Homilies of Maximus of Turin (Bruni's collection) 8.1–14.1

The most holy and venerable sacrament of the Lord's birth, which the whole Church venerates today with exulting hearts, we too ought to celebrate with like joy. For today that eternal Son of God, pitying human nature, came down from the royal seats to restore us. Today that new Adam by his wonderful birth fashioned our nature anew, and what had been defiled and corrupted by the wretched fall of the old Adam he brought back to life by his precious birth and his tearful death. Today the Lord of heaven and earth deigned to visit our weaknesses. On this day Bethlehem, that city of the most high God, which is called the city of bread, brought forth for us that heavenly bread, and the drink by which those who are filled and made drunk will always taste eternal joys. The underworld grieves that he has been born God and man who, shutting its gates, has sent the inhabitants of the earth across to heaven. The heavens rejoice that by his coming an entrance has at last been opened to mortals in the whole world, by which they may climb to the heights of heaven. The heavenly dwellers too exult that today all men have been given the hope of dwelling in those eternal seats which God has prepared for those who love him; and they rejoice that men will one day be partakers of that blessedness and sharers of those joys. And the most blessed Virgin herself, the mother, rejoices that she has given birth to that child whom, by the illumining power of the Holy Spirit from on high, without any carnal embrace, she conceived in her womb, God and man together. Let us also rejoice, then, brothers, on this most sacred day on which there is born to us the Lord, who is Christ Jesus, in the city of David, and let us be glad at the celebration of so great a birth. For him whom we now venerate as newborn we believe to be not man only but also God: man in the tenderness of his limbs, but God, proceeding from God, from the conception in his inviolate mother. And that he truly was God and man, as you have heard from the various readings of the Gospel, both the star itself, which announced his rising to the Magi, and the angels speaking with the shepherds show. We must, then, wholly believe that he was God and man together. [Here it ends.]

Let us too, brothers, celebrate with fitting joy this most holy day of the Lord's birth, which the whole Church celebrates with us in exultation. Today that eternal Son of God came down from heaven to earth for us, to call to heaven the whole world, which he had created from the beginning. Today at the end of the ages he was born a man who before all ages proceeded from the Father as only-begotten: a new man in time, but God from eternity; a new Christ, but Lord of all the ages. Today the most blessed Virgin Mary gave birth to a man whom she did not receive from a man, and who remained an inviolate virgin before the birth. Blind and foolish paganism laughs at the depth of so great a mystery; and that impious blasphemy also mocks it which in recent days presumed to assail and to corrupt the Virgin's childbearing and blasphemed that Christ our Lord could not have been brought forth from a virgin. This blasphemy the holy Church of Milan shuddered at; our synodal assembly condemned it with one voice; the pious imperial power itself denounced it. For while he dared to make honorable marriage equal to virginity, he blasphemes that Christ could not have been begotten of a virgin; though he does not dare deny that virgins remain such when human offspring are born of a woman. But what is this shameless and reckless deceit, to say that Christ our Lord could not have been begotten of a virgin, when they believe that he could create a man without a woman? If he could bring a woman into the light without any embrace of the female and male sexes, why is it said that he could not beget a new man without any carnal embrace? If you believe that in the forming of the first Adam the omnipotence of God alone sufficed, why, brother, will you deny the divine power in the coming of the second Adam, through whom eternal salvation came down to us, through whom we have all been restored? But if it is not against nature that a virgin can conceive, since God could do whatever he willed in heaven and on earth, why do you assert that it is against nature that a virgin, by the working power of almighty God, with her virginity unharmed … for God did whatever he willed in heaven and on earth. He willed to form man from clay, and he did so. Heaven, earth [the edition notes: ten lines are missing here, because the writing has perished] he willed, and they were made. He willed the people of Israel to cross through the waves of the sea dry-shod, and it was done. At Gideon's prayers he commanded the sun to stand still in its course, and it stood. Finally he willed that an untouched virgin, her virginity remaining, should bear a child, and she bore him. What then in this heavenly childbirth [the edition notes: a leaf is missing; afterward it concludes thus:] Therefore, brothers, holding to the many admonitions of your priest with unshakable faith and customary devotion, and walking along the ways of the religious journey and the paths of truth which the whole Church holds, trample more and more on the byways and devilish fictions of the heretics. For the faithful soul, which believes that God could do whatever he willed, ought not [the edition notes: two lines are missing] … whom he will consume with eternal fires. [Here it ends.]

