Homilies of Maximus of Turin (Bruni's collection) 103.1–108.1

It was well arranged, in a way, by God's providence, that Christ the Lord should be born in the very midst of the festivals of the Gentiles, and that the splendour of the true light should shine out among the very dark superstitions of errors; so that men, seeing that the justice of the pure Godhead had flashed forth amid their various superstitions, might forget their past sacrileges and not practise them in future. For what wise man who celebrates the mystery of the Lord's Nativity does not condemn the drunkenness of the Saturnalia and avoid the licentiousness of the Kalends; and, desiring to have a share with Christ, refuse to be a sharer with the world? For this is the principle of divine worship: that one who has fellowship with the vanity of the Gentiles cannot have union with the truth of the saints. The blessed Apostle says: "What portion has justice with iniquity, or what fellowship has light with darkness?" That is, that Christians should at once practise the luxury of iniquity and have the God of justice appeased. For there are many who, drawing the custom from the old superstition of vanity, keep the day of the Kalends as a supreme festival, and wish to have such rejoicings that it is rather sadness for them. For they are so licentious, so sated with wine and feasting, that one who has been chaste and temperate the whole year is drunk and polluted on that day; and he thinks that unless he does so he has lost his holiday, because he does not understand that through such a holiday he has lost his salvation. And what of this, that rising early each one goes out in public with a little gift, that is, with strenae, and, about to greet his friends, greets them with a present before a kiss? He offers his lips to lips and puts his hand into a hand, not to return the affection of love but to pay the service of avarice; and in one and the same act he embraces his friend and is cheated. Judge for yourselves what kind of kiss that is which is for sale; for the more dearly it is bought, the more cheaply it is valued. How many, before the gold, are judged by their superiors unworthy of a kiss? After the gold has gleamed in the right hand, it is the bribe, not grace, that makes them worthy. And in this very iniquity, how unjust it is that the inferior is expected to give to the superior, and the man who perhaps borrows what he gives is compelled to give to the rich! They even call this munificence strenae, though it is rather a strain: the wretch is compelled, I say, to give what he does not have and to offer a gift for which he leaves his children in debt. But the rich too are generous with this munificence; yet neither do they seem free from sin. For the rich man gives only to someone who is already wealthy; and while he scorns to give a beggar a denarius, on the Kalends he hurries loaded with gold to his friend's house, he who came to church empty and void on the Lord's Nativity. You see, then, that with many present flattery counts for more than future reward. A man is happier to have the kiss of a superior than the glory of the Saviour. That kiss is not to be called a kiss, because it is for sale. For Judas Iscariot too kissed the Lord with such a kiss, but by it he was trying to betray him. And what of this, that on that day, with such an empty beginning, as though beginning to live, they gather omens and inquire into everything, and from it measure out for themselves either the prosperity or the sadness of the whole year? These things, being foolish and ridiculous, are either useless or harmful to those very people. For they do not have prosperity, since they are deceived by auguries; they always have sadness, since by remembering everything they are anxious lest it happen. And they add this to their evils, that, returning home as if from taking the auspices, they carry little branches in their hands, namely as an omen, so that they may return to their lodging loaded; not understanding, wretches, that they do return loaded, not with a burden of gifts but with a heap of sins.

