Sermons of Maximus of Turin (Bruni's collection) 107.1–111.1

Our Lord Jesus Christ has shown the height of his divinity and the mercy of his humanity in many and various ways in the holy Scriptures, as he is accustomed to do in mysteries and sacraments, so that those who ask may receive, those who seek may find, and to those who knock it may be opened. For all the miracles which he showed in this world under our frailty profit us. The Lord certainly did not do them without cause, or as though in vain and to no purpose. Christ is the Word of God, who speaks to men not only by words alone but also by deeds. For this too which has been read today from the holy Gospel seeks an interpreter; and when it has been understood, it brings spiritual joy. And in this reading we must consider at once, in one and the same Redeemer of ours, the distinct working of the divinity and of the humanity, and we must utterly detest the error of Eutyches, who presumes to teach that there is only one working in Christ. For on either side, whoever says that he was only a man will deny the glory of the Creator; whoever says only God will deny the mercy of the Redeemer. Certainly, when the Lord has compassion on the crowd lest it faint either from hunger or from the toil of a longer journey, let us recognize the feeling and compassion of human frailty; but that he filled four thousand men with seven loaves and a few fish, we believe to be the work of divine power. Let your holiness attend, then, because this is what we have proposed to treat with your love: what the great mystery of this event means, that holy Scripture testifies that he showed himself God to his disciples in the way the Gospel tells. For the evangelist says in today's reading: "When there was a great crowd with Jesus and they had nothing to eat, he called his disciples and said to them: I have compassion on this crowd." But let us inquire into what it says above: "In those days, when there was a great crowd." For above, the Jews came to the Saviour, accusing his disciples because they ate with unwashed hands. The Lord refuted them, saying that the evils that come from the heart rather defile a man. And leaving them, he came into the borders of the Gentiles, where the Canaanite woman, who is the mother of the Gentiles, entreats the Lord for her daughter, that is, the Church; who asked so long that she received what she sought. After this he again cured the dumb and deaf man. So in those days, when a multitude of people had run together and they had nothing to eat, because the Gentiles did not have the law, that is, the five books of Moses and the prophets, nor the preaching of holy John, because the Gentiles came to the Redeemer not through the law but through faith; therefore they persevere for three days, that is, in the birth, the passion and the resurrection of the Lord, or in the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. For to persevere is to remain in the confession, as the Lord himself says: "But he who perseveres to the end will be saved." So the Lord says, "They have nothing to eat," because they do not have the law; "and I do not wish to send them away fasting, lest they faint on the way"; so that those who believed through faith in Christ might be saved through faith in Christ. "And some of them came from far away." For the Gentiles were far from God, wandering among idols; and now everyone who sins is far from God. His disciples say: "From where could anyone satisfy these with bread in the desert?" Unbelief still held the apostles until the mysteries were revealed, and they did not remember what he had done with the five loaves and two fish. "And Jesus asked them how many loaves they had. They said, Seven. And he ordered the crowd to sit down on the ground. And taking the bread, he gave thanks and gave it to his disciples to set before them. And he blessed the fish likewise and set them before them. And they ate and were filled, and they took up seven baskets full. And those who ate were about four thousand, besides women and children." We believe that the mighty works of the Lord were most manifestly done in the present; but let us inquire, by his grace, what lies hidden in the mystery.