Today, dearest brothers, Christ is born and we are reborn. Today the Saviour of the world received through a mother a time of birth, he whose birth from the Father has no time. Today through a man the Son of God entered the world, by whose hand the world was made before man. Today the dweller of heaven came to earth to call the inhabitants of earth to heaven. “God is wonderful,” it says, “in his saints.” If God is wonderful in his saints, how is he not wonderful in himself? If he is wonderful in John, whom he ordered to be born of a very aged father and a barren mother, how much more wonderful is he in himself, who, to put on the flesh of our condition, gave a virgin a new conception and a new childbirth? The holy prophet Habakkuk says: “Lord, I have heard your report and was afraid; I considered your works and was terrified.” Who would not be terrified and fear the depth of so great a mystery, since one and the same was born God without conception and made man without a creator? We read of two generations in Christ, dearest brothers, but in each is the power of an incomprehensible Godhead. There God begot him from himself; here a virgin conceived him by God's working. There without beginning, here without precedent. There born to establish life, here made to take away death. There born to the Father, here brought forth for men. By the first birth he made man; by this generation he set man free. Both his generations, brothers, are embraced by this one sentence: that they cannot be told. The one is before man, this one above man; the one unthinkable, this one wonderful. When we are taught two births of Christ, it is not asserted that the Son of God was born twice, but that there is a twofold substance in the one Son of God. There what he was was born; here what he was not he became. Of these the blessed evangelist John says: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” And again: “And the Word became flesh.” So God, who was with God, came forth …, and the flesh of God, which was not in God, proceeded from a woman. So the Word became flesh, not so that God was emptied into man, but so that man might be glorified into God. And so God was not born twice; but from two births, that is, of God and of man, the only-begotten of the Father willed himself to be one God and man. “Who, then, will tell his generation?” Brothers, if the generation of Christ cannot be told, it can be believed. If the tongue fails, faith advances. For it is a great advance of faith when it conceives of its God as much as speech cannot bring forth. Beware, beloved, lest unbelief ever stir you about these things; for if man cannot explain what he perceives, God without doubt can accomplish what he willed. And it is most absurd, brothers, that we should weigh the ineffable God with the most feeble speech of our frailty. It is madness to try to shut up the works of an immeasurable majesty within the scanty words of our corruptible mouth. For how can man, a made thing, comprehend God the unbegotten, a mortal the eternal? If you strive to investigate how God passed into man or man into God, investigate first, if you can, how the world was made from nothing; whence the sky shone out; by what principle the liquid of the waters and the solidity of the earth subsist; how man came from the earth, woman from the male, and again the male through the woman; what that is, finally, which begets light and darkness, which makes life and death. If, then, O man, you cannot comprehend yourself and the things made for your sake, how or whence they were made, with what presumption or what folly do you scrutinize your own Creator and the Creator of all? We confess, then, God born of God the Father, and the same made man of a virgin. But these things, dearest ones, are blind to reason and plain to faith. For we shall be able to probe in some small part the immensities of his boundless majesty if we observe that how great and of what kind God is cannot be known by us, as the Lord said to Moses: “But you cannot see my face,” that is, you cannot look on my Godhead as it is with fleshly eyes. For blessed David, attending to the power of his omnipotence, cried out, saying: “Your works are wonderful, Lord, and my soul knows it very well.” For the prophet's soul knew very well that the works of God exceed all the thinking of the human mind; and for this reason the most wise patriarch, shut in by the narrow bounds of mortal sense, marveled at what he could not investigate. Who among men, then, would dare to scrutinize or inquire into such things as the prophet marvels at? “Your works,” he says, “are wonderful, and my soul knows it very well.” For this very fact, that God is incomprehensible, his soul knew; his flesh could not perceive it. Whoever, then, would rather examine the works of God than believe them follows not the sense of the soul but error. And so, brothers, let us not scrutinize how God was born of God, but believe it; nor let us dispute the Virgin's childbirth, but marvel at it, so that, confessing the only-begotten of God as God and man, we may hold unblemished the truth of the heavenly faith.