We ought always to remember and have before our eyes, dearly beloved brothers, that the Lord Jesus Christ came down from heaven to earth in order to bestow eternal life on us. Though he was the Son of God, he chose to become the son of man, so that he might make us, who were men, sons of God. For he did not work the mystery of such great dignity for the sake of this present life, which is short, fleeting and mortal, but for the sake of that which is perpetual and everlasting. For God was not going to grant us long duration of this life, which is full of hardships, toils and want, lest he should grant not so much length of life as perpetuity of toils. For the only remedy in it seems to be that it is short. Hence the Apostle too says: "If in this life only we hope in Christ, we are more to be pitied than all men." We must not, then, hope in Christ only in this life, in which the bad have more power than the good, in which the worse are the happier, and those who live more criminally prosper more. For what good does this life possess? Honours, riches, health; which, though fleeting, do not come by merit but befall by chance. For how many do we see whom not honesty but power has made honoured? How many who have obtained riches not left by their parents but seized by bloodshed? How many strong in soundness of limb who are not governed by God's mercy but by the blood of cattle? These things, then, since they are temporal and nothing, are bestowed here and there on anyone without merit and without judgment, because they are not given as reward but for testing. We, then, to whom eternal life is promised, ought always to possess and seek eternal goods, that is, faith, justice and love. For these goods have their adversaries; and though these gifts cannot be conferred by men, yet they are often taken away by depraved men. And so we ought to be careful and provident about the good of faith, and always armed with devotion of mind to guard it, and not quickly believe deceitful flatteries. For the enemy is wont to creep in under pretext of peace, that is, the heretic slips in under the name of Christian, who to deceive simple men carries Christ on his lips and bears the devil in his heart, and confesses him with the tongue but blasphemes him in the mind. From him, then, we must turn away altogether and not be joined with him in any fellowship. For how is one who is the Lord's enemy a friend of his servants? Nor should we wonder that heretics of this kind have begun to wander about in our region. For the wolf that lies in wait always follows the flock of sheep; the devil the deceiver always attacks the Christian assembly. And indeed this happens usefully, so that by more careful watchfulness neither does the sheep desert the flock nor the Christian abandon the Church. Hence the Apostle too says: "There must be heresies, so that those who are approved may be made manifest among you"; as if he said: there must be a fight for the Christian, so that the approved may have sure victory. Now, to set aside their blasphemies for the moment, let us go over what their rules of living are. Their leaders, whom they call presbyters, are said to have this instruction: if any lay person confesses a crime he has committed, he is not to say to him, 'Do penance, lament your deeds, weep for your sins,' but to say, 'For the crime give me so much, and you are forgiven.' A vain and foolish presbyter indeed, who thinks that when he receives the spoil Christ forgives the sin. Does he not know that the Saviour is accustomed to forgive sins and to seek for sin precious tears, not many coins? Hence he himself says: "Freely you have received, freely give." Indeed Peter, when he had sinned by denying the Lord three times, did not earn pardon by gifts but obtained it by tears. For the evangelist says of him: "He wept most bitterly." You see, I say, that with Christ the amount lies in tears, not in gifts. For as heavily as he wept for his fault, so quickly did he obtain pardon. The presbyter, then, receives gifts and by a kind of bargain promises forgiveness from the Saviour. A foolish agreement, by which he who has paid more to the priest is said to have sinned less against the Lord! With teachers of this kind the rich are always innocent and the poor always guilty. How can a poor man make satisfaction for his sin who has nothing to offer for it?