In the earlier reading he fed five thousand men with five loaves and two fish; here he filled four thousand men with seven loaves. There the disciples suggest to the Lord, saying: "The place is deserted and the hour is past; send the crowds away, so that they may go into the villages and buy food for themselves." Here the disciples are wholly silent, but the Lord himself is concerned for them. Let us see why they are silent. Because they had not yet been sent to preach to the Gentiles, but rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. The former parable, then, belongs to the Jews, this one to the Gentiles. There were five loaves, that is, the five books of Moses; here seven loaves, which are the gifts of the sevenfold Spirit, as the holy prophet Isaiah says: "The Spirit of wisdom and understanding, the Spirit of counsel and might, the Spirit of knowledge and godliness, and he will fill him with the Spirit of the fear of the Lord." There, twelve baskets full of the Holy Spirit; here, seven churches, or seven golden lampstands. There, two fish, which are the two Testaments, or the one book of all the prophets, or the preaching of holy John; here an indefinite number is given, which are the gifts of graces, as the Apostle says: "To one is given through the Spirit the word of wisdom, to another the word of knowledge, to another prophecy, to another kinds of tongues, to another the interpretation of words: all these one and the same Spirit works." There they recline on grass, here on the ground. In both there is one conduct, one grace, one power, one Godhead. There they sit down on the grass, that is, the works of the flesh mortified, because "all flesh is grass," says the prophet; here they sit down on the ground, that is, they trample on earthly works. There five thousand were refreshed, a number that belongs to the Jews, for after the Lord's ascension, when Peter spoke, five thousand were baptized; here four thousand, that is, all nations from the whole earth, from the four quarters of heaven, filled with the grace of the sevenfold Spirit unto eternal life. And so, most beloved, we who believe in our Lord Jesus Christ not through the law but through faith, who have been redeemed not by works but by grace itself, who have been filled not from five loaves, that is, from the five books of Moses, but from the sevenfold grace of the Holy Spirit, as blessed Isaiah had prophesied, saying, "The Spirit of wisdom and understanding, the Spirit of counsel and might, the Spirit of knowledge and godliness, and he will fill him with the Spirit of the fear of the Lord": let us remain, then, in this grace of the sevenfold Spirit in which we have been called, filled with the gift of the Holy Spirit, through our Lord Jesus Christ, who lives and reigns in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God for ever and ever. Amen.

These cities to which the Lord came signify this world, into which the Lord came for our salvation, to free us from the power of the devil. And this woman signifies holy Church gathered from the Gentiles. This woman is called a Canaanite because she was born of the stock of Canaan, who was the son of Noah, who was cursed by his father. Let us hear what this woman cries after the Lord: "Have mercy on me, son of David; my daughter is badly troubled by a demon." This woman had such great faith that she did not bring her daughter with her to the Lord, nor did she invite him to come to her, but she firmly believed that if God willed it he could give health to her daughter. By this woman's daughter we ought to understand every sinful soul, which is daily troubled by the devil and is subject to vices and all evil works. For those who are teachers of the Church ought always to admonish and rebuke those who do the works of the devil, and pray for them, as this woman prayed for her daughter. But the Lord did not answer her a word. The Lord did not wish to answer the woman for these reasons. First, to test her constancy, that she might persevere in prayer. Second, to take away an occasion from the Jews, lest they say: 'Christ was promised to us, and this man teaches the Gentiles and cures them; therefore we will not believe in him.' Third, to test the minds of the disciples and stir them to mercy. "And the disciples came and asked him, saying: Send her away, for she cries after us." As if they said: Forgive her sins and grant her virtues. After the woman heard the holy apostles asking for her, at once with great confidence she came to the Lord and worshipped him, saying: "Lord, help me." He answered and said: "It is not good to take the children's bread and throw it to the dogs"; he means: it is not good that the teaching of God should be taken from the Jews, who have always worshipped the Lord, to be given to you, who are Gentiles and pagans and have always served the devil. Yet the woman, wisely understanding what the Lord said, answered thus with humility: "Yes, Lord." That is to say: I truly know, Lord, and I believe that it is as you say. Certainly we are not worthy to receive the children's bread, who have always worshipped idols. But I say this because you deigned to come into the world to show your grace upon us Gentiles. "For even the little dogs eat of the crumbs that fall from their masters' table." She had faith, because, though she was a Gentile, she believed that the Lord could give health to her daughter. She had patience when the Lord rejected her: she persevered in prayer until she received what she sought. She had humility, because when the Lord compared her to dogs, she herself made herself equal to little dogs. After our Redeemer saw the faith of this woman, so great, he said to her: "Woman, great is your faith; let it be done for you as you wish." We ought to take an example, dearest brothers, from this woman: that as she remained firm in prayer, so we may persevere daily in all good works; and as she prayed to the Lord, so let us pray to God that he may deign to free our minds from the snares of the devil.

