Sermons of Maximus of Turin (Bruni's collection) 37.1–42.1

The venerable passion of our Saviour, and his wonderful return from the underworld, testify that he had a divine and a human substance. For who would doubt that he is, ineffably, Son of God and son of man, who could both suffer death and, having conquered death, raise himself from the tomb? For when he had taken flesh from the Virgin, so that we might suffer no cloud in the faith of our confession, through the whole time of his preaching he revealed himself as true God and showed himself as perfect man. He wept, indeed, as one grieving with our sorrow; but as one mighty in his own power, pitying the darkness of the blind, to one he made eyes not yet formed, to another he restored eyes that were lost. Sailing with his disciples, he slept the sleep of a man in the stern; but by the command of his conscious majesty he at once calmed the mass of the rising waves and the threatening winds with serene tranquillity. As a man of temporal life he very often testified that he would die; but as eternal God, the life-giving spirit flowing back into their bodies, he commanded the dead to return to the light. As to the son of man, the insults of blasphemers were heaped upon him; but so that ignorant mortality might learn the truth of believing that had not been shown it, the Father addressed him from heaven as his only Son. If, then, O man, you believe the indignities that Christ endured, why do you not rather believe the wonders that he performed? So, incomprehensibly, the flesh is in God and God in the flesh, that neither did the passion separate God from the man, nor through the man was God subjected to human passions. As to the announcement that the Son of God was born of a virgin: in so great a miracle human frailty must not waver, because we confess God, to whom every work is possible, as the author of this astonishing novelty. For blessed David, the Holy Spirit revealing it, sings of God's omnipotence, saying: “Whatever the Lord willed, he did in heaven and on earth.” He, then, who did what he willed, made a virgin conceive; he who did all things he willed did what would help us. “All things,” it says, “that God willed, he did.” Did he will to form the world from nothing? The accomplishment of so great a work was in his Word. Did he will to shape man from dust? Power was not lacking to so great a will. Did he will, at the very beginnings of heaven and earth, to bring forth woman from a man's body? At once from Adam's side came forth Eve, the mother of the human race. Did he will that human beings of both sexes be born from man and woman? By the law of his will, fruitfulness at his command filled the world. Did he will, as was said, that a virgin should give birth? And by the overshadowing of his majesty, with no loss to her virginal modesty, Christ came forth from Mary. And that is why the philosophers of the nations and the wise of the world, who want everything to be settled by their own disputation, while they discuss divine things with an earthly mind, become foolish in their wisdom and do not reach the fullness of truth. They labour, then, to hold this doctrine: that what they themselves cannot grasp, swelling with a proud spirit, they contend God either does not rightly will or cannot do. They are those who, as the Apostle says, “claiming to be wise, became fools”; and again, “they became futile in their thoughts.” For who is so mad as to seek human seed in that virginal conception, where a heavenly mystery is at work? With what folly is the common lot of mortals made a pretext in that kind of birth, when by the work of the Almighty a saving birth blossomed for the life of the perishing! But perhaps the faithless man comes forward and says: No one was ever born like that. No one indeed, because no one's flesh but this has been united with God. Why do you doubt in vain? He who alone granted men to be born through spouses alone willed to come forth from a virgin. Christ was born wonderfully, and in faithless obstinacy you do not believe him God? What would you do if he had been conceived by the common law? Empty and foolish, then, is the complaint that no one was so born, since the sacrament of the fruitful virgin, which is the unique work of God, could neither have an example before it nor leave one after it. So you too, brother, if you search wisely into things beyond comprehension, believe that what you see to be unique is divine. Indeed, when the Saviour asked