Homilies of Maximus of Turin (Bruni's collection) 71.1–77.1

The passion of the most blessed apostles, brothers, whose birthday we solemnly celebrate today, must be honored by all believers, since the Saviour of the world gave them to the human race as fathers and judges for the fullness of their righteousness and piety. How great their integrity and piety were may be seen above all from this: that he chose them for the amendment of a corrupt world and the ministry of his will, he whose choice did not deceive him. For he called Peter, poor in wealth, a fisherman by work, who, set apart from the common way of life and the society of cities, led a harmless life among the waves and sought his living from simplicity; yet I would call him poor in such a way that he did not lack sufficient means; for the rich wave of the abundant sea fed him, well deserving of God. So he was chosen for the preaching of the saving word, so that, his role changed by the mystery of a heavenly sacrament, he who was fed by catching fish might be fed by the salvation of men. Christ also called most glorious Paul from heaven to the faith of his name; who, in seeming to persecute the Church, did not rage with the impiety of an irreligious mind, but under the cloud of ignorance, not perceiving the new grace, erred out of love for the ancient devotion. That is why the gloom of the old shadow was wiped from his eyes, so that he might both acquire for himself and reveal to all that true light which flashed from heaven. He was blinded and enlightened by no other dispensation than that, his fleshly eyes being closed, spiritual sight might be formed in him for beholding the glory of God. The most faithful Peter too received these eyes, who, enlightened by the ray of the Holy Spirit, saw that Christ our Lord, placed in the flesh and hiding his divinity under the form of the man he had taken, was the Son of the living God; for when the Lord asked who men thought he was, he said: “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” Who would not marvel that a fisherman uttered the fullness of an answer which, in the compass of a very short confession, disclosed both what the Lord had from the Father and what he had taken from his human birth? For “Christ” and “Son of the living God” contains the undivided sacrament of both natures, truly to be received by all; and a wonderful fisherman, who, while searching the depths of the sea, reached the highest secret of eternal majesty! These, then, are the pillars of the churches, Peter and Paul, whom a most holy life brought to a venerable death, and a glorious end made everlasting; whom we honor not only as martyrs but also venerate as teachers and fathers of martyrs, who founded the Church of God both by the doctrine of heavenly preaching and by the shedding of their holy blood.

Though all the most blessed apostles have equal grace of holiness with the Lord, yet somehow Peter and Paul seem to excel the others by a special power of faith; and we can prove this from the Lord's own judgment. For to Peter, as a good steward, he gave the keys of the heavenly kingdom; to Paul, as a fit teacher, he entrusted the teaching office of the Church's instruction; that is, so that those whom the one has instructed for salvation the other may receive into rest; so that for those whose hearts Paul opened by the teaching of words, Peter may open the kingdom of heaven to their souls. For Paul too in a way received from Christ the key of knowledge. For that must be called a key by which the hard hearts of sinners are unlocked to faith, the secrets of minds are laid open, and whatever is held shut within is brought out into the open by rational disclosure. A key, I say, which both opens the conscience to the confession of sin and shuts in grace for the eternity of the saving mystery. Both, then, received keys from the Lord: this one of knowledge, that one of power; that one dispenses the riches of immortality, this one bestows the treasures of knowledge; for there are treasures of knowledge, as it is written: “In whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.” So blessed Peter and Paul stand out among all the apostles and excel by a special prerogative. But which of them is to be set above the other is uncertain. For I think they are equal in merits, because they are equal in passion; and that those lived with like devotion of faith whom we see to have come to the glory of martyrdom together; for let us not think it happened without cause that on one day, in one place, they endured the sentence of one tyrant. They suffered on one day, so that they might come to Christ together; in one place, lest Rome lack either; under one persecutor, so that equal cruelty might bind both. The day, then, I think, was appointed for their merit, the place for their glory, the persecutor for their virtue. And in what place, after all, did they suffer martyrdom? In the city of Rome, which holds the leadership and head of the nations; that is, so that where the head of superstition was, there the head of holiness might rest, and where the leaders of the pagans dwelt, there the leaders of the churches might die. Of what merit the most blessed Peter and Paul are we can understand from this: that, while the Lord enlightened the