The other day we reproved clergy who engage in trade, and in a way we rebuked them with a just sentence; but if we consider rightly, our office is truly a business, and the function of the priestly ministry is a kind of function of spiritual commerce. For we spend earthly things so as to obtain heavenly ones; we pay out worldly money so as to acquire eternal riches; we feed others with our own hunger so that our food may not perish but grow. For what is the meaning of the refreshing of the poor through us, the clothing of the naked, the visiting of prisoners, except that the expense paid out on them is not spent but increased, and that a kind of trading of silver is preserved with a certain interest of gain? For a hungry poor man is a kind of treasury for a rich man. For he does not eat up the alms given to him, but guards it. Though the flesh be dissolved and the man reduced to dust, yet the holy work lives and remains in him, and he who is a useless worker for his own food will be for you a fit witness on the day of judgment; so that he will quickly be believed about your works, though he would not be believed about his own deeds. See, then, whether almsgiving is not a business. What you give to a friend perishes for you; only what you give to a beggar does not perish for you. For on the day of judgment the poor profit you; friends and children profit nothing. The former will plead your cause; the latter will not be able to defend even their own. For the office of Christianity is a kind of commerce, and the function of priests a precious business. For we have received the Lord's money, that is, the sayings of the Saviour, to be paid out to the peoples; of which sayings the Lord in the Gospel says to that close-fisted and unskilled trader of the priesthood: "Wicked servant, you ought to have given my money to the bankers' table, and coming I would have demanded it with interest." For he is rebuked because he kept back by silence the commandments of the Godhead entrusted to him, which he ought to have multiplied by preaching. He will be rebuked, I say, because he did not sow by paying out what he could reap by gathering in; as the Apostle says: "What a man sows, that he will also reap." For the Lord says: "Coming, I would have demanded it with interest." Understand, then, that there is business there where interest is demanded as if for the principal: but not that interest by which the minds of the avaricious are fed with a profitable return of money, in which the creditor is repaid the debt and yet the debt is not cancelled; but that interest is demanded where not an account of coins but a manner of life is reckoned, where the question is not the capital of a loan but inquiry is made into the capital of salvation. For we are debtors and are held bound to a debt, not by a written bond of letters but by a bond of sins. Hence the Apostle too says of the Lord: "Blotting out the bond that was against us," and so on. We are ordered, then, to pay the interest of this debt; for the Lord mentions this debtor in the Gospel, saying that he must be handed to the officer, sent to prison, and not released until he pays the last farthing. Of these sayings, then, we too, brothers, owe the interest; for since usura, 'interest', is named from utendo, 'using', we shall give an account of how we use these sayings. For not in vain does the Gospel preach, not for nothing does the Apostle cry out, not without cause do the priests speak: into whosever ears the holy voice comes, they will either be blessed for their devotion or guilty by its testimony.

The most glorious of the prophets, and also king of the Lord's people, blessed David, who by a general exhortation urges all men to run together to hear the teachings of a purer life, says: "Come, children, hear me; I will teach you the fear of the Lord." Truly a most skilled teacher, the venerable patriarch, who, in order to instil the fear of God into human minds by the precepts of prophetic authority, first offers the endearments of fatherly affection. For he calls the subjects of his rule children, so that he may recall them from sins not so much by the terror of royal power as, by the affection of one who loves, instil in the minds of all a ready will to live well. For often those whom the harshness of severer rebuke does not correct are amended by the fullness of a gentler word. "I will teach you," he says, "the fear of the Lord." The holy man teaches us a devout fear, so that we may put second the love of earthly judgment. He teaches the fear of the Lord, which is always salutary, because the fear of man often feeds offence against God. Let us now see what steps of divine fear the excellent teacher sets, what rule of his holier discipline he establishes. "Keep your tongue from evil, and let your lips not speak deceit." The perfect master of the devout life curbs before all things from fault the tongue, which from the beginning of the world sinned first in the serpent in God's paradise. For it was the ministry of an evil tongue that persuaded Adam, to the ruin of his race, to pluck the fruit of the forbidden tree. For envy would not have driven him into the eternal fall if Eve had been willing by more prudent counsel to restrain her tongue from evil. The evil tongue, then, is