his disciples who men believed him to be, most blessed Peter then answered with a sacred voice, saying: “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” See, brothers, a man's tongue speaks what a man's heart did not know. The apostle speaks what he did not learn by meditation but knew by revelation. For how would an earthly and mortal man know the secret of the incomprehensible generation, had not the Father himself, whose true Son he was, revealed it from heaven? As the Lord says to him: “Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah, for flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven.” For in that the chief of the apostles calls the Redeemer of all the Son of the living God, he confesses in him the substance of the Father's Godhead; in that he declares him the Christ, he asserts that the reality of his mother's body is in him. So indeed most blessed Peter embraced both natures in Christ under one name, so that, touching the sacrament of an ineffable mystery in the briefest word, he neither divided what was twofold nor confused what was united. And so that we might more fully grasp that in the Saviour neither is the man to be separated from God nor God from the man, the most glorious teacher of the faith, the apostle Paul, says: “God sent his Son, made of a woman, made under the law.” The Son of God was certainly not made so that he might be sent; but for that to which he was sent he was made son of man. For, the property of the divine nature being kept intact, he took human nature into himself, with no confusion made, but a perfect union. “He sent his Son,” it says: he sent him, not subject to the condition of a creature, but in natural love of one accord with him. For the Lord himself says: “I and the Father are one.” Those, then, who are one cannot differ from each other in unequal power. The Father sent his own Son, not departing from himself, but coming to us for our salvation. And the Son of God came, not only to carry out the command of the Father who sent him, but to accomplish their common will. The Son of God came, not as one who passes from place to place, but fulfilling the task of his purpose in whatever place he wished. And indeed, though God is always everywhere and encloses all things in the bosom of his majesty, he is believed to go or come there where he deigns to reveal himself. Unless you follow these things by faith, brother, you will grasp them by no reasoning of worldly sense. For the understanding of mortal wit is as far from the works of God as mortality can be distant from eternity. But the best reasoning for a man is that in things he cannot embrace with the mind he yields to the author of the mind. We ought to know, then, dearly beloved, that it was not his condition but his will that gave us the Lord's birth and passion. Doubtless the cause of our business required that Christ the Lord not avoid the shame of a woman's womb, should endure an infancy soiled in swaddling clothes, wait through delays for a growing boyhood, pass a youth strengthening with time, and bear with all patience the injuries and blows of Jewish fury. Nor was it a superfluous or empty will that the Son of God, who lived in the heavenly kingdom in his Father's Godhead, should die on earth in the matter of humanity through the disgraces of such great sufferings, had not the necessity of our remedy demanded that he be born. What has God to do with flesh? The spotless with a cross? The eternal with death? Indeed the words and wounds and all the reproaches of the passion inflicted on the Son of God would be counted against him, had not the resurrection soon followed and healed all that he suffered. Who, then, is so foolish as to presume, by reconsidering it, to discredit the fact that Christ was crucified, who by so many powers and such great miracles was made more wonderful by his passion? Who would dare to reproach him with a three-day burial, whose eternity, abiding with the everlasting Father, is proclaimed? Rather, who would not marvel with all astonishment that he deigned to go to the underworld, who by his own power could both return to life after death and did not hesitate to ascend to heaven after the underworld? And so, brothers, this one thing is saving for us: that, measuring ourselves and chastening the narrowness of our breast, which offers itself beyond measure, we follow in all things the will of the true God, whose power we acknowledge; who lives and reigns for ages of ages. Amen.