Most blessed Paul, dearest brothers, the ruler of all the churches, whom the heavenly choice appointed master to all the nations because of the conscience of his blameless breast and the perfection of his holy teaching, now with the vigour of an apostle, now with the authority of a teacher, with the affection of fatherly kindness rebukes, instructs and amends the Lord's people. That most glorious man has this purpose indeed: neither to make his disciples too slack perhaps with flatteries, nor again to disturb them with harsher rebuke. But he handles his speech with such weight and moderation that by an inoffensive art of teaching he wholesomely calls back, chastises and cherishes everyone who strays from the right path. For the most prudent teacher wished, like a truly spiritual bee, according to the variety of sinners both to shoot stings and to offer honey. But we, brothers, whom strength fails and manifold sins accompany, set before your hearing, as offenders ourselves, the stings of the apostolic authority's sharper rebuke with a coaxing affection. For the wounds of human bodies too are better healed with sweetness than with bitterness. Among other things, then, the Apostle, writing to the Corinthians, says in the same exchange: "I speak as to children: be enlarged yourselves too, and do not bear a yoke with unbelievers." "I speak," he says, "as to children." See, the Apostle calls even sinners children, so that no one, frightened by the shame of a sinful conscience, should hesitate about the love of so great a father. For what Paul rebukes, he does not exercise the hatred of an angry man but bestows the gift of one who loves. For the rebuke that comes from a friend's mouth brings desirable health in the wound. As that most wise Solomon says: "Better are the wounds of a friend than the willing kisses of an enemy." And what other wounds of friends can there be but the words with which sinners are struck? "Be enlarged," he says; that is, see that the thorns and briars of unbelief and crimes do not perhaps close up your road by which you strive toward the heavenly kingdom. But act so that that royal road, which the pleasure of this world and the hindrances of sins narrow, may be widened for you by the exercise of faith and virtues. "Do not," he says, "bear a yoke with unbelievers." For everyone bears a yoke with unbelievers who conspires to the ruin and death of a man. Whoever associates himself with the dishonest and base bears a yoke with unbelievers; who, having confessed the name of Christ and received the faith, is called back to sacrilegious pleasures by devilish superstition. And after all, brothers, he drags a very dangerous yoke who, scorning integrity of life and breaking the bonds of the fear of God, sunk wholly into the earth, wretchedly submits his captive neck to a savage way of life; as we read of the impious, who scorned to look at heaven and heavenly things, as the prophet says: "They set their eyes to bow down to the earth." Attend still to the order in which the apostolic teaching continues; for he says: "What participation has justice with iniquity? Or what fellowship has light with darkness? And what agreement has Christ with Belial? What part has a believer with an unbeliever? And what consent has the temple of God with idols?" "What participation," he says, "has justice with iniquity?" Iniquity and equity cannot, brothers, dwell together in the same heart and in the lodging of one breast. A continual war is certainly waged between the two, and one must be driven out by the other. In vain does an unjust man sometimes display the image of integrity in himself: for in a mind which iniquity frequents, justice is feigned. For many sometimes seem just not for the sake of justice itself, but so as to cast a shadow of holiness over their iniquities they put forward the veils of a counterfeit equity. But those will truly be just into whom iniquity, wholly hateful to God, has never crept; of whom the venerable patriarch David says: "Blessed are those who keep judgment and do justice at all times." Then follows: "What fellowship has light with darkness?" Let every hearer notice that one and the same man cannot be bright and dark; that is, the same man cannot be at once deceitful and simple, proud and humble, cruel and gentle, lustful and chaste, faithless and faithful, envious and friendly. For as there is no fellowship of light and darkness, so there is no communion of virtues and vices. You have next: "What agreement has Christ with Belial?" That is, Christ and the devil cannot meet in one place and in the same mind; as that most faithful Elijah says to Israel when it transgressed: "How long will you limp on two sides? If the Lord is God, follow him; but if Baal, follow him." If, then, the prophet so vehemently condemns a people wavering between error and truth, how do we think, brothers, that we can, limping with uncertain steps, at once follow vices and love virtues? How can we, sealed with one Spirit, both serve Christ and do the devil's will? Or is it not of the devil's will to lie in wait for the innocent, set up factions, slander friends, envy the better, violate faith, attack justice? As on the contrary it is Christ's portion to fear God, love goodness, help the wretched, pursue peace, keep patience, hold love unharmed in all things. You have after this: "What part has a believer with an unbeliever? And what consent has the temple of God with idols?" What partnership indeed, brothers, of the believer and the unbeliever, when one treads the left road and the other walks the right; one tends to life, the other goes to death; this one follows Christ, that one accompanies the devil? What could things so different ever have in common? And who would doubt that there can be no consent of the temple of God with idols? Hence the Apostle says to the faithful men whom he forbids to share in idols: "You are the temple of the living God." So if we are the temple of God, let us not become a tomb of the devil and a receptacle of vices. If we truly receive Christ in our heart, let us drive the enemy of Christ from us with all the strength of faith. These things, most beloved, we have set out from the apostolic reading for our common progress, so that, turning aside with every effort and every zeal from wicked and faithless things, we may always pursue what is pleasing and acceptable to our God.

