Key Insights on Abraham, Nimrod and Melchizedek from Ancient Traditions

Luna in his left hand together with all the other stars. Alarmed by the future birth of Abraham, in a place close to him, Nimrod would have cut the throat of his father, killed all the male children of his kingdom and prevented women from procreating. However, Amla, Terah's wife, would have conceived and then given birth to Abraham secretly in a cave near her house, where she would have hidden him for 13 years.

Using the language of symbols, common to initiatic traditions, we understand that Nimrod, expression of corrupt temporal and priestly power, comprehends the future birth among his people of a child, namely an initiate, who would have dethroned him. To prevent the event, Nimrod kills his own father, namely terminates the initiation center he headed, kills the male children namely the initiates and prevents women from conceiving, namely prevents the celebration of the Mysteries and new initiations. Nevertheless, Terah and Amla manage to conceive anyway, thanks to the help of secrecy, namely by hiding their son in the cave. The meaning of the event described here is the institution, which Tradition wants to trace back precisely to this period, of the Arcane Discipline, namely of secrecy and discretion of the Mysteries to protect them from profanation. The temporal power represented by Nimrod wants to destroy, profane and humiliate the priestly power of initiation and for this reason the institution of the Mysteries and the bond of initiatic secrecy becomes necessary.

Thanks to the protection operated by initiatic secrecy, Abraham is conceived. It will then be the God of Abraham, Elohi Abraham אלהי אברהם, to bring him from Ur of Nimrod נמרד to Mount Tabor with Melchizedek מלכי צדק.

The beginning of our historical cycle and of our civilization coincides with the initiation of Abraham and Sarah by Melchizedek, Priest of the Most High God אל עליון El Elion, who, being the first biblical priest כהן cohen, is the Founder of the Priesthood itself in the absolute and highest possible sense. In this sense the rabbinic tradition identifies him with Sem himself, the son of Noah and patriarch of Abraham, who survived the flood and lived until the time of Abraham himself to confer initiation upon him and transmit to him his sapiential and priestly heritage. In fact, according to biblical chronology, Sem living 500 years after the generation of Arphaxad, would not only have lived until the birth of Abraham which occurred 290 years later, but would actually have survived Abraham himself. It is evident how such chronology and the ages expressed here must be interpreted in a symbolic sense in light of the Secret Tradition of Israel and that they identify an initiatic heritage transmitted from an epoch preceding the flood until Abraham.

When analyzing a character like Melchizedek one must certainly distinguish what is the historical figure from the metahistorical individuality, namely the physical person in flesh and blood from the Spirit operating a Divine intervention in History. From a historical point of view, Melchizedek may have been a Jebusite Canaanite chief, the founder of the Temple of Jerusalem in pre-Israelite epoch. The identification of Melchizedek with Sem for the Hebrew tradition is evident already from the Targumim which sometimes directly translate the name of Melchizedek with that of Sem the great.