On the paschal feast, dearest brothers, on which we exult that our Lord has returned from the underworld, our joy is shared with heaven. For the angels rejoice that the enemy of their Lord, the tyrant of the heavenly empire, has been destroyed by the power of the lawful and eternal King. We too, mortal and weak men, glory in the gift of the Lord's passion, that we have at last put off slavery to the devil and been called back into the freedom of living and into the right of the Father's love. This is surely what blessed David says: “Let the heavens rejoice and the earth exult.” One and the same joy has plainly been made for heavenly and earthly beings, because one and the same is the Lord who conquered on earth and who reigns in heaven. And again the same: “This,” he says, “is the day which the Lord has made; let us exult and rejoice in it.” He says, “This is the day which the Lord has made,” as though there were some day God had not made? The Lord has given every day, but this one he made specially, which, shining with perpetual light, admits no alternation of darkness. This is the day which, scattering the cloud of crimes, beams the light of perpetuity on the darkened eyes of mortals. This is the day on which the Lord of life terrified the underworld—raging death, terrible with the horror of eternal night—with the new and unexpected brightness of his majesty. “Let us exult,” says the prophetic word, “and rejoice in it”; as if it were not enough to have said “let us exult” without adding “and rejoice.” But prophetic foreknowledge doubles for us the words of spiritual joys for this reason: so that, all the grief of most sorrowful death wiped away, it might proclaim the gladness both of the present life and of the future. Let us exult now, then, as redeemed, so that afterwards we may rejoice as saved. Let us exult as the Lord rises, so that we may rejoice as the same Lord reigns. And we shall rightly rejoice, brothers, if the gifts of true faith, the redemption already given, and the resurrection promised gladden us. But why, dearly beloved, should we doubt the benefits of the Almighty? Was it without reason that he was made man of a woman, who was born God of God incomprehensibly? Was it in vain that he willed to cry in the cradle, who makes earth and heaven tremble with the terrifying voices of his thunders? Was it to no purpose that he wept, who enriched a man blind from birth with new eyes by the power of his spittle? Was it idly that he was given vinegar to drink and fed with gall, who could provide streams from the rock in the vast wilderness for the thirsty and manna from heaven for the hungry? Is his passion empty, who in the unsearchable secret of his will came down from heavenly things to the cross? And so we, who by the grossness of our carnal mind cannot grasp the mysteries of his passion, let us hold by the belief of right faith what he has bestowed. And we shall hold and take the gifts of his glory if faith guards our life and our life does not disagree with faith. And as he willed to please us by dying, so let us be eager not to displease him by living; by the gift of him who with the Father, etc.

Most justly, brothers, the world exults today with a universal joy, since, with Christ returning from the dead, the hope of rising has dawned for all mortals everywhere. And it must be that, as the Lord of creatures triumphs, the creation enlightened by him should rejoice. So heaven rejoices, because it sees the earth, long filthy with sins, cleansed by its Lord's blood; the multitude of the heavenly host rejoices, because by the conflict of its King all the army of the enemy prince has been defeated. The sun too rejoices, because it puts down with brighter rays and lasting gladness that mournful darkness which it endured when the Lord was dying. Among these, dearly beloved, it is fitting that we especially should exult, for whose sake the Only-begotten of God, himself God, put on human flesh, so that through man's flesh he might come to the cross, through the cross undergo death, through death plunder the underworld. Should we not rejoice, from whom by the sacrament of a new mystery sins are taken away, heaven is given, paradise restored? Indeed, to the thief then hanging on the cross, when neither his own punishment nor Christ's disturbed his faith, the Lord himself said: “Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in paradise”; for the thief was saying: “Remember me, Lord, when you come into your kingdom.” How wonderful is this faith, brothers, that a thief who did not deserve to keep the present life should, amid his punishments, take up the hope of eternity, and believe that it could be granted him by one crucified! And how justly did the faithful thief receive the gift of so great a promise, who confessed Christ's kingdom at the moment when even the apostles were troubled! And so the merit of one confession absolved all the thief's former crimes, and whatever he had sinned through a long life he blotted out with a very short word. Nor did the