region of the East by his own passion, he deigned to enlighten the region of the West, lest it have anything less, by the blood of the apostles in his place; and though his passion is enough for our salvation, yet their martyrdom has been added as an example. On this day, then, the blessed apostles shed their blood. But let us see the reason why they suffered these things: namely, that among other wonders they also cast down that magician Simon from the void of the air in a headlong fall by their prayers. When this Simon said he was Christ, and asserted that, as a son to his father, he could ascend by flying, and, lifted up suddenly by magic arts, had begun to fly, then Peter, on bended knees, prayed to the Lord and by holy prayer conquered the magic levitation; for prayer ascended to the Lord before the flight did, and a just petition arrived before an unjust presumption; Peter, placed on earth, obtained what he asked before Simon reached in the heavens the place he was making for. Then Peter brought him down from the high air as if bound, and dashing him headlong on a stone broke his legs; and this to the disgrace of his deed, so that he who a little before had tried to fly suddenly could not walk, and he who had taken wings lost his feet. But lest it perhaps seem strange that this magician flew so long through the air in the apostle's presence, Peter's patience did it; for he let him ascend higher so that he might fall farther; he willed him to be raised on high in the sight of all, so that the eyes of all might see him fall from on high. This, then, is the exaltation of iniquity, to carry itself on high and lift itself aloft; but holy prayer humbles all pride and casts down all vanity.

Let us exult in the Lord, brothers, because today is the birthday of the most blessed Peter and Paul, and let us rejoice with spiritual gladness at the great solemnity of this day. For today that most blessed Peter, to whom for the merit of his faith the Lord gave that power of binding and loosing on earth, entered the serene heavens by the gibbet of the cross. Today Paul, that vessel of election and teacher of the nations, giving his most glorious head, obtained an immortal crown. The merits of the most illustrious apostles must have been equal, whose glorious confession for Christ in the unity of the true faith was equal. For if Peter is said to have been chosen to preach the grace of Christ to the Jews, Paul seems to have been ordained above the other apostles to teach the nations. Peter preaches the Gospel in Judea, where the seeds of faith had already been planted by our Lord himself. Paul sets before the nations as venerable the glory of the despised cross, which to them seemed a disgrace. Peter brought back the Jews, who had strayed from the womb, to the path of true salvation. Paul enlightens with heavenly wisdom the nations who did not know God. Peter softens the hardest neck of his brothers; Paul scatters the blind ignorance of the nations. So the most blessed apostles run throughout the whole world; to nations, kings, and the sons of Israel they preach the faith they received from Christ the Lord and confirm it by miracles. They were truly the salt of the earth, by which the souls of all believers are seasoned and kept inviolate from eternal corruption. Through the whole earth the spiritual stewards of eternal salvation pay out the price and pour out treasures of holiness, entirely equal in the merits of their works. For though Peter lived with Christ on earth, yet the same Christ called Paul from heaven while he was a raging persecutor of those who believed in him. The one received the Gospel from Christ while he was on earth; but while he sat blessed at the Father's right hand in heaven, Paul obtained from him the grace of preaching. Indeed, caught up even to heaven, he not only learned the Gospel which he had not heard, but also heard secret words which it is not lawful for a man to speak. Peter, doubting, trod the unstable waves of the sea lest he should sink. But Paul was a night and a day in the deep of the sea, and the sea's waves did not shrink from the weight tossed on them, but, as if not daring to violate a sacred deposit, gave him back alive; because the wave, serving him, guarded him unharmed and kept him still safe for the peoples. The most blessed Peter and Paul, then, were equal in merits and equal in virtues. What wonder, then, if on one day, in the same place, they endured the impious death sentence of one tyrant too? For they suffered on one and the same day, so that both might come to Christ together; in one place, lest Rome, the spectator of the triumph, lack either; under one and the same persecutor, so that like cruelty might bind both; so that those whose preaching of the faith had always been one and the same might also have the same cause and occasion of death, and those who had received the same faith from Christ might earn for the same faith the palm of martyrdom. [The edition notes: ten lines are missing, the writing erased, and only the conclusion remains.] If, then, we honor the martyrs, we also venerate Christ in the martyrs; but if we despise the saints, we mock Christ, who is in the saints, as divine Truth itself says: “He who rejects you rejects me.” [Here it ends.]