How great and how necessary is the profit we can have from the holy Scriptures, dearest brothers, most blessed Paul teaches us, saying: "All Scripture inspired by God is useful for teaching, for rebuking, for instructing." How splendid and how wonderful a saying the teacher of the churches has proclaimed about the divine words, which direct and shape the hearts of mortals to the fullest perfection of living! The heavenly word is indeed useful for teaching, for rebuking, for instructing. For teaching, when it sets in order the perverse ways of the undisciplined with the soundness of holy instruction; for rebuking, when it refutes the errors of heresy from the Church of God by the pure and unmixed truth of its assertions. For each of the faithful learns by the admonition of the divine law, lest he incur fault unknowing and ignorant; and we are frightened by its severity, lest by damnable presumption we dare to commit what is not lawful. By its teaching too we perceive that God will be the judge of our good and evil deeds, and confess him as avenger. Hence in the holy Scriptures there is both the teaching of honesty, the rebuke of sins and the instruction of truth. It is fitting, then, that we should say something to your love about the observance of modesty and the guarding of chastity. For chastity ought to be preached by us before the other virtues, which Christ chose before all with a certain special grace in being born of a virgin. And so we must take up the teaching of the holy Gospel, which none of the faithful is unaware is divinely inspired. For there I find it written, there we all read: "If anyone looks at a woman to desire her, he has already committed adultery with her in his heart." See, most beloved, how our most mighty Lord, the corrector of all baseness, reins in the wantonness of human looks, and with what headlong vigour he forestalls the incitements of slippery flesh, lest the worst fruit follow an evil seed! How far he wishes lust to be from man's heart, who represses and chastises wanton glances with such caution! "If anyone," he says, "looks at a woman to desire her, he has already committed adultery with her in his heart." And, as I think, for this reason the Lord so anxiously forestalls the devil's temptations: so that a devout man, if perhaps he has let his eyes loose at the sight of a beautiful woman, may catch himself sinning before he sins, and understand that by the service of his own eyes he has incurred guilt before he has committed the sin. And this, dearest ones, not so that the wretched man may incur a prejudgment of condemnation, but so that, driven by the compunction of a sighing breast, he may not neglect to avoid the fault he foresees. O truly saving physician of human infirmity! Who, lest he find in man something to cure only after the man is harmed, sends the medicine before the wound. And because he wishes none of his believers to burn with the deadly fevers of sins, the remedy of fatherly kindness heals before the infirmity creeps in, as the blessed prophet David says: "My God, his mercy will go before me." For the Salvation of the human race knows best how to cut off the harmful beginnings of a savage conception, he who shuts out the devil as he creeps in, at the very door of sinning, when he is about to enter. For one and the same Son of God is the Lord of our nature and the master of chastity. And why do I say master of chastity, since he himself is uncorrupted modesty, he himself inviolate chastity? For he in whose mouth no deceit was found, whose heart and flesh exulted in the living God, could not have the trace of sin even in his eyes. Therefore, brothers, because manifold sins corrupt our frailty, and that dreadful judgment is being prepared for our life, let us look more carefully, think more holily, lest the undisciplined gaze of our eyes as they wander about creep into our idle heart. For we have received eyes to give light to the body, not to bring blindness on the soul. And after all, the ministers of light ought not to be lighter than those of darkness; for the Lord says to each of us: "If the light that is in you is darkness, how great will the darkness itself be!" And so, dearest ones, the holy Scripture is to be gone over by us often, through which we may be taught honesty, restrained from avarice, and instructed in the saving rules of true faith; as the Apostle says: "Be enlarged yourselves too, and do not bear a yoke with unbelievers."

