Homilies of Maximus of Turin (Bruni's collection) 22.1–26.1

Recently, dearest brothers, we celebrated the sacrament of this same redemption of ours, in which God put on man with his weaknesses. Today we honor that in which he declared himself in man by mighty works: for on this day, whether because a star in the sky gave notice of his rising, or because at Cana of Galilee at a wedding feast he turned water into wine, or because in the waves of the Jordan he consecrated the waters by his baptism for the restoring of the human race, in any of these the mysteries and joys of our salvation are contained. For he was born of the Virgin for us, which the star showed. For us the washing of baptism has been granted, which he consecrated in the bed of the Jordan. He also showed beforehand by the miracle of his work that we are to be changed for the better, when he turned water into wine. So, brothers, let us celebrate Christ's baptism in keeping our purity, because this regeneration of Christ is the confirmation of our faith. He commended to us the baptism of his gift by the example of a second birth, and what he willed us to do he first did himself. We read that the Jews had various baptisms under the law, but none of them could provide a general remedy against the evil of transgression. And so, for the absolution of the whole world, they needed the water of regeneration to be sanctified from heaven. And because the human race throughout the whole world needed the sacrament of baptism, he gave a blessing to all waters when he went down into the bed of the Jordan with unique and singular love. Then the wave did not so much wash Christ the Lord as was washed. For you, then, Christ came by being born; for you he served by living; for you he fought by dying. Understand that he whom you see dead for you was baptized for you. He was wholly such even before baptism, and therefore his forerunner and baptizer addresses him thus when he came to him to be baptized: “Lord, I ought to be baptized by you, and do you come to me?” What could be clearer about the purity of Christ not yet baptized? What stronger? “I ought to be baptized by you”: that is, you who are the fountain of innocence, who, needing nothing, know how to give and do not know how to receive. “I ought,” he says, “to be baptized by you,” because you show with you and possess in yourself the gifts of purity and the sacraments of baptism; and what I shall give by grace through your bestowing, you hold by nature. At his touch the limbs are dipped and the streams are enriched. The happy wave marvels that its Lord is going down into it, conceiving in one moment eternal remedies and bringing forth God by the new fruitfulness of regeneration, giving back what it had received and receiving what it did not have. Amid all this it would be a wonder that the Lord submitted himself to the blessing of a servant, had he not submitted himself to the cross and to death. And he taught beforehand by the worth of his own price that man is precious to him, so that from this too we may understand how grave our God reckons the case of human crimes, for which he sent to earth not an angel, not an archangel, but God. And the Magi themselves, who came by the sign of the star to the venerable cradle of the heavenly child, what else did they express in those gifts but our faith? In that three gifts are offered, the Trinity is understood; in that there are three of them and each offers one, unity in the Trinity is declared. By the gold the King is shown; in the frankincense God is recognized; by the myrrh, which is fit for embalming bodies, the burial of the man who was to be crucified is proclaimed. Accordingly, dearest ones, let us too imitate the person of the Magi by spiritual services; let us seek Christ until we are found worthy to find him. Let the light of faith lead us like the star of heaven. Let it show him to us no longer wailing in a manger but ruling in the highest citadel of heaven; to be worshipped not in his mother's lap but on the Father's throne; no longer to be judged in his humility but coming in majesty to judgment. So, as by a perfect confession of the three gifts, let one Godhead be believed by us, distinct without confusion or separation, Father and Son and Holy Spirit. [The edition notes: a great deal is missing, for a leaf is lost. Maximus continues:]

So the worship of God is to be ordered in the hearts of the faithful in such a way that neither separation is admitted in the unity nor mixture in the Trinity. [Here it ends.]