blood of his brigandage condemn him before God, because he believed Christ's blood to be a kingdom, not a punishment. There is no doubt, dearly beloved, that this deed has profited the whole human race. For who would despair of God's grace when a thief has been absolved, if only the thief's belief accompanies the prayers of those who pray? We have also another magnificent example of the Lord's kindness, by which, putting off all fear of deadly despair, we may trust in the ineffable indulgence of our Redeemer. For when Christ, condemned by the impious, hung on the cross, and Jewish fury mocked the crucified, he, as a kind advocate, amid his very wounds prayed to the almighty Father for his killers, saying: “Father, forgive them; they do not know what they do”; and though the judgment of the living and the dead was in his hand, he still begged pardon for those who were perishing; but for this reason, I think: to show beyond doubt both that he himself forgave so wicked an offence, and that those whom he spared would not be condemned by his Father, provided that, repudiating their faithlessness, they came over to the name of Christ. For who would hesitate indeed about the outcome of the petition, where the Good asks a remedy for the wretched from the Good? “They do not know,” he says, “what they do.” The Jews knew indeed that they were shedding innocent blood, but they did not know that the sins of all were blotted out by that blood. They knew that they were punishing Christ with the bitterest torment of the cross, but they did not know that the Son of God was triumphing through the cross. They knew that he would die, but they did not know that he would return from the dead. Hence it was excellently said by the Lord: “They do not know what they do.” The Jews certainly did not know of how great a kindness their impiety was the instrument. But the Lord, conscious of his own power, pitying human errors, and knowing most fully what and how great joys would follow those torments, kindly absolved the crime of those who crucified him even amid his torments, and willed his death to be the life of his killers, and the condemnation [of death] to be the killing of it. Returning from the underworld, he so sought out his apostles as to show that he had both the power of Godhead and the reality of flesh. And so, dearest brothers, let us rejoice as Christ rises from the dead, and let us believe that he called back his own flesh from the underworld, so that we may merit both the apostolic grace and the longed-for fellowship of the Lord's resurrection.

The feast of the Lord's resurrection returns to us yearly, dearest brothers; but where there is truth of religion, the sacrament is always new to the faithful, as most blessed Paul says: “The old things have passed away; all things have become new.” And rightly the Son of God must always be believed new, who feels no aging of passing times. He is new, brothers, in whom there is no change of age, nor has he ever known to be other than he was born. For God proceeding from God, as he has no time of birth, so he cannot have an end of living, as the most glorious patriarch David says to him: “But you are always the same, and your years will not fail.” And not only is the man Christ himself, who has been made one with God, always new; but he is always seen to renew the declining old age of the human race by the warmth of spiritual waters and the nourishment of heavenly faith, as blessed David says: “Send forth your Spirit, and they will be created, and you will renew the face of the earth.” The face of the earth, man, is surely renewed when, putting off the old captivity of the devil, he puts on the new freedom of the new King. For it is the saying of the Lord himself: “If the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.” And rightly, dearly beloved, the Son of God alone frees sinners, because he alone is free from sin, as he deigned to testify of himself through the prophet, saying: “I have become as a man without help, free among the dead.” He seemed indeed to have become without help when Jewish fury received the power to rage against him. But he stood free among the dead, because among all mortals he alone had no causes of dying. Therefore death, conquered by him, could not hold him as he rose. See, dearly beloved, how great a mystery is in Christ's humility: that, though he is eternal from the eternal and Lord of the universe, he accomplishes the freedom of his servants. He rejoices in injuries, exults in reproaches, and his whole triumph is on the cross; and by a wonderful kind of remedy he overcomes the devil by suffering and gives life to man by dying. All these things the Only-begotten undertook for us out of kindness, endured by power, accomplished by humility. Of this humility the prophet Isaiah says: “As a lamb before its shearer is without voice, so he did not open his mouth in his humility.” How fine this comparison is, brothers, and how suited to the truth! For as a lamb, when it is sheared, does not know how to cry out against