Homilies of Maximus of Turin (Bruni's collection) 54.1–59.1

We said last Sunday that holy Peter profited by his errors in the Saviour's passion, and that after he denied the Lord God he became better. For he became more faithful after he wept for having lost his faith; and so he found greater grace than he lost; for as a good shepherd he received the flock to guard, so that he who had before been weak for himself might become a support for all, and he who had wavered under the temptation of questioning might ground the others in the stability of faith. Indeed, for the solidity of his devotion he is called the rock of the churches, as the Lord says: “You are Peter, and on this rock I will build my Church.” He is called a rock because he was the first to lay the foundations of faith among the nations, and, like an immovable stone, holds together the framework and mass of the whole Christian work. Peter is called a rock for his devotion, and the Lord is named rock for his power, as the Apostle says: “For they drank from the spiritual rock that followed them; and the rock was Christ.” Rightly does he earn a share in the name who earns a share in the work; for in the same house Peter lays the foundation, Peter plants; the Lord gives the increase, the Lord supplies the watering. For Peter profits by his temptations, rejoices in his weeping, grows by his dangers. So on the sea, while the rash traveler steps out on the waves, he wavers in his step but grows strong in his affection; he is in danger in his body but does not slip in devotion; he sinks with his feet but is upheld by Christ's right hand; faith upholds him whom the wave was sinking; and him whom the storm of the waves disturbed, love for the Saviour made firm. For Peter walked on the sea more by love than by his feet; for he did not see where to set the footprint of his feet, but he saw where to fix the footprint of his love. Placed on the sea, he looks to the Lord, and led by love for him goes down into the sea; he does not think of the slipping waters or the running streams; and while he looks at Christ he does not look at the element. He believes by faith that he will find a solid footing even amid the waves: though the sea is tossed by the waves and the deep by the winds, Peter's path, which leads to the Lord, is not disturbed. So Peter walks on the waters, and the soft wave does not give way under his feet. We read in the Old Testament that the sons of Israel walked through the Red Sea on dry roads, and that, for the safety of those walking, so that the wave should not slip away, it was changed into a kind of solidity. How much better this is, where, as Peter walks, the wave is neither changed nor slips away, the water neither solidifies nor flees! Better, I say, where the same wave both tosses and upholds, where the same flood both sinks and serves. There, so that the people of Israel might be carried through the sea, nature had lost its course; here Peter is carried on the waters, and the streams do not lose their course. So the apostle, a rash traveler, takes the road of a new journey: now he climbs the mass of a curved flood, now he goes down the wave of a sinking hollow; and amid the sea's waves he lacks neither the ascent nor the descent of the road. But when, disturbed by the winds and driven by the storms, he begins to fear what he had believed, at once the flood is drawn from under him and the wave withdrawn; soon, as faith grows faint, the path gives way; then crying out, he begs the Lord Jesus to save him; and the Saviour, taking him by the hand, frees him and rebukes him, saying: “O you of little faith, why did you doubt?” That is: why are you of such little faith that, having begun to walk on the sea by believing, you did not cross it by persevering? For it is written: “He who perseveres to the end will be saved.” But while you hesitate and doubt, you have lost the road on which you had set out. Why, I say, are you of such little faith that you did not arrive by the same faith by which you had begun to come? Understand, then, that on the sea faith carried you, unbelief sank you. So, brothers, holy Peter, while he is tossed, while he sinks, while he is in danger, so comes to the Lord; he shows us that one hastens to Christ only through dangers; for there are many devilish waves in this world, many shipwrecks of temptations, from which we can be freed only if the Saviour stretches out his hand to those who cry out. Let us, then, not cease to cry to the Lord; he will not deny his accustomed help.