On this celebration, beloved, as we are taught by the account of the fathers' tradition, we are to rejoice with a manifold festival. For they say that today Christ our Lord was worshipped by the nations under the leading of a star, or that, invited to a wedding, he turned water into wine, or that, receiving baptism from John, he consecrated the streams of the Jordan and at the same time purified his Baptist. Which of these was done on this day above all, he who did it knows; but we ought to believe without doubting that whatever it is, it was done for us. For in that the Chaldeans, stirred by the rays of a brighter star, worshipped him, the hope of worshipping the true God was given to the nations. In that waters were changed into wine in a new order, the sacrament of a new cup was foretasted for us. And in that the Lamb of God was baptized, the saving gift of regenerating baptism was dedicated for us. So, brothers, in honor of our Saviour, whose birth we recently kept with due exultation, we must also celebrate with all devotion this birthday of his mighty works. And how rightly these three mysteries are proclaimed to us as done on one day, we who confess the secret of the ineffable Trinity under the one name of God! By these miracles, then, Christ the Lord, our Redeemer, willed to reveal himself to the eyes of mortals, so that his invisible divinity, which lay hidden in the man, should not lie hidden in his work; so that, while the tempter did not detect the Word of the almighty Father in the flesh, all everywhere who believed the Word and the flesh in the Son of God might be saved. The devil saw an infant wrapped in cloths, but did not know that he was the one who, removing the darkness at the beginning, clothed the world with light. He saw him sucking a mortal mother's breasts, but did not know that he was the one who made the hungry Hebrew people grow fat on angels' bread as on heavenly milk. He saw a little one resting in a narrow cradle, but could not see that he was the one whom the world does not contain. How the enemy wavered, then, distracted by uncertainties and stupefied at this humility of Christ, when he saw the newborn infant honored with royal gifts as the king of a new empire by the Chaldeans, the chief ministers of his own tyranny! Or how could he not be stupefied when, disturbed, he saw a child whom he did not know worshipped by his own Magi? With what sickness was he tormented when he both looked down on his cradle on earth and marveled at his star in heaven? But the only-begotten of the Most High entered the world so humbly as to give undoubted signs of his divinity: he was born of a woman, but born of a virgin; he lay in a manger, but shone in a star; so that both an earthly mother and a heavenly sign might show him to be man and God. With what rays, with how much light do we believe that star of the Lord then shone among the ancient stars? How far it surpassed them in splendor, which so far went before them in its office, and which, like an eye of the whole world, renewed the old face of a darkened world! See, brothers, one star drew the Chaldeans to seek the King of kings; but not even the pillar of fire could once turn the Jewish people to obedience to their God. Nor let this great unbelief of the Jews disturb anyone, that neither the gleam of a new star nor a virgin giving birth compelled them to accept faith in Christ, who did not believe their God even then, when, with God himself accompanying them through the parched deserts, heaven fed them and the rock gave them drink. But now let us come to that chief miracle of Christ, by which, as proof of his deity, he turned water into wine. The Lord, then, as we read, being invited, went to the wedding; but that the son of a virgin should deign to do this is for our instruction, so that, taught by this example, we may not deny that he is the author of lawful marriage. So the Son of God goes to the wedding, so that the marriages he had established long ago by his power he might then sanctify by the blessing of his presence. He goes to a wedding of the old institution, to make for himself a new bride of perpetual virginity from the converted way of life of the nations. He goes to a wedding, he whom no wedding produced. He goes to a wedding, certainly not to enjoy the feasting, but to become known more wonderfully. He goes to a wedding, not to take cups but to give them; for when the wedding party had run out of wine, most blessed Mary said to him: “They have no wine.” And Jesus answered her as if indignant: “What have I to do with you, woman?” Who would doubt that these are the words of one indignant? But this was, I think, because his mother so rashly prompted him about the lack of fleshly drink, when he had come to offer to the nations of the whole world the new cup of eternal salvation. For when he says, “My hour has not yet come,” he was promising that most glorious hour of his passion, or that wine of our redemption which would profit the life of all. For what Mary asked for was of temporal grace; what Christ was preparing was of everlasting joy. Yet the most kind Lord was not unwilling to provide small things while great things were coming; so the venerable Mary, truly as the mother of the Lord, foreknowing in the spirit what was to come and foreseeing the Lord's will, carefully admonished the servants, saying: “Whatever he tells you, do it.” For the holy mother knew that that rebuke of the Lord, her son, held out not the offense of one who was angry but carried a mystery of compassion. Then the Lord, relieving the shame of his rebuked mother and now opening his majesty, said to the waiting servants: “Fill the jars with water.” Without delay the obedient servant gave his service; and behold, suddenly those waters began wonderfully to take on strength, draw color, give off fragrance, acquire taste, and change their whole nature at once. This change of the waters from their own into another creature testified to the power of the Creator who was present. For no one could turn waters to other uses but he who made them from nothing. So the servant was astonished and amazed, he who had put in water and drew out wine, and rejoiced greatly that he had carried on his shoulders the streams through which God's glory was revealed. For no one said anything at the time; nothing was added to the jars but water; no art was hired; and so great a miracle, amid the awed silence of those standing round, was accomplished by the will alone of the silent Lord. Nor should we doubt, dearest ones, that he turned the waters into wine who from the beginning thickened them into snow, hardened them into ice, turned them into blood for the Egyptians, and commanded them to flow from a dry rock for the thirsting Hebrews, nourishing a countless multitude of peoples with the dripping of a new spring in place of a mother's breasts. What would you be astonished at first, what marvel at: wine from water, or water from rock? But let no unbelief disturb you, whoever hesitates among these things, for it is not doubtful that the elements of creatures hang on the nod of the Creator. Or why should we not believe that by the Lord's power wine could be made from water, when for us, by God's working, water rises into wine from the lap of the earth, nourished by the rains, through the ministry of the vines? “This,” it says, “Jesus did as the beginning of signs in Cana of Galilee, and manifested his glory, and his disciples believed in him.” The disciples believed, surely, not what they saw being done, but what fleshly sight cannot see. They believed not that Christ Jesus was the son of a virgin, which was known, but that he was the only-begotten of the Most High, which was proved by his work. So let us too, brothers, believe with our whole heart that he whom we confess as son of man is the Son of God. Let us believe that he is both a sharer of our nature and coequal with the Father's substance, since he attended the wedding as man and changed water into wine as God; so that by the merit of this faith our Lord may graciously deign to give us also to drink that sober wine of his grace.