the shearer, so Christ, when he was crucified, did not resist the one who wounded him. The lamb is stripped and is silent; Christ is killed and keeps quiet. The silence of the lamb, its woolly fleece shorn, clothes man; the silence of Christ weaves garments of eternal salvation for all believers. “He did not open his mouth,” it says, “in his humility”: that is, that Christ was silent amid reproaches and curses was not a matter of wretchedness but of power. For with this purpose the Son of God came to redeem the world: to triumph over the proud by humility, over the obstinate by modesty, over the cursing by silence. So indeed we read: “When he was cursed, he did not curse.” There is no doubt about this, brothers, for he knew how to answer cursing with true blessing; nor could he be moved by earthly curses who had come to bestow blessings from heaven. And rightly Christ, the Wisdom of God, returned no curses to those who cursed, because every curse, beaten back by patience, returns upon its author. So Christ humbled himself, as the Apostle says, becoming obedient to death, even death on a cross. He humbles himself even to death on a cross, so that the heavenly victim might not succumb to some cheap and ordinary death, but that, as mediator of God and men, he might accomplish the sacrament of the death he had undertaken midway between heaven and earth. So the Author of life died by our condition, so that we might live by his privilege. The Son of God was crucified, then, not so that the cross might defile Christ, but so that by the sacrament of Christ the cross might become the badge of our victory. Indeed, all of us who rejoice in confessing Christ glory in the sign of the cross. Nor can anyone be counted in the Christian army unless he has raised the standard of the Crucified with a faithful hand. Because of this death of the cross, as we read, the Almighty exalted his Christ and gave him a name above every name. He gave him a name above every name when he handed over heavenly things to his rule and power and subjected the world and the underworld to him, as the Saviour himself says: “All things have been handed over to me by my Father in heaven and on earth.” Does he not seem to hold dominion over all things, to have the principate, whom, as we read, every creature, bending the knee, trembles before and looks up to as ruler? Indeed, some nations now, though they differ among themselves in way of life and variety of languages, still agree with one mouth in confessing Christ; and though some of them, by a very bad persuasion, differ from us about his Godhead, yet they confess with us both that he suffered and that he returned from the dead. And so, dearly beloved, believing the resurrection and kingdom of Christ, let us rejoice with chaste minds and holy devotion, so that by faith and works we may prove that we do not disbelieve what the whole world believes.

The foremost of the prophets, most blessed Isaiah, who thundered forth the mysteries of the Lord's birth and resurrection, says among other things: “Rejoice, O heaven, and let the earth exult; let the mountains break forth into gladness and the hills into righteousness, because God has had mercy on his people and has comforted the lowly of his people.” This proclamation, brothers, belongs most of all to these days and foretells the paschal feast, as we notice from the sequence of the reading itself and learn from what follows. Rightly, then, are the heavenly beings now called to all joy, when the Only-begotten of the Most High, having broken the gates of hell and cast down the devil, brought the joys of blessed eternity to most sorrowful mortals. How could heaven not rejoice, when it saw its Lord, the battle for our salvation finished, sitting as victor at the seat of his majesty and at the right hand of the Father? Heaven rejoices that its Lord, having fulfilled the purpose of the Father's will, has by the merit of his triumph received the kingdom of the universe. “Rejoice,” it says, “O heaven, and let the earth exult.” The earth of the human race surely exults, which, sprinkled with the blood of the heavenly Lamb, is not only restored to paradise but called to heaven to reign with the Lord. Let our flesh exult too, which truly is earth, since, glorified through Christ, it has merited fellowship with the Godhead. “Let the mountains,” it says, “break forth into gladness, and the hills into righteousness.” These mountains and hills that are roused to joy we may not unfittingly take to mean the patriarchs, as we read also in holy David: “You shine wonderfully from the everlasting mountains”; and elsewhere: “The mountains skipped like rams, and the hills like lambs of the flock.” And rightly are all the righteous called mountains and hills, who, leaving the lowly things of earthly conduct, have raised the summit of their faith to the heights of heavenly life. Most justly, then, are the venerable patriarchs urged by the prophetic word to take up gladness, whose offspring, that is, Christ the Lord, by the mystery of