Though the benefits of our God are great and wonderful, they are proved to be neither new nor sudden, but from the beginning of the world were both foretold by oracles and prefigured by mysteries. For the answers of the Old Testament sang of the Lord's sacred passion from the very beginnings of the world as it took shape; and so we assert that Christ the Lord was proclaimed and announced to his own plainly from their own books and volumes. He relies without doubt on strong privileges who maintains his case from his adversaries' documents; it is a splendid victory to entangle the opposing party in its own papers as in its own snares, to refute it by the voices of its own witnesses, and to defeat the rival with his own weapons, so that your opponent's arguments are proved to fight for your advantage. So in the person of our Lord: when Eve, the mother of all the living, is produced from the rib of Adam, the first man, the Church, to be restored as the parent of all the faithful, is shown to come from his sacred side and saving wound. In his type the just Abel is killed, and the innocent one is slaughtered by a brother's impiety, as by the impiety of the Jews. The same Lord, in the last age of the aging world, is offered in the figure of blessed Abraham, the long-lived father; at that time, when the devoted father rose to a new sacrifice against the throat of his only son, a ram suddenly appeared to his eyes, as the divine word says: “And Abraham saw a ram caught by its horns among the briars.” “Among the briars,” it says. Let us ask what this novelty is. Among the briars: that is, amid the multitude of sinners standing round; caught by its horns: that is, hanging on the horns of the cross, fixed with nails; as we read in another place: “Horns are in his hands.” This is because the arms of the gibbet received his venerable hands. And he was set among thorns when the author of innocence and righteousness was mocked with a crown of thorns. But we must look more deeply at what it means that Isaac is brought by his father to the altar and suddenly a ram is put in his place, the offering not changed but doubled. Here the twofold substance of the Redeemer, to be adored, is shown. For the Son of God is offered, and the firstborn of the virgin is sacrificed. The marks of the Lord's passion were also prefigured in what we read: that blessed Elisha, laid in his tomb, when a corpse was thrown in by brigands, raised the dead man's body inside his tomb by the touch of his sacred body. Who is prefigured here but our Jesus Christ, who gives resurrection from death and, buried, works life? In the robber recognize the guilty world; in the prophet's powers recognize Christ the Lord. Further, the passion and resurrection of Christ are most famously foreshown through the holy Scriptures in the labors and hardships of the prophet Jonah. This Jonah, as we think is not unknown to your faith, is written to have borne the type of the Lord; for the Lord himself says: “For as Jonah was in the belly of the whale three days and three nights, so will the Son of Man be in the heart of the earth three days and three nights.” This Jonah, I say, is sent at the Lord's command to preach to the Ninevites the offense of heaven; but, foreknowing that the sad prophecy would be made void by the people's conversion, he boards as a fugitive a ship that was making for Tarshish; but when a storm arose and the sailors were troubled, he was given to the waves by lot and received, plunged down, into the jaws of a sea monster; but on the third day the fish belched him out unharmed and poured him back onto the land. See the Lord, even in the Old Testament, wonderfully appearing in the form of a servant. See how in past ages he showed that he would come in the humility of a servant's form. Jonah is sent to the great city of the Ninevites to preach the Lord's wrath, to say: “Forty days, and Nineveh will be overthrown”; and Christ is sent to the city of the world to announce the day of salvation and the appointed time of judgment. Jonah seeks a ship, Christ the Church. Jonah is tossed by the waves, Christ is tried by the whirlwinds of the world. Unless Jonah is sunk, the ship's danger is not calmed; so too the Church is not freed unless it is saved by Christ's death. The sailors, about to cast Jonah out, yet fear and say: “Lord, do not lay innocent blood upon us.” Does not the sailors' protest seem to you the confession of Pilate, who hands Christ over yet washes his hands and says: “I am clean of the blood of this just man”? How fittingly the faith of the Gentiles proclaims a Gentile character! Jonah says in his prayer: “Take, then, Lord, my life, for death is better for me than life.” Let our Lord Jesus Christ say this more truly: death is better for me than life; that is, living I could not save one nation of the Jews; let me die, and the whole world will be saved by one death. The sea monster received Jonah plunged into the sea, but did not happen to devour him; and him whom the malice of men destroyed, a hungry beast guarded; with full bowels it suffers hunger, and marvels that it is allowed nothing against the prey it has swallowed. Who is this who can be taken within greedy jaws and cannot be consumed? He is food, and there is no corruption; he is handed to the depth of destruction, and is preserved by the very service of death. Who is this who enters vast hollows of dangers safely; and, shut in under immense depth, deadly as it is, is fed by life-giving air; and, sent down into a nature foreign to him, into