It is holy, brothers, and pleasing to God that the birthday of blessed Lawrence should be venerated with special devotion, by whose radiant flames the victorious Church of Christ shines throughout the world even to this day; who, while he performed the office of deacon in the see of the most glorious patriarch, joined himself to the fellowship of the apostles by the purity of an innocent life and the triumph of a most courageous death. Nor do we undeservedly proclaim him almost equal to the apostles, to whom chastity of mind gave the Levitical ministry and fullness of faith brought the dignity of martyrdom. The venerable Xystus, bishop of the city of Rome, when he was overcoming the impiety of a raging world through torments and was already near to the heavenly kingdom, seeing him most sorrowful at his father's death, is said to have addressed him thus in the spirit of foreknowledge: “Do not be sad, son; after three days you will follow me.” From this it appears, dearest ones, that blessed Lawrence was not sad at the victory of the high priest, but grieved because he was not himself conquering the world together with his priest. “Do not be sad, son,” he says; “after three days you will follow me”: that is, do not be sad as if left behind in the world; for neither your faith nor your life will cheat you of such a death; let no anxiety about my passing, in which I rejoice, disturb you; for soon you too will have joy from your own passion. Truly singular is the glory of blessed Lawrence, who obtained so much grace from his God that a martyr prophesied his martyrdom to him, and that, for the privilege of his merits, victory gladdened him before battle could frighten him. So when he learned from the mouth of the priest and martyr that he too was certainly to be taken, he gathered crowds of the poor and divided the Church's wealth with religious generosity. How deep the counsel of the spiritual man, and how heavenly: both to provide for the needy and, the multitude consuming what he had given, that nothing might be found for the persecutor to seize; following, of course, that saying: “He has scattered, he has given to the poor; his righteousness remains for ever.” It was of mercy that he gave food to the poor; but of righteousness that, as a most prudent man, he took care that the sacrilegious man should not seize the substance of the saints with greedy hands. “His righteousness,” it says, “remains for ever.” How will this righteousness not remain for ever, which he both fulfilled by a holy work and consecrated by a most glorious martyrdom? Inflamed by this vexation, the pagans' fury at once prepared a red-hot gridiron, on which to tear apart Lawrence limb by limb as he was burned, to avenge the flames of its indignation with impious fires. The most courageous martyr burns indeed in all his inward parts and is scorched; but, pondering with faithful mind the kingdom of heaven and God's promises, he exults in the cool refreshment of a victorious conscience, nor is he bent by the penal fire, in whose breast the unconquerable flame of the Holy Spirit was burning. Could he yield to the momentary burning of the body, whose faith was quenching the eternal heat of Gehenna? So, the ministers of the flames overcome, the whole fire of worldly madness grew cold; and the devil's intent came only to this: that the faithful man ascended gloriously to his God, and the cruelty of the persecutors, confounded with its fires, grew numb.