It is fitting and necessary for us, brothers, for our common instruction and correction, to go over the apostolic admonitions and to search out saving commands in simple words, as it is written: "Blessed are those who search his testimonies; they seek him with their whole heart." The most glorious Paul, then, says: "Let no evil word come out of your mouth." How beautifully and how magnificently the most splendid teacher of heavenly disciplines corrects, almost by the rigour of a single sentence, the unbridledness of evil speaking and the stubbornness of a wanton tongue! For this reason see, dearest brothers, how the master of the Gentiles and excellent pruner of the Lord's vineyard cuts down with the sickle of his precept the branches of all the vices that are to be burned. For by saying, "Let no evil word come out of your mouth," he wipes away at once all the harmful refuse of our heart and mouth. For he acts so that if malice perhaps knocks at anyone's heart, at the devil's prompting, it may not find in it the effect of an operating word. For all the poisons of hidden thoughts, if they are not brought out in words, as though deprived of strength, soon vanish. For so the prophetic word testifies of a certain wicked man, to express the purpose of a malignant heart, saying: "He conceived pain and brought forth iniquity"; that is, the impious and unjust man brought forth with his lips the malice he had conceived in his heart. Take away the birth of malignity by speech, and whatever grief has been conceived in a man's heart, like a kind of miscarriage, will have no power of being born, and will soon die within its own womb. "Let no evil word," then, "come out of your mouth," because without doubt in evil speech there is blasphemy. Remove, then, the whispering of wicked words, and envy will have no incitement to its malignity. Remove the base mystery of soft lips, and no snare of flatterers will be laid for simple men. Take away the workshop of the crafty tongue, and malice will remain empty of crimes, and avarice too; for the mad hunger of a greedy heart is not fed unless malignant speech goes out for prey. "Let no evil word come out of your mouth." How far it befits us to be from evil works, to whom it is not permitted to offend even in speech! For the most blessed Paul says in what follows: "Let fornication and uncleanness not even be named among you, nor base talk, nor buffoonery, which is not fitting." For this reason certainly the Apostle forbids all these things to be named among the faithful, lest either the habit of evil speaking plunge them into the worst deeds, or the tongue of the saints, dedicated to the praises of God, be soiled by the obscenity of base words. For who would bear that from one and the same mouth should come now divine words, now the words of demons? Who would bear that one and the same tongue should sing psalms to God and sing to the devil? And so that we may recognize more fully what and how great the incitements of malignant speech are, let us go over at least a few examples of the holy Scriptures. For an evil word came out of the mouth of Simon the magician when, offering a price to the apostles, he asked that the grace of God be sold to him. An evil word came out of the mouth of the Egyptian woman, who was inflaming chaste Joseph to her bed with base address. An evil word came out of the mouth of the most avaricious king Ahaz, who, kindled with the flame of mad greed, demanded another's vineyard with shameless tongue, and, the evil speech of his wife Jezebel serving him, possessed a thing not owed to him by the death of a murdered poor man. An evil word came out of the mouth of the traitor Judas when in impious conversation he was selling the Lord's blood to the chief priests of the Jews. Hear further, dearest ones, how great a discipline not only of the mouth but also of the eyes is formed in man through the divine words. For the Apostle says, as has been said: "Let no evil word come out of your mouth." And the Lord says: "Whoever looks at a woman to desire her has already committed adultery in his heart." You see, brothers, with what care and with what anxiety we are forbidden either to speak or to look at base things; with what agreement of precepts the good Lord and his faithful servant destroy the instruments of our sins. For the one restrains the eyes, the other the tongue, because lust creeps into man's heart through the eyes, and the desire of the heart is fulfilled through the service of slippery speech. By these commands, then, both Christ cleanses the soiled gaze, lest it accomplish sin through the eyes into the inward parts of our breast, and the Apostle amends our tongue, lest baser speech accomplish base desire. Therefore, most beloved, let us beware with all vigilance lest an evil or base word come out of our mouth, so that a chaste tongue may send to God our prayers, which we pray may be received in heaven.