the exile of life, journeys with life; and, outliving death, announces the coming salvation of the world? Who but our Lord Jesus Christ, whom cruel death, the inexplicable beast, snatched as its food, and, captive, trembled at its prey. It trembled, I say; for though it knew him crucified, yet it could not hold as condemned one whom it did not remember as guilty; for punishment does not make guilt, the cause does. It devoured man, as its accustomed food, lost at the beginning of the world; but, choking, it recognized the great dignity of this food; and so the divine word records: “And the Lord commanded the fish, and it vomited Jonah onto the dry land.” He commanded the beast, then; he commanded death, always hungry; he commanded the abysses and the underworld to restore the Saviour to the world. “It vomited” we should take to mean that life, victorious over death, came back from death's inmost bowels, and that the destruction of the underworld, ulcerated, gave it back from its inmost parts. So we see in the prophet's afflictions both death and resurrection most plainly prefigured. Therefore what you see fulfilled in the servant, do not hesitate to believe in the Lord. Since this is so, consider, O man, how much you are worth, and weigh how much you owe: consider how much you are worth, so that at last you cease to be cheap to yourself, so that for this reason at least you may scorn to lie under shameful vices, measuring your nobility by the dignity of your Creator and Restorer. The soul has reasons to be ashamed of itself, why, with conquered heart, it is subjected to unworthy masters, it to which eternal glory is promised; since by a twofold privilege, you who were long honored by sharing the divine image are made precious also by the nobility of the exchange. That you may be strong against your enemy, ask your state: that the Lord has given you free power to defeat the prince of the world in your members and to overcome the spiritual forces of wickedness; and so do not think it impossible to obtain to be carried over into angelic blessedness, when in this world you have conquered angelic powers. Let not life make you degenerate and despised, whom either creation is proved to have brought forth illustrious, or grace; but let the faithful confidently lift up the course of Christ to the heights; for those who see themselves redeemed at a heavenly price should not doubt that they are prepared for heavenly things.

It still clings to our minds, brothers, that a very few days ago we preached that Mary Magdalene was rebuked not lightly for seeking the Lord in the tomb after his resurrection and, not remembering his words in which he had said he would rise from the underworld on the third day, supposing that he was held by the laws of the underworld. She is reproved, not lightly, for not remembering the promise of the resurrection and for searching for a sign of death. For a humble and ignorant faith seeks what it does not know and forgets what it is taught; it is quick to service but not perfect in believing; anxious about the injury to the Lord's flesh, but uncertain of the glory of the resurrection; it weeps indeed out of love for Christ, but grieves in despair at not finding the body; it thinks him perished whom it was already established was reigning; it searches for him in the tomb whom it ought rather to call on from heaven. So holy Mary is rebuked as too slow to believe, and when, though late, she had recognized the Lord, the Saviour said to her: “Do not touch me, for I have not yet ascended to the Father.” “Do not touch me” is a word of rebuke; that is: do not touch me with your hands, since you do not retain my resurrection in your mind but forget it. *That is: do not touch me with your hands, since you do not touch me with perfect faith. You cannot hold me with bodily embraces*; since she who lost the hearing is forbidden the touch. “Do not touch me,” he says, “for I have not yet ascended to the Father.” Let us see how Christ had not yet ascended to the Father, when he himself says: “For the Father is in me, and I in the Father”: from whom by the undivided substance of the Godhead he was never separated; for while one abides in one, he signifies that the Father and the Son are always together. Or does the Son say that he ascends where he dwells before he ascends? For the same Lord said: “No one has ascended into heaven but he who descended from heaven, the Son of Man, who is in heaven.” If, then, when he descended the Saviour is in heaven, much more is he in heaven before he ascends. But see whether this saying does not perhaps belong to the rebuke of Mary, to whom, a little before, as she sought the Lord among the tombs, it was said: “Why do you seek the living among the dead?” Now is added: “Do not touch me, for I have not yet ascended to the Father”; that is: why do you wish to touch me, you who, while you seek me among the tombs, do not yet believe that I have ascended to the Father; who, searching for me in the underworld, do not trust that I have returned to heaven; who, seeking me among the dead, do not hope that I live with God my Father? “I have not yet ascended,” he says, “to the Father”: that is, for you I have not yet ascended to the Father, since in your faith I am still held in the tomb. As far as you are concerned, I still linger among low things, still cling to earthly things, because your faith has not yet lifted me up to heaven. Why, then, do you hurry to touch me as the Son of God, when you do not follow me returning to the Father