Your holiness remembers, brothers, our earlier sermon, in which we described how the blessed apostles, at the sight of one miracle, that is, water turned into wine by the Saviour, at once believed in him. For so the evangelist says of the Lord: “And he manifested his glory, and his disciples believed in him.” This deed was written not only to show the glory of the faith of those in whose time it was done, but also for us, who by the same example of devotion are provoked to the glory of believing. For what Christ worked he worked not only for those he then had present, but also for us who were to follow afterward, so that, though our forebears went before us in time, they should not go before us in the glory of the signs. For the same power that was displayed in wonders to those present to the events has been kept for us in the treasury of the letters, so that the page might give us what the event gave them; indeed, whatever is set before us is done in us; whatever is commended to us, so that by the mirror of the Scriptures the power of the Lord which they saw with fleshly eyes we might see with spiritual light. “And they believed in him, and he manifested his glory to his disciples.” How well the devotion of the servants follows the power of the Lord, and what the master teaches by works the disciples write down in their hearts! See, the power of the worker is manifested to them, and the manifest faith of the believers is proclaimed. The apostles' faith is plainly to be proclaimed, which, at the sight of one sign, believed in the Saviour's omnipotence. While the apostles marvel at water turned into wine, they themselves likewise were turned from all the dregs of sins, and, made like the miracle, were carried over from the cheap superstition of the Gentiles to the precious devotion of believers; and as water turned into wine is seasoned with taste, redness, and color, so what was insipid in them received the taste of knowledge, what was pale took on the color of grace, and what was cold grew warm with the fire of immortality. The apostles' faith, then, is to be magnified, which was described in the Gospel's words so that it might be both their praise and our example. But what is worse, their praise endures and the examples do not move us. For the later we are in time, the lower we are in merit. They believed the Lord at once at the sight of one sign; we, having received so many wonders of his benefits, still doubt. We doubt, I say, because we love present things while we do not believe future ones; we love riches in the world while we hesitate to receive them from Christ. We are carried away immoderately by anger while we do not fear the judgment of retribution. But he who knows that it is written, “With the judgment you judge, you will be judged,” is without doubt gentle, moderate, and mild, and compels more by kindness than by severity; a friend of indulgence, familiar with pardon, so that, as he often grants it, he may always receive it from the Lord. For it belongs to a wise ruler so to conduct earthly offices as to acquire the honor of heavenly dignity. And though weakness of body sometimes blunts the vigor of our speaking, yet we are made stronger by the zeal of your devotion. For the more eagerly you listen, the more gladly we preach, and strength for speaking is added to us when you lend your hearing to understand. Who would not try to sow the seed of the heavenly word where the fruitful earth of a pure heart receives it? Who, I say, would not wish to place the Saviour's word where worldly care does not choke it but the strength of spiritual disciplines nourishes it? So, brothers, since at holy Epiphany we exulted seeing the Saviour's miracles, we ought to do what the disciples of that time did then. As for my saying that we have now seen what was done long ago, we plainly see it, and see it daily. For such are Christ's miracles that they do not pass away into nothing but grow strong by grace; they are not buried in oblivion but renewed by mighty works. For with the power of God nothing is abolished, nothing past, but by his greatness all things are present to him; all time is today to him. Hence the holy prophet says: “A thousand years in your eyes are like one day.” If all the time of the world is one day to the Lord, then on the same day on which the Saviour worked wonders for the fathers he worked them for us too. We too, then, like our forebears, have seen the Lord's wonders, and have received them with the same amazement as they. We too, like them, have tasted from those very jars; for they drank a cup of wine from them, and we have taken the cup of salvation. So, having seen the Lord's sign, we ought to do what our forebears did. For if the same grace of the Godhead has shone in us, the same devotion of faith ought to be in us. For the evangelist says of the Lord, when this miracle was done: “And he manifested his glory, and the disciples believed in him.” We ought, then, to believe as the apostles then believed. But someone else says: “We too are Christians, and we believe in God the Saviour.” But one must believe by deed, not word; not with the tongue but with the heart; lest it be said to us too: “This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me.”