As we have learned from the account of our fathers, which is not uncertain, dearest brothers, when the venerable Xystus held the priesthood of the apostolic see and the Roman Church flourished under the most holy ministry of the archdeacon Lawrence, the flame of a most cruel persecution blazed up against the name and faith of Christ through the burning envy of the devil; and so that the insatiable rage of the savage beast might tear the Lord's flock more destructively, the enemy, an artist in harm, first contrives to snatch away the watchful guard of the shepherd. And so pagan fury attacks Xystus before all, the high priest of the Lord, so that the bloody persecutor might invade the members of the Church, cut off from so strong a head, as if the protection of heavenly defense had been removed. But that great Xystus, who had been a shepherd on earth to the sheep entrusted to him by God, was a patron from heaven. So pagan hands seek out holy Lawrence for punishment, as one already deprived of the comfort of his bishop; whom Xystus had armed with a wonderful prophecy against all the evils of the raging world. For when Lawrence, as a most devoted son, was weeping inconsolably over his father's passion, Xystus, taught by the foreknowledge of the Holy Spirit, recognizing what was to come, said to him: “Lay aside all sadness, son, about my death; for my absence will not grieve you long: after three days you will follow me.” Having received this answer, his devout mind, accepting it as undoubted truth from an excellent bishop and martyr of Christ, cared for nothing more than that the persecutor's avarice, which grieved the Church by the death of the saints, should not have joy from the Church's plunder. The most prudent man found how he could torment his torturer more sharply. So he gathered crowds of the poor and distributed by devout giving all the Church's wealth and all the vessels of the sacred ministry, lest a sacrilegious gaze defile them; so that the future martyr might be enriched in the heavenly reward both by the price of his blood and by the prize of such great generosity, not doubting that he would keep both his faith for his Christ in himself and the Church's riches in the poor. For this reason the man, innocent in simplicity and most strong in virtue, is at once dragged to the tribunal of the ungodly, bringing to the judge nothing but the constancy of a living mind and the purity of an unharmed conscience, offering his soul devoted to God and handing his most chaste body to the persecutor for punishment, keeping that saying of the Gospel: “Do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul.” So a savage torment is devised against Lawrence, so that he who was not moved by fear of death might be broken by the bitterness of punishment; but the greatness of the pains could not conquer him whom the multitude of his virtues strengthened. A gridiron heated by fire is prepared, to weary the triumphant martyr's spirit and burn up his body. But the crowd of persecutors, ignorant of the truth and blinded by devilish darkness, did not see that that burning of the limbs was the eternal purging of the faithful soul, and that the body, which the present life was leaving to the corrupting flames, was passing through condemned death to incorruption of life. Truly incomparable is the sacrament of this saving faith, by which blessedness is sought through torments and refreshment is prepared by flames, as the patriarch David says in the words of the martyrs: “We passed through fire and water, and you brought us into refreshment.” Blessed Lawrence passed through fire and water when on the one side the deadly flame of the world was roasting him and on the other the life-giving water of heavenly irrigation was flooding him. He passed through fire and water when the mercy of the divine spring was tempering the force of the raging fire. Lawrence burned, then, but that fire was conquering of which the Saviour says: “I came to cast fire on the earth, and how I wish it were burning!” O new and wonderful thing! In one and the same man the body was burned by flames and the mind, set on fire, glowed with the heat of a burning faith; as the men of the Gospel said to one another: “Was not our heart burning within us on the road?” Where the heart burns, then, the limbs do not feel the flame; where Christ's fire works, the devil's fire must be conquered; and where God's Spirit glows, the flame of mortals becomes cold. And this is why, dearest ones, the whole world everywhere today celebrates with harmonious devotion the triumph of blessed Lawrence, why Rome more gladly admires his inseparable faith, who, kindled by the rays of the eternal sun, patiently endured the fire of the world and confidently escaped it.