Most rightly, brothers, the whole world everywhere rouses itself to every joy at the festival of the present day, because today there has arisen the judge and redeemer promised to the whole world from the ages. And we all in common, who have received the saving faith of the coming judgment and the promised resurrection, must have fear of the judge but joy over the redeemer. For every faithful soul is corrected by fear and rejoices in correction. And in this, dearest ones, how great is the dispensation of the almighty Father toward the human race, how great his kindness, that the one he was preparing as judge for unbelievers he sent ahead as redeemer for those who would believe, so that mercy, running ahead, might forestall the severity of the judge who is coming. Today, then, Christ is born, but in his birth the life of us all has its birthday; for we who lost the privileges of our first birth return to life by a holier birth when Christ visits us. Today Mary gave birth, but she brought forth her own Maker. Today she brought into the world a man whom she did not receive from a man. What sort of miracle is this, brothers? Flesh is born of flesh, yet not begotten through flesh, and by a secret and incomprehensible conception divine offspring proceeds from a mortal woman. Nor is it any wonder if the birth was divine where the conception was not human, or if childbirth did not violate the mother whom intercourse had not defiled. Isaiah, who long ago knew the future, opening to peoples and nations the sign of a new salvation, said: “Behold, a virgin will conceive in the womb and bear a son, and they will call his name Emmanuel, which is interpreted, God with us.” And so that we may notice that the New and Old Testaments have one accord and one counsel, the most blessed Luke, the excellent narrator of the Lord's birth, also says: “The angel Gabriel was sent from God to a virgin betrothed to a man whose name was Joseph, and he said to her: Behold, you will conceive in the womb and bear a son, and they will call his name Jesus.” Jesus, dearest ones, in the Latin tongue means Saviour. See how the divine testimonies are confirmed by sentences agreeing with one another, and though the times of the preachers differ, the account does not. For the Virgin's childbirth which the one foretold, the other attests. Who, then, would hesitate about the divinity of Christ, who about the redemption, when Isaiah professes him God and Gabriel announces him Saviour? Who would doubt that the womb of an untouched mother flowered, when evangelist, angel, and prophet declare it almost with one mouth and the same spirit? Where there are witnesses so many and so great, truth does not blush, but the unbelieving hearer is refuted. But now let us see what indignities Christ bore for us in being born, and with what powers in turn those indignities are adorned. First of all, he allows himself to be conceived by the female sex, who at the beginning of the world with his almighty hand made the woman from the male. But this lowliness of birth is exalted by the integrity of his virgin mother. And although Christ, once born, is fed like an infant on a woman's milk, yet as Lord of all things he is nourished at virgin breasts; and as soon as his mother's womb poured him out into these storms of the world and the bilge of this tossing world, he is wrapped in the meanest cloths. He is clothed in cloths for us, he who in creating all things flooded the earth with light, adorned the sky with stars, and clothed the sun in fiery brightness. He is wrapped in cloths, but these cloths are presented with gifts by the Magi as a new star shines, and are honored by exulting angels. And that we may know that all these things are done or said as a mystery, he who is wrapped in cloths, proclaimed from the beginning from the bosom of the Father, came from heaven as the bridegroom from the eternal chamber of a saving marriage, as the venerable David says: “He, like a bridegroom coming forth from his chamber.” Then, as we read, he is laid in a manger, because, as the evangelist says, “there was no place for them in the inn.” Let none of this disturb anyone, brothers, for all this lowliness in the Saviour is the sacrament of our most precious salvation. See with what wisdom Christ is said to be placed in a manger, who by a twofold grace was to be both the food and the shepherd of the human race. He is fittingly laid in a manger, so that by the bleating of the heavenly Lamb he may invite the flocks of spiritual sheep to the pastures of everlasting life. “There was no place,” it says, “for them in the inn.” Was the space of that lodging so narrow that it could not hold the limbs of a little child born that very hour? But it is told in mystical language that he found no place in the inn because Christ, entering the world, did not find faith in which he could rest, as he himself says in the Gospel: “But the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head.” From this we learn that the only Son of God rests not in spacious houses and gilded ceilings but in the faith of believers. This Christ Jesus, then, sucking at the breast, wailing like newborn infants, wrapped in mean cloths, lying in a manger, the ministries of angels attend, and the whole multitude of the host marvels, praising together with harmonious voice and saying: “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace to men of good will.” Glory indeed to God, who gave despairing mortals the gift of eternal salvation; and peace to men of good will, whom Christ by his own contest and his own battle called back from the devil's captivity into his own kingdom. And how fittingly the Gospel's words ring out when it is said, “Glory to God in the highest, and peace on earth to men,” and so on: that the same Son of God is both glorious among the angels in heaven and grants peace on earth to men of good will. Therefore, beloved, let us rejoice with fitting joy over so great a salvation, and, joining ourselves to the voices of the angels, let us always praise with due honor the mysteries and powers of Christ.