You have heard, brothers, the reading of the Gospel reciting the saving sacraments of the present day. You have heard how Christ the Lord, who came into this world secretly, deigned little by little to open his majesty to mortals; though, dearest ones, the heavenly light could not lie hidden among the shadows of the world. Indeed, while the earth did not yet recognize his visitation, heaven spoke its joys and the gladness of the whole world in a silent star, to the astonishment of the Chaldeans. And while unbelieving Judea could not yet see who and how great he was, the Gentile world, roused by heavenly signs, already perceived his glory. For a new star revealed that a new man had come, and truly new: for, being the Son of God, he put on flesh without carnal generation, and as man had a time of birth, he who as God had no beginning of birth. It was new indeed that a tiny manger in a very small hut should suffice for the only-begotten of the Most High, whom heaven does not contain. It was new that he who reigned in heaven with God the Father, content with an earthly mother, should utter the wails of infancy in swaddling cloths. Let us rejoice, then, brothers, and exult with all joy, because Christ was born of a woman for us, for us he lay in a manger, for us he wailed in the cradle, for us he smiled in the star. For whatever the Saviour did among men as a man was all to our profit. So the Gospel's word says: “Behold, Magi came from the East to Jerusalem, saying: Where is he who has been born King of the Jews? We have seen his star in the East and have come to worship him.” How long, most hard Jew, will you persist with dull ear, shut eyes, and unbelieving heart? See, after those proclamations of the patriarchs, after the prophecies of the prophets, Christ is proclaimed even by the nations. If you refuse to believe your fathers, who from the beginning of the world sang the coming of the eternal King with countless sacred voices, believe at least these at last, who testify that he is not still to be born after some time, but is already born among you and for you. What is this great aversion of deadly obstinacy in your breast, that you alone do not hear what all are saying, you alone shun what the whole world believes, you alone scorn to see what shines from heaven? Among you a virgin conceived, and a foreigner recognizes your virgin's childbirth; angelic voices cannot persuade you of your salvation, and one star led the Chaldeans to your Christ. “Where is he,” say the Magi, “who has been born King of the Jews? We have seen his star in the East and have come to worship him.” In them was fulfilled what was foretold in the prophetic word; for see, the Chaldean, to whom nothing had been announced about Christ and who had heard nothing, both saw Christ's star and understood in the star that he was present. So the Magi worship the Lord and offer gifts, that what David, that chief of the prophets, said might be fulfilled: “Bring to the Lord, families of the nations, bring to the Lord glory and honor.” By saying “to the Lord” and “to the Lord” he declares in mystical speech that he is Lord as God and Lord also as man; for as God he is the Creator of the world, as man he is the Redeemer of the world. How, then, is Christ not Lord of all by the privilege of both substances, who has subjected all things to himself by either creation or redemption? “Bring,” he says, “to the Lord glory and honor.” It belongs to honor, then, dearest ones, that the Gentiles offer gifts; to glory, that they worship. The Chaldeans offer gifts and worship: the one is presented as to a king, the other shown as to God. And these, having worshipped Christ and offered their gifts, returned, as we have read, to their own country by another way. Most rightly they return by another way, lest bloody Herod, who was preparing death for the infant, should reach Christ by the Magi's route; for those who had come to worship the Lord could not be the Lord's betrayers. How well, brothers, they are said to have returned by another way! For those who had come into Judea under the leading of a star return to their homeland enlightened by the rays of the eternal Sun. And so let us celebrate this day with all reverence, surpassing the Magi's service by our devotion: for if they found Christ lying in a cradle, we have him reigning in heaven.