The annual and ever new festival of most blessed Lawrence, dearest brothers, continually kindles the Church of God to the joys of spiritual gladness, admonishing all believers that, as he by the ardor of perfect devotion did not yield to the raging fires, so the fire of various tribulations and the flame of worldly evils should not move us from the fellowship of Christ, as that teacher of heavenly mysteries and example of all virtue, most glorious Paul, says: “Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or the sword?” And truly he can be bent by no dangers of present persecutions who has once conceived with stable faith and unshaken mind the promises of almighty God and the eternal rewards of our most generous Redeemer. For a weak spirit and a lame faith cannot climb that steep and lofty road of immortal goods. That is why neither the torments of the pains pressing on him nor the flame of the most savage persecutor could overcome the most courageous martyr; because his mind, kindled by the rays of truth, burned far more ardently; and so that bodily fire, tended by the hands of mortals, could not drive out from his untiring breast the heat poured in from God. Of this most valiant soldier of Christ we must believe that saying was spoken which was foretold many thousands of years before through the prophet: “And if you pass through fire, the flame will not burn you.” For see, blessed Lawrence passed through the fire, by which he did not shudder, scorched, but shone, enlightened; he passed through a momentary and earthly fire, but escaped the flame of Gehenna that burns for ever. What is more blessed than this man, who by the grace of merciful God burned so as not to burn, was burned so as not to be consumed? Had he been handed over to no fires and punishments, he would indeed have had the security of freedom, but there would have been no glory of a fighter; for Christ trains us in his Church by examples and teachings to this end: not that we should suffer no evil in the world, but that we should conquer the world by manifold suffering. That most illustrious patriarch of the prophets, David, hemmed in by various tribulations, once sang, saying: “My heart grew hot within me, and in my meditation a fire will blaze out.” It is plain that this sentence suits the venerable Lawrence too, whose heart grew hot with such great faith and magnanimity of Christ that, despising the tortures of his own body and triumphing over the fires of his maddest torturer, he gladly mocked him: truly in his meditation an unconquerable fire blazed out, which, kindled by hatred of unbelief and love of truth, either did not feel or overcame the flame applied to him from outside. Therefore, dearest ones, let us exult and rejoice in the Lord, not doubting both that the martyr's persecutor, for the fires he kindled, endures the burnings prepared for the ungodly, and that the most blessed martyr himself, for the flame he endured, shines before almighty God with the illumination of incorruptible light.

Honoring the memories of the holy Fathers in religious assemblies, dearest brothers, we marvel both at their own merits and at the divine gifts in them; who are venerable to us because, despising the light of the present life and scorning the torture of their bodies, they conquered the raging world for the love of God; as this most blessed Father of ours, rising with a more fervent spirit to assert the indisputable Godhead, wrestled against the Arian impieties, and pacified with the tranquility of serene faith the churches of God, disturbed by the storms and whirlwinds of quarreling heretics, and sought for himself eternal rewards by manifold suffering, following the unshaken footsteps of him to whom the Lord said: “You are Peter, and on this rock I will build my Church, and the gates of hell will not prevail against it.” Truly and deservedly is he to be honored by all posterity who, following the solidity of the firmest rock, confounded the enemies of Christ by the authority of the heavenly Spirit and triumphed by the strength of untiring patience. Nor, as was said, did the gates of hell prevail against him, who, confessing the King of glory, opened for himself the entrance of the eternal gate; or how should that life-giving gate not be open to him who, taught by the fullness of the Gospel reading, asserted the inscrutable sacrament of the one majesty in the Father and his Son, teaching and showing what in one and the same Son of God was the nature of the flesh he took and what the privilege of his natural deity? He knew well that the Saviour had said: “I and the Father are one,” and: “He who sees me sees the Father also.” This confession made him both honorable on earth and glorious in heaven. But I think it necessary now that, on the occasion of this blessed Father of ours, whom the faith he kept unswervingly raised to such glory in the catholic churches, we too, by the Lord's gracious gift, should be steeped in the saving testimonies of the Lord's teaching. The Lord says, then: “I and the Father are one.” He who says “we are” is not solitary; he who says “we are one” surely cannot be divided from him with whom he is one. Why do you now try, heretic, to build up a difference between the Father and his Son, when the Son, teaching us the truth of his substance, said: “I and the Father are one”? He who says both “one” and “we are” neither divides himself