At the Lord's coming, dearest brothers, all fear of our forefather's transgression was dissolved, the fear which mortality incurred long ago when ensnared by the devil's frauds. For the judge of heaven and earth is present with us, who, cancelling the bond of our offenses, has in mercy absolved our guilt. That Lord is present who, loosing the yoke of ancient captivity from our necks, gladdens the grief of the world with eternal freedom. That gentle King is present who, walking through the spaces of the whole world with the steps of heavenly righteousness, has crushed the proud tyranny of the raging enemy. For today, as Mary gave birth, the Son of God was born to us, so that, brought forth by a conception akin to our flesh, he might bestow on the man he had created both a father's love and a brother's affection. And he was born of an untouched woman, so that a human childbirth might likewise bear witness that he was man, and eternal virginity prove that he was God. For as only flesh could be born of flesh, so the flesh of God could come forth from a woman's womb only without a begetter. For this reason the angel said to most blessed Mary: “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; and the holy one who will be born of you will be called the Son of God.” “The Holy Spirit,” he says, “will come upon you.” That is why, brother, the angel's word set the power of the Holy Spirit before you, so that you would not, dulled by the guesses of carnal disputation, fabricate the heavenly mystery for yourself with earthly argument. Or do you not think that he could form a new child in a virgin's womb, who, when he first made man, sought neither a father's seed nor a mother's womb? Tell me, then, whoever you are who judge and scrutinize the heavenly dispensation, which seems to you the greater power: to have given childbirth to a virgin, or to have created a complete man from the earth? For “the first man,” as the Apostle says, “was from the earth, earthy; the second man from heaven, heavenly.” If you contend that it is against nature that in the mystery of our redemption a girl is said to have conceived without a man, of what nature, I ask, is it that in the parent of our race flesh was formed without flesh? What reason is this, or rather what blind contentiousness, that God is not believed able to make a man from a woman, when he is believed to have made one from dust? If you perceive, O man, that in such a matter it is the will of the Almighty, why do you question his work? For, as we read, “the Lord did whatever he willed in heaven and on earth.” And if you search carefully, you will find that besides this lawful practice of human conception the Trinity worked three most wonderful kinds of birth: the first, that Adam was shaped from clay; the second, that woman was formed from the male; the third, which is heavenly, that Christ came forth from a virgin. Which of these is not new? Which is not wonderful? Which of these could human inquiry grasp unless we follow faith? That the Son of God deigned to visit his world by this mystical conception, the need of our salvation demanded, so that a heavenly generation might at last repair what earthly birth had lost. But perhaps you doubt that he is God who is proclaimed born of a woman, while he is wrapped in mean cloths, while he is content to lie in a manger, while he cries with tearful wailing, while he is suckled at his mother's breast? On the contrary, brother, notice through these very things that as man he bore weak things for the weak, and as God he exercised heavenly power. For he who is wrapped in shabby cloths is honored with royal gifts by the Chaldeans. He who lies lowly in a manger flashes from heaven with the light of a new star. He who utters the wails of infancy is praised by the voices of the angelic host. He who is nourished by a woman's milk satisfied many thousands of men with a very little bread. What shall I add? That he is God and the true Son of God, Lazarus rising from the dead proves, the blind man restored to light announces, the wave trodden by his venerable feet attests, and, what surpasses all these, the Father's voice resounding from heaven confirms. Therefore, beloved, let us honor this great sacrament of the Lord's birth with worthy words. Let us love chastity above all things, because Christ, to show that it pleased him, chose the purity of a virgin's womb. Let us pursue mercy, because it is of mercy that we are saved. Let us hold carefully to righteousness, because the only-begotten of God deigned to become man for this, that by preaching the truth he might condemn iniquity and cleanse the whole face of the world.