the devil's minister and the handmaid of all wickedness. The evil tongue, like a most sharp sword, wounds not only the body but the innocent soul. The evil and rash tongue strikes a brother's heart with insults and joins ruinous strife between hearts at peace with each other. The evil tongue puts on the image of truth and discolours truth with lies. The evil tongue, entrusted with friends' secrets, betrays them to hostile ears. The evil tongue strives to defile with hidden detraction those it fears to address in open speech. The tongue weaves snares for the simple by deceit, seeks the blood of good men, inflames the minds of the powerful and troubles the hearts of the humble; and as though it were not enough for it to confound human affairs, it strikes at heaven itself with blasphemies and most unworthy insults, as the prophetic word testifies of the impious, saying: "They have set their mouth against heaven, and their tongue has passed over the earth." And after all, most beloved, though for all these things sin has a remedy, through an evil and unrestrained tongue a sin is committed which is not forgiven a man even in this present world, as the Lord says: "But whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit, it will not be forgiven him either in this world or in the world to come." And what more, brothers? Whatever iniquity the devil entices into the human breast is accomplished with the evil tongue serving. But the Lord is called on for its destruction and judgment, as the prophet cries: "May the Lord scatter all deceitful lips and the boastful tongue." And elsewhere: "You will destroy those who speak lies." Because these evils must be guarded against and fled, blessed David warns each of us beforehand, saying: "Restrain your tongue from evil, and let your lips not speak deceit." And a little after he adds: "Seek peace, and pursue it." For when your tongue is amended and wiped clean of all the filth of evil speaking, you will both find and follow true and eternal peace, that is, Christ the Lord. Let no one deceive himself: unless one restrains his wandering and wanton tongue with the reins of the heart's discipline, he will be able to find neither the peace of men nor that of Christ. Therefore the venerable prophet, knowing on what slippery ground man's tongue is set, and how much danger to our soul and life the incontinence of the tongue can bring, prayed to his God, saying: "Set a guard, Lord, on my mouth"; and elsewhere: "Lord, you will open my lips, and my mouth will declare your praise." The most faithful man wishes his mouth to be guarded and his lips to be opened by the Lord, lest that master of lies and craftsman of all deceit, the devil, should ever insert into him the falsehoods of his impiety. Truly he will be able to restrain his tongue from all malice who desires both to speak and to be silent under God's governance. Therefore, brothers, seeing how severe a sentence awaits deceitful lips and how great a grace follows a simple tongue, let us too pray with the prophet to the Lord and almighty God that he may guard our mouth and himself always deign to open our lips to words that will please him.

Among the other means by which blessed David heals the infirmities of our souls, he teaches us, like a most skilled master, to keep a form of praying under a kind of rule of three, saying: "Teach me goodness and discipline and knowledge." Attend more carefully, then, brothers, to what virtues above all the prophet king prays to be given him. "Teach me," he says, "goodness and discipline and knowledge." He knows rightly how to live who knows rightly how to pray. For he did not ask for treasures of worldly riches, nor neighbouring kingdoms, nor longer times of living; but he asked to be taught goodness and discipline together. For goodness makes discipline lovable, and discipline makes goodness blameless. Nor, I think, is anyone unaware that goodness without discipline is the mother of faults, and discipline without goodness is a kind of sad bitterness of living. He also implores that knowledge be given him as well, so that he may know how to distinguish knowingly and wisely what are the limits of goodness and what measure discipline ought to have, lest perhaps goodness be stained unawares by the fault of too much leniency, or discipline, too hard, blush at its own severity. Do you wish, brother, to be good to one who sins? You do kindly indeed; but to be truly good, apply to him the rigour of discipline, so that your goodness may profit him for salvation; for if you do not frighten him with any censure of a restraining rebuke, this goodness of yours will be ruinous to him, because you let the sinner perish whom you could have saved by correction. Again, if with too great a rigour of discipline you offer no medicine of healing goodness, while the sinner flees your terror, you will not cure the sickness of the sinner. And what principle of living will there be, what justice, if either too slack a mildness provides connivance to the sinner, or immoderate severity does not call back the offender from his fall? But so that we may learn more fully and perfectly that the teaching of this goodness and discipline was present in our forefathers, let us go over at least a few of the many