by separation nor confuses himself by union. He who is one with the Father neither differs from the Father in eternity nor disagrees in power; and though he is one with the Father, he is yet declared born of the Father, lest, as the impious Arius blasphemes, the Son be believed either some creature or unequal to the Father. You hear, then, O man, that God was born of God; but in so great a depth you have what you may believe by faith, not what you may scrutinize by arguments. You hear that the Son was born of the Father; but lest you search for any sex in the Godhead, the Son himself is also called the Word and the light. He is also called the power of God and the wisdom of God, so that you may notice that the Father did not beget bodily, as through the features of bodily organs, but that by the ineffable secret of majesty power came forth from power and light flowed from light. Again, lest you think the Word itself not the substance of truth but the uttered speech of God speaking, he is called the Son, so that you might learn that in him there is the harmony and the affection of the one who is Father. Again, because he is called light, lest perhaps you think that, like a ray of the sun or the glow of a lamp, he shines with another's brightness, the blessed evangelist John, to whom it was granted both to see and to reveal God's secret, says of him: “He was the true light.” He says “true light,” so that you may know that he is not the glow of some created and failing light, but that what is light is truth from the true light. And he is so truly light that he not only needs no enlightening but has the power to enlighten; for, as we read, he enlightens every man coming into this world. So Christ says, as was said: “He who sees me sees the Father also.” “He who sees me,” he says, “sees the Father also.” How are they not both two and one, when one is seen in the other, and to have seen one is to know both? And truly, brothers, as to see the Son is to see the Father, so when the Father is understood the Son too is understood; for whoever believes and confesses the Father eternal must believe the Son coeternal. But now let us see what this sight in the Son is, by which the Father too is said to be seen. He without doubt sees the Father in the Son who believes that the Son was ineffably born of the Father according to the unthinkable nature of the Godhead, and that he who was born cannot be other than he who begot him. He sees the Father in Christ who believes that Christ's works are not of a foreign ability but of the Father's power. He sees the Father in the Son who notices that, under the fellowship of the Father's name, not by the industry of ingenious art but by the power of a simple command, he turned water into wine and changed the natures of creatures, and by the abundance of his blessing multiplied the eaten bread under the fruitful bites of the hungry; for by multiplying food in the mouths of those who ate and re-forming loaves from crumbs, he made it almost no wonder that manna flowed from heaven. Who would not notice in Christ the work of equality with the Father, when he sees him with the authority of a master terrify demons, put sicknesses to flight, give eyes to a man not yet formed in the man? The sick woman, touching the fringe of his garment by a hidden approach, stole health as it were by theft; but as true God, from whom no secret of human hearts could be hidden, he at once disclosed the healing that had gone out from him and published the believing woman's merit to the surrounding crowds. He sees the Father's majesty in the Son who beholds Christ raising the dead from their beds or from their tombs, not by the grace of one who asks but by the command of one who orders, with the assent of the Father's will. If it is a divine work to have created man and given him life, how is it not a divine work to have restored health to the dead? “He who sees me,” he says, “sees the Father also.” How, brothers, could there be one undivided sight in the Father and his Son unless there were one undivided substance? Christ, then, God by nature and man by nature, is true in both and perfect in both; for he truly took humanity from his mother and has deity by nature from the Father. Whoever sees the Son so sees the Father also: for when we confess the same Christ to be God and Lord, we necessarily ascribe the sufferings to the man and the wonders to God, so that the only-begotten of God may be understood to be neither unequal to the Father's majesty nor unlike his mother's flesh. By this faith, dearest ones, the Arian unbelief was refuted by our fathers; for Arius, contradicting the Gospel of blessed John, denying that the Word of God is God and with God, blinded by the darkness of his unbelief, could see neither the Father nor the Son; and while he contended that the Maker of all is a thing made, and tried to ascribe temporal things to the timeless God, confounded by the madness of his presumption, he lost the saving sacrament of both natures in Christ. But this venerable father, who had read that the Lord said, “I am in the Father, and the Father is in me,” knowing that in this teaching there is a distinction of persons, not a difference of nature, held and taught the inseparable unity of the Father and his Son, who are not one person but one thing, asserting alike in Christ the Lord both passible flesh and impassible deity.