialism" of the Church hierarchy led him to this conception of true priesthood and holiness. The Shadow of Death, which emphasizes the humble nature of Christ's daily existence as a laborer, is in accord with a belief that the humble Melchizedek stands as a true type of Christ, a point enforced by the typological imagery in the upper portion of the design.
German Examples of Melchizedek
Left: Abraham is blessed by Melchizedek. Artist: Julius Schnorr von Carolsfeld. Engraver: F. Reusche, inscribed lower right. Source: Die Bibel in Bildern.. Right: Melchizedek blessing Abraham. Genesis ch. iv. ver. 18-19. Artist: A. Strähuber. Source: The Art-Journal (1851): 27. [Click on images to enlarge them.]
Created December 2001
Last modified 11 January 2022