examples of the venerable Fathers. Most blessed Peter without doubt fulfilled the work of goodness and discipline, when both, like a truly good physician, he cured the sick brought to him, and, as founder of heavenly discipline, punished liars with just vengeance. That lame man, Aeneas, proved the grace of his goodness, who, lame from infancy, sitting and begging at the gate of the temple, received in the name of Jesus Christ, at the command of the healing apostle, the health he had long lacked. Ananias and Sapphira also proved the severity of his discipline, who, selling a field which no one compelled them to sell, while they lied to the apostle about the amount of the price, bought death for themselves by their falsehood. By this deed most glorious Peter taught that goodness and discipline were in him, since he both gives a remedy to the sick and takes fitting vengeance on liars. That he did this rightly and holily the assent of heavenly judgment shows. And who could doubt the perfection of his knowledge, who knew Christ the Lord to be the Son of the living God by the Father's revelation to him from heaven? And because goodness was not lacking to him for discipline and knowledge, the Lord entrusted his little sheep to him to be fed. Most glorious Paul held to goodness and discipline, who, as his writings testify, held out both the rod of correction and the spirit of gentleness; for which reason goodness made him lovable to all and discipline made him fearsome. For, to teach the churches the goodness and discipline of Christ in the very beginnings of the faith, he both ordered the sinner to be removed from the communion of the saints and the same man to be received back when he repented. And what shall we say of his knowledge, since all know that he learned in the heavens what he was to teach on earth, when he recalled that he had been taught such things as it was not lawful for him to speak to mortals? That witness of the Lord, John the Baptist, likewise had goodness and discipline, who with the affection of prophetic kindness washed with the baptism of repentance men who repented of their sins; and, as a truly unchangeable guardian of the commandments of the law, both accused King Herod about his unlawful wife and gave to all who ran to him the precepts of a purer life. And who can be ignorant of the fullness of his knowledge, who was the first to reveal to men that Christ had come from heaven for the salvation of men? You see, then, brothers, by what a short way of prayer and with what fewness of words the venerable prophet sought perfection of living. For in the briefest speech he enclosed whatever spiritual things the multitude of virtues holds. If, then, that foremost of the prophets prayed so earnestly to be taught these ways of a holier life by the Lord, what ought we to do? Rather, I say, we ought to pray, saying: "Teach us goodness and discipline and knowledge, Lord," so that in us goodness may conquer evil vices and the discipline of the will may chastise them. For if, knowing that the almighty Lord the Father and his Son are of one substance, you believe that the Holy Spirit also reigns in equal eternity, no vain persuasion of the pagans nor faithless impiety of the Arians will ever disturb you. If you fill your heart and mind with knowledge of the judgment to come, you will have discipline in your conduct; again, if you keep the measures and rules of that discipline, you will hold to fitting goodness in all things; because goodness is the tempering of discipline, and discipline the seasoning of goodness. Beware, then, brother, of wishing so to seem good that you cast away discipline, or of so pursuing discipline that you remove goodness. To these blessed David therefore prays that knowledge be joined, so that by the right judgment of our mind we may know how in us goodness should be stricter and discipline gentler.

Today's reading has shown that Christ in human acts performed divine mysteries and in visible things carried out invisible affairs. "He got into a boat," it says, "and crossed over, and came to his own city." Is not he the one who, putting the waves of the sea to flight, laid bare its depths, so that the people of Israel passed with dry foot between the astonished waves as through hollows of mountains? Is not this he who bowed down the sea's whirlpools under Peter's feet, so that the liquid road gave the solid service of a path to human steps? And why is it that he so refuses the service of the sea for himself as to cross a very small lake at a boatman's fare? "He got into a boat," it says, "and crossed over." And what wonder, brothers? Christ came to take on our infirmities and to confer his powers on us; to seek human things and to give divine; to receive insults and to return honours; to bear weariness and to bring back health; because a physician who does not bear infirmities does not know how to cure infirmities, and one who has not been sick with the sick cannot confer health on the sick. Christ, then, if he had remained in his powers, would have nothing in common with men; and unless he had fulfilled the order of the flesh, his taking of flesh would have been idle. He bore these necessities, then, so that he might be proved a true man by human necessities. "He got into a