The sacrament of today's mystery, dearest brothers, as you have always believed and believe, is the restoration of human salvation, the birth of the virtues, the ruin of the vices. For today Christ Jesus our Lord, in whom is the fullness of the Godhead, taking on the weaknesses of our flesh, was born a new man. Today there shone forth that second Adam, not a dweller but the Lord of paradise, whom the beauty of the forbidden tree would not deceive, nor the serpent beguile, nor the woman seduce. Today light has risen in the darkness. Today the world, without knowing it, received what heaven and the heavens of heavens rejoiced to have. For he did not emerge suddenly for us from a woman as someone temporal, or as one who had not existed before; but he who was always God with the Father and always reigned willed to appear to mortals through a virgin by a new mystery: a new man indeed, but the everlasting Lord; a new Christ, but King of all the ages. He it is who at the end of the ages was born of Mary, who before all ages proceeded as only-begotten from the Father. He it is who was foretold by the patriarchs, proclaimed by the prophets, announced by the angels, approved by the apostles. Of one and the same you read: “In the beginning was the Word,” and, “The Word became flesh.” Rejoice now, then, and exult, paganism, turned at last to your God. You have received the gift which Abraham rejoiced to have seen in the spirit; you have deserved through Christ what the chosen nation of the Hebrews once could not deserve. For Israel, fearing and trembling, marveled, as we read, that Moses, the leader of the people, hidden in a cloud on the summit of the highest mountain, spoke alone with the Lord. But for you Christ was so born, and gave himself to us with such condescension, that he spoke to all and was seen by all. Whoever of the people then approached that mountain, Sinai, was punished with instant death; but whoever does not approach this mountain, which today is born to the world, will die. Then one people was being taught the faith; now all nations are called to life. Our venerable fathers saw countless great wonders. Heaven rained down angels' food for them; the hardest rock supplied them sweet drinks; the Jordan turned its perpetual flow back to its source; the strongest walls of the enemy fell at the blast of trumpets; the sun too, lingering in the sky, gave the triumphant people a longer day. But it was given to no earlier ages to see this: that the only-begotten of the Most High, whom the powers of the archangels receive with trembling, should show himself a man to men and transform into God the flesh he took from man. Embrace, then, the condescension of the eternal majesty, and do not scrutinize the secret will of your God; for Christ was born for all, but he gives salvation to the faithful. If, because of the frailty of your senses, it seems less worthy to you to believe that the Son of God was born of a woman, consider that a virgin gave birth. If perhaps the cloths in which he was wrapped seem mean to you, marvel at the angels praising and at the multitude of the heavenly host. If you despise the manger in which the infant lay, lift your eyes a little and behold the new star in the sky proclaiming the Lord's birth to the world. If you believe the lowly things, believe the wonderful ones. If you dispute about the things of his humility, venerate the things that are lofty and heavenly. For from the same narrators and the same authors you have learned the lowly and the glorious things about the Lord the Saviour; the holy Gospels have handed on to you everything that belonged to the mystery of your salvation. You have in them grounds to believe that the Lord Jesus was born a man and to be unable to doubt that he is God.

That the divine dispositions are unsearchable to human senses the very depth of God's works testifies. But the mysteries of Christ are the more to be venerated by us the more they exceed by their greatness the capacity of the mortal mind. And so, brothers, when it is announced to us that the everlasting only-begotten of God the Father, to whom all things are subject and through whom all things were created, willed at the end of the ages to be born of a woman and to undergo the infancy of our flesh, we ought not to examine the grace of such condescension but believe it; not to scrutinize it but marvel at it. For what is more just, or what so fitting, as that in divine things we should follow God's omnipotence rather than our wisdom? Today, then, as we learned when the Gospel reading was read through, Christ was born for us according to the flesh, beginning to be what he was not, but not ceasing to be what he was. For the birth of a man could not diminish or divide the unity of the undivided majesty. That God proceeded from God the Father is the secret of an ineffable and abiding power; that he was born a man of a woman is the grace of our salvation. There is the glory of his nature; here the mystery of his will. Who, then, brothers, could gauge this depth of the heavenly counsel: that the Lord of immortality and of incorruptible substance, in order to be able to undergo death for mortals by the condition of the flesh, willed to come forth from a woman's womb under human law, conceived by no law of bodily generation, and this in such a way that the blessed mother, who had conceived untouched, brought him forth inviolate? Moreover, he is wrapped in cloths and laid in a manger. This lowliness of the infant is a precious sacrament of God. For in the cloths he shows that he has taken on our weaknesses and our sins. And in letting his limbs be placed in a manger, where animals feed, he shows that his body is to be eaten by mortals for eternal refreshment. What shall I say of the angelic multitude coming down to earth and attending the wailing child with glorious praise? For all creation is astonished at so great a miracle, that one and the same both reigns as God in heaven and is nourished as man on earth. Announcing the newness of this mystery, blessed David invites the whole human race to the harmony of a spiritual song, saying: “Sing to the Lord a new song; sing to the Lord, all the earth.” What is so new, dearest ones, as that almighty God of immeasurable majesty, coeternal with the Father and Lord of an everlasting kingdom, bent himself down to bodily weaknesses and human lowliness? What is so new as that virginity should remain unharmed while a woman conceives and gives birth? And truly such an entrance befitted the Saviour of the world, that he who was coming to cleanse the sins of the human race should be born more cleanly than all others. The prophet also fittingly added: “Sing to the Lord, all the earth.” For to whom else ought all the earth to sing than to him who brought to the whole world forgiveness of offenses and the hope of everlasting salvation? Let us magnify, then, brothers, our Lord and God; let us sing psalms and songs to him; for it is fitting that he should be honored above all by the praises of those whom he saved by the suffering of his own body and the shedding of his blood.