Although, dearest brothers, Christ, the Lord of our salvation, the coeternal Son of the almighty Father, covered with the veil of flesh, deigned to visit mortals as a lowly one, yet he gave so many and such great signs of his majesty that the human mind could perceive both that a new man was born and that God had come from heaven. For while our Lord himself, by the law of human birth a little one and an infant in Judea, wailed in the cradle and lay hidden in swaddling cloths, yet a wonderful star from on high made his magnificence known to the whole world. Who would doubt that that star flashed with gladder light and more brilliant rays, which brought before human eyes the light of heaven and earth? And it was necessary that this star should differ from the other stars by a brighter orb, since it announced Christ, whose birth differed from that of all mortals; and the sky then glittered with a new star, but the world shone yet more with a new light. Who could search out the glory of these miracles: that for the remedy of our salvation, at one and the same moment, the creature shone in heaven and the Creator gleamed on earth? Nor is it any wonder, dearest ones, that heavenly testimony attends the Lord of the heavens; or why should it seem incredible to us if an obedient work bears witness to its Maker? The earth marveled to see a new star in heaven; but heaven marveled to see a new Sun on earth. How deep are the thoughts of the Lord, and how unsearchable his ways! Lest the unbelief of men should attack the Virgin's childbirth, he gave from on high a most brilliant sign, which neither the Gentile world could refute nor Judea conceal. So, as we have read, the Chaldeans come from the East; they follow the star going before them, not recognized by magic art but wonderful in its newness. The Magi seek the newborn King chiefly among Israel because Balaam, that soothsayer and once a priest of the Gentiles, whose ass is said to have spoken, had prophesied that a star would rise from Jacob and a man come from Israel; for among other things he says, as we read: “A star will rise from Jacob, and a man will spring up from Israel.” Let no one marvel now that the Chaldeans recognized the Lord's birth; for if a Gentile could foretell it by God's revelation, a Gentile could recognize it. For this was, as far as one may judge, the decision of the heavenly dispensation: that among the most sacred voices of the prophets the coming of him who was to come for the redemption of believers and unbelievers alike should be foretold even by an unbelieving man. And for this reason the priest of idols prophesies, so that, if perhaps the Gentile world refused to believe the Jews preaching the coming of Christ, it might at least follow the testimony of its own authorities. Nor let us doubt that the almighty and most kind God could give that foreigner Balaam words of foreknowledge, who could loosen the tongue of his ass into human words. So the soothsayer's ass, his mount, spoke, an animal bent down and by nature looking at the ground, to signify by a plain sign that the whole Gentile world, devoted to altars and always pressed to the earth by the weight of its unbelief, despising the worship of almighty God, was silent and dumb; but when the star from Jacob and the man from Israel came, lifting its eyes to heaven, it would speak the glory of the eternal God in daily confessions. So, brothers, the enlightened Gentile world comes from the East, but Judea, blinded by the unbelief of its most hard heart, remains in the setting of the sun. How does the whole obstinacy of the Jews not truly waste away in the setting and in darkness, who, rejecting the presence of the unwearied Sun, have lost the perpetual day? And well, dearest ones, did the three Magi come together by one road to worship; for in the one Christ Jesus, who is the way of all believers, the Trinity was to be worshipped by them undivided. They also bring gifts, which were proved to be not so much gifts as mysteries. They offer him gold, frankincense, and myrrh. In the gold, brothers, is shown the precious redemption of our captivity; in the frankincense is revealed both that the superstition of demons will cease and that the worship of the true religion will come; in the myrrh, by which lifeless bodies are usually preserved, the restoration of our flesh and the resurrection of the dead are prefigured. That such sacred offerings should be brought to Christ was chosen not by the Magi's own judgment but by the inspiration of the Almighty. For as far as the glory of Christ is concerned, these gifts, looked at carnally, seem in every way unworthy of his majesty. For what use is gold to the immortal Lord, gold which is a use and a love only to mortals? What use is frankincense to almighty God, by whose fragrance even images are honored by the pagans? Or what use to him is myrrh, the embalming of rotting bodies, whose flesh no corruption of death was to master? All these things, beloved, would seem superfluous and empty with the Son of God, unless the sacraments of our life are believed to be foreshadowed in them. Therefore, brothers, let us hope in the Lord, and let our heart be strengthened, so that the star of faith may shine in us too and lead us by a straight way without error to Christ; and let us also offer the small gifts of our actions and devotion, which Christ may receive, no longer lying on earth in a cradle, but seated at the Father's right hand, may embrace in heaven.