with the devotion of your mind? Whoever, then, wishes to touch the Lord the Saviour must first place him by his faith at the right hand of the Godhead and set him by the belief of his heart in the heavenly places, rather than seek him among the dead. And the Lord has ascended to the Father for him who believes that he is always in the Father. He ascended to the Father for the blessed apostles, to whom he said: “He who sees me sees the Father also.” He ascended for John the evangelist, who sought him with the Father and found him; and so he says: “And the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” He ascended also for blessed Paul, who, not content to know what he knew, taught us too how we should seek the Saviour in the heavenly places: “Seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God.” And to remove us entirely from this low and earthly searching of Mary, he adds, saying: “Set your mind on things that are above, not on things that are on the earth.” So we must no longer seek the Saviour on the earth, nor in the earth, nor according to the flesh, if we wish to find and touch him, but according to the glory of the divine majesty; so that we may say with the apostle Paul: “But now we do not know Christ according to the flesh.” So blessed Stephen too did not seek Christ on the earth by his faith, but recognized him standing at the right hand of God: he found him where he sought him with the devotion of his mind. And Stephen not only sees Christ in heaven but also touches him by his martyrdom; for he touches the Lord when, praying for his enemies, or holding him by his faith, he says: “Lord, do not hold this sin against them.” Understand, then, how great is the glory of devotion. Mary, placed beside the Lord, does not deserve to touch him; Stephen, placed on earth, touches Christ in heaven; she, among angels, does not see the Saviour present; Stephen sees the Lord, though absent, within the heavens.

Not without reason, brothers, is this psalm read today, in which the prophet commands us to exult and rejoice; for holy David invites all creatures to the festival of this day; for on this day, through the resurrection of Christ, the underworld is opened; through the Church's neophytes the earth is renewed; through the Holy Spirit heaven is unlocked; for the opened underworld gives back the dead, the renewed earth sprouts those who rise, and heaven, unlocked, receives those who ascend. Indeed, the thief ascends into paradise; the bodies of the saints enter the holy city; the dead return to the living; and by a kind of advance in Christ's resurrection all the elements raise themselves to higher things. The underworld gives back to those above those it holds; the earth sends to heaven those it buried; heaven presents to the Lord those it receives; and by one and the same working the Saviour's passion lifts up from the depths, raises from earthly things, and places on high. For the resurrection of Christ is life to the dead, pardon to sinners, glory to the saints. Holy David, then, invites all creation to the festival of Christ's resurrection; for he says we must exult and rejoice on this day which the Lord has made. But someone says: if we are to give thanks on a day, surely those are to give thanks whom the day itself embraces; but heaven and the underworld are placed outside the day of this world; how, then, can those elements be called to the festival of this day, by whose circuit they are not held? But this day which the Lord has made penetrates all things, contains everything, embraces heaven and earth and the underworld. For the light, Christ, is not blocked by walls, not divided by elements, not darkened by shadows. The light of Christ, I say, is a day without night, a day without end; everywhere it shines, everywhere it radiates, everywhere it does not fail. That this day is Christ the Apostle says: “The night has passed, the day has drawn near.” “The night has passed,” he says; it does not follow; so that you may understand that, when Christ's light comes, both the devil's darkness is put to flight and the obscurities of sins do not follow, and by unbroken splendor the past darkness is driven away and stealthy offenses are prevented. For that this day, Christ, lights up heaven, earth, and the underworld, Scripture testifies. That he shines on the earth, John says: “He was the true light, which enlightens every man coming into this world.” That he shines in the underworld, the prophet says: “Those who sat in the region of the shadow of death, a light has risen for them.” That this day remains in heaven, David relates, saying: “I will establish his seed for ever and ever, and his throne as the days of heaven.” And what is the day of heaven but Christ? Of whom it is said through the prophet: “Day to day utters the Word.” For the Son is the day, to whom the Father, the day, utters the secret of his divinity. He, I say, is the day who says through Solomon: “I made an unfailing day to rise in heaven.” As, then, no night at all follows the day of heaven, so the darkness of sins does not follow the righteousness of Christ; for the day of heaven always shines, gleams, and glows, and cannot be shut in by any obscurity; so the light of Christ always flashes, radiates, and sparkles, and cannot be overcome by any gloom of offenses. Hence the evangelist John says: “And the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.” In the resurrection of Christ, then, all the elements glory; for I think that even the sun itself is brighter on this day