boat," it says: Christ got into the ship of his Church, always to calm the waves of the world, so that he may bring those who believe in him to the heavenly homeland by a tranquil voyage and make citizens of his city those whom he made sharers of his humanity. Christ, then, does not need the ship, but the ship needs Christ, because without heavenly steering the ship of the Church cannot reach the heavenly harbour across the sea of the world amid such great peril. This we have said, brothers, as far as concerns the spiritual understanding; but now let us follow the order of the history itself. "He got into a boat, and crossed over, and came to his own city." The Creator of things, the Lord of the world, after he had confined himself for our sake in our flesh, began to have a human homeland, he the parent of all parents, so that love might invite, charity draw, affection win, kindness persuade those whom his lordship had put to flight, fear had scattered, and the force of power had made exiles. "He came to his own city, and behold, they brought to him a paralytic lying on a bed; and Jesus, seeing their faith," it says, "said to the paralytic: Take heart, son, your sins are forgiven you." The paralytic hears of pardon and is silent and answers no thanks, because he was striving more for the cure of his body than of his soul; and he so wept for the temporal punishments of his paralysed body that he did not weep for the eternal punishments of the paralysis of his soul, judging the present life more pleasing to him than the future. Rightly Christ regards the faith of those who brought him and also the senselessness of the man lying there, so that by the support of another's faith the paralytic's soul was cured before his body. "Seeing their faith," it says. You perceive in this place, brothers, that God does not look for the wishes of the foolish, does not regard the faith of the ignorant, does not examine the foolish desires of the sick, but comes to aid at another's faith, which he conferred by grace alone, since he did not deny whatever is of the divine will. And indeed, brothers, when does a physician either seek or regard the wishes of the sick, since the sick man always desires and asks for contrary things? Hence it is that he now applies iron, now fire, now bitter draughts, and administers them to the unwilling, so that when well they may feel the cure which when ill they could not feel. And if a man disregards insults, scorns curses, and of his own accord gives life and health to those wounded by disease, how much more does Christ the physician, by divine goodness, draw to salvation, even unwilling and resisting, those wounded by the diseases of sins and labouring with the frenzy of crimes? O if we were willing, brothers, if we were willing to see through all the paralysis of our mind, we would see our soul lying destitute of virtues on the beds of vices; it would be clear to us how Christ daily regards our harmful wishes too, and drags and drives us, unwilling, to saving remedies. "Son," he says, "your sins are forgiven you." Saying this, he wished himself to be understood, he who was still hidden from human eyes by the man; for by mighty works and signs he was compared to the prophets, who through him had themselves done mighty works; but to give pardon for sins, because it is not in man's power and is the singular mark of the Godhead, impressed him on human hearts as God. The envy of the Pharisees proves this: for when he had said, "Your sins are forgiven you," the Pharisees answered: "This man blasphemes; for who can forgive sins but God alone?" Pharisee, who in knowing do not know, in confessing deny, in testifying attack: if he is God who forgives sins, why is Christ not God to you, who by the gift of his one act of forgiveness is proved to have taken away the sins of the whole world? "Behold," it says, "the Lamb of God, behold him who takes away the sins of the world." And so that you may grasp greater signs of his divinity, hear that he has penetrated the secret of your breast; see that he has reached the hiding places of your thoughts; understand that he lays bare the silent counsels of your heart. "And when Jesus saw their thoughts," it says, "he said: Why do you think evil in your hearts? For which is easier, to say, Your sins are forgiven you, or to say, Rise and walk? But so that you may know that the Son of Man has power to forgive sins, he said to the paralytic: Rise, take up your bed, and go into your house; and he rose and went away into his house." The searcher of souls forestalls the malicious counsels of minds and shows the power of his Godhead by the testimony of a deed, as he puts together the limbs of a disordered body, tightens the sinews, joins the bones, fills the flesh, strengthens the joints, and raises to running the steps already buried in a living corpse. "Take up your bed"; that is, carry what carried you, reverse all the roles, so that what is the evidence of infirmity may be the proof of health, so that the bed of your pain may be the sign of a complete cure, so that the greatness of the weight may assert the greatness of the strength recovered. "Go," he says, "into your house": lest, cured by Christian faith, you should linger any longer in the ways of Jewish unbelief.