than usual; for the sun must rejoice in the resurrection of him in whose passion it grieved; and him whose death it attended with a mournful gloom, it must receive in his life with the splendor of a brighter light; and like a good servant, as it was then darkened for the rites of burial, so now it must flash in service of the resurrection. For in Christ's passion it wrapped itself in the night of darkness and groaned at the crime of the Jews with the world as witness: for it is a kind of judgment of grief in the sun to have refused the office of light to so great a crime, and as a kind of vengeance to have poured darkness on the eyes of the Jews; so that blindness took hold of the eyes of those whose minds blindness had invaded, and the light of the world did not shine for those by whom the light of salvation had been extinguished. So a kind of condemnation is brought on the Pharisees, that they suffer already among the living the darkness promised to sinners on the day of judgment. Among those above, then, while he was crucified, darkness lingers: what wonder if there is darkness among those above, when the light goes down to the underworld? So, brothers, we must all exult on this holy day: let no one withdraw from the common joy through consciousness of sins; let no one be called back from the public prayers by the burden of offenses. For though a sinner, one must not despair of indulgence on this day; for it is no small privilege; for if the thief earned paradise, why should a Christian not earn pardon? And if the Lord had mercy on him when he was crucified, much more will he have mercy on this one when he rises; and if the humility of the passion gave so much to one confessing, how much will the glory of the resurrection give to one who entreats? For, as you yourselves know, a glad victory is usually more generous in giving than a captivity that has been sentenced.

God has granted us, brothers, a great and wonderful gift, this saving day of Easter, on which the Lord, rising, gave resurrection to all; and climbing from the depths to the heights, lifted us too in his body from lower to higher things. For according to the Apostle all we Christians are the body of Christ and its members; so when Christ rose, all his inward parts necessarily rose with him. For while he passes from the underworld to those above, he has made us pass from death to life. For in Hebrew Pascha means passage or departure, because through this mystery one passes from worse to better things. It is a good passage to pass from sins to righteousness, from vices to virtues, from old age to infancy: infancy, I mean, not of age but of simplicity; for merits too have their ages. For before, we were set in decline by the old age of sins; at Christ's rising we were renewed in the innocence of little children. Christian simplicity has its infancy too: for as an infant does not know how to be angry, does not know how to cheat, does not dare to strike back, so the infancy of Christianity is not angry with those who hurt it, does not resist those who rob it, does not fight back against those who beat it. Indeed, as the Lord commanded, it even prays for its enemies, leaves its cloak too to those who take its tunic, and offers the other cheek to those who strike it; except that in this the infancy of Christ is better than that of nature: the one does not know how to sin, the other scorns to; the one is harmless through weakness, the other innocent through virtue. And so it is the more to be counted for praise, not so much to be unable to do evil as to be unwilling. So, as we have said, there are certain ages of merits; for both an old age of conduct is found in boys and the innocence of infants is found in old men. Indeed, that there is a certain old age of honor in the young the prophet says: “For venerable old age is not that of long time, nor reckoned by the number of years; but understanding is a man's gray hair.” And to the apostles, already older and advanced in years, the Lord says: “Unless you are converted and become like this child, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven.” So he calls them back to the source of their origin and compels them to return backward to infancy, so that those who had grown old in their frail bodies might be reborn in the conduct of innocence, as the Saviour says: “Unless one is reborn of water and the Holy Spirit, he will not enter the kingdom of God.” So it is said to the apostles: “Unless you are converted and become like this child.” He does not say “like these children,” but “like this child”: he chooses one, sets forth one. Let us see, then, who this great one is who is set before the disciples to imitate. I do not think he is one of the people, one from the public, one of the multitude of others, especially as he gave through the apostles an example of holiness to the whole world; I do not think, I say, that he is from the public, but from heaven. For he is the child from heaven of whom the prophet Isaiah says: “A child is born to us, a son is given to us.” He is plainly the child who, as an innocent, when he was cursed did not curse in return, when he was struck did not strike back; rather, in his very passion he prayed for his enemies, saying: “Father, forgive them; for they do not know what they are doing.” So the Lord heaped up the simplicity which nature gives to infants with the goodness of mercy. This, then, is the child who is set before the little ones to imitate and follow; for he himself says: “Take up your cross and follow me.”

Your holiness remembers, brothers, that I preached very recently that man is re-formed into a younger age through righteousness, and, though worn with old age, is reborn into a boy in the conduct of innocence; so that by the intervention of the mystery we see infants again from old men. For it is a kind of renewal to cease being what you were and to take up what you had not been before; it is a renewal, I say, which is why they are also called neophytes, because by a kind of newness they have cast off the stains of oldness and taken up the grace of simplicity, as the Apostle says: “Putting off the old man with his deeds, put on the new, which is created according to God.” Hence holy David also says: “Your youth will be renewed like the eagle's,” understanding that through the grace of baptism what was declining in our life can revive, and what had collapsed in us through the oldness of offenses can be renewed by a kind of youth. And so that you may understand that the prophet is speaking of the grace of baptism, he compared this renewal to the eagle, a bird said to live a long time by constant change of its covering, and, when its old feathers are worn out, to grow young again by a new succession of feathers: so that, laying aside the cast-off skin of age, it clothes itself in a revived birth of garments. From this we understand that it is not the eagle's limbs that feel old age but its feathers. So it clothes itself anew, and with its feathers sprouting the old mother is renewed into a chick. For she is to be compared to chicks when, with her feathers gleaming, she must again practice a clumsy flight and, like a young bird, hold back lazily within the nest the long-practiced oarage of her wings; though she knows how to fly from habit, yet she lacks confidence from the thinness of her feathers. Of the grace of baptism, then, the holy psalmist prophesied this. For our neophytes, newly baptized, like eagles laying aside the cast-off skins of oldness, have put on the new garments of holiness, and, as their old stains wear out like light feathers, they are adorned with the revived grace of immortality: so that in these old men the declining sins have grown old, but life has not grown old; as the eagle into a chick, so they have been called back into infancy. They have knowledge of the world from their way of life, but they have the security of righteousness from their restoration. Let us look still more carefully at what holy David says; for he does not say, “will be renewed like the eagles',” but “like the eagle's, your youth.” He asserts, then, that the youth of one eagle is to be renewed in us; and I would rightly call that one and only eagle Christ the Lord, whose youth was renewed when he rose from the dead: for laying aside the cast-off skin of mortal corruption he flowered again with a revived taking up of the flesh, as he himself says through the prophet: “And my flesh has flowered again, and from my will I will confess him.” “My flesh,” he says, “has flowered again.” See what word he used; he does not say “flowered” but “flowered again”: for nothing flowers again unless it flowered before. The Lord's flesh flowered when it first came forth from the inviolate womb of the Virgin Mary, as Isaiah says: “A rod will come forth from the root of Jesse, and a flower will rise from his root.” It flowered again when, the flower of his body having been cut down by the Jews, it sprouted again from the tomb with the glory of the resurrection, and like a flower breathed on all men alike the fragrance and the brightness of immortality: carrying round the sweetness of good works as fragrance, and showing as brightness the incorruption of everlasting divinity.