his death and resurrection poured back lost life even on the fathers of the past age. The patriarchs rejoice in every way, from whose stock the Son of God was born, who wiped clean with the new blood of his spotless body the whole face of the world, long soiled by devilish impieties. And so, brothers, since we know that heaven rejoices, the earth exults, mountains and hills are glad, let us too bring religious joys to our God; let us celebrate the Lord's Passover, as the Apostle says: “Not with the leaven of malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and chastity.” You will celebrate the Passover, brother, with the unleavened bread of sincerity and chastity, if your senses, fragrant with the Lord's bread, are joined together with no leaven of vices and no sprinkling of the devil. You will celebrate the Passover and shine with the splendour of its brightness if in your heart no darkness of adulterous thought obscures the light of so great a sacrament. You will celebrate the Passover with the unleavened bread of truth if you come to God's Church chaste, sober, just, peaceable, full of brotherly love. For no one can, with an unamended life and an unrepentant heart, both have fellowship in crimes with the devil and celebrate the mystery of holiness with Christ. Let us, then, put away all the leaven of iniquity, so that we may truly be partakers of this joy, to which, by the Holy Spirit, through the prophetic voice, the mountains and hills are called together, to which also heaven and earth are invited. For who is so stupefied in dull sense? Who, his eyes sunk in the earth, is so blinded in a darkened mind that he does not celebrate with all exultation these prayers of the whole world, in which forgiveness of sins, the grace of regeneration, the mystery of redemption, the glory of resurrection, and the hope of eternity smile upon us?

The mystery of our redemption, dearest brothers, which, coming from heaven, works our salvation on earth, carries itself with such majesty and such condescension that its power and truth are hidden from the faithless and plain to believers. For as what is holy becomes known to the faithful, so faithlessness cannot see the matter of faith. For in examining heavenly things all human wisdom is made foolish, and every mortal heart grows numb, as the most glorious teacher, the apostle Paul, says: “The wisdom of this world is foolishness with God.” Our Lord and Saviour himself also, rejecting the wisdom of this world, said: “I thank you, Father, because you have hidden these things from the wise and prudent and revealed them to little ones.” Learn, then, from this, brothers, that the sacraments of our life are not to be attained by philosophical doctrines but to be believed with the simplicity of little ones, because by that deep and great judgment of our God what is hidden from the wise is revealed to the little one. For he is called a little one, not whose age is immature, but who does not know how to oppose the divine mysteries. And rightly is he named a little one who prepares not arguments against the will of his God, but faith. It is hidden, then, from the wise man, so that he does not see what is plain, because, proudly and imprudently puffed up, he contends that he knows more than God can do. And so, rejecting the questions of worldly wisdom, let us hold the faith that is revealed to little ones, believing without hesitation that a virgin conceived by heavenly working and, having borne a son, remained a virgin after the birth. Nor let us doubt that he was born of a virgin, whom only virginity could worthily bring forth. And this, dearly beloved, is where we differ from the wise of this world: that they, in their immoderate disputations, despise in Christ the lowliness of a woman's childbearing, while we, enlightened by faith, look up to the sacrament of the virginal womb. For Christ, our God and Lord, so bound together in himself, in an ineffable union, what he had from the Father and what he took from his mother, that the simplicity of little ones might look into the depth of his incarnation, while the prudence of the wise was driven far off. Then, to come to what follows, the pagans laugh that Christ was crucified, not attending to the fact that through his cross the world trembled, the day was shut, and—what had happened in no ages before—the underworld saw the Lord of heaven. They add, saying: How is your Christ worshipped by you as God, who was afraid to die? If, then, you know that Christ was afraid to die, why do you not know that his fearing was a matter not of cowardice but of mystery? Christ was indeed afraid, but that he might either wish or be able to fear, he took it from the weakness of our body. For he was afraid by that by which he also hungered, by which he was sad, by which he slept, by which he grieved, by which he wept. What is this? You see Christ fearing to die, and do not see him with triumphant hand stripping the spoils of captive death? You see that he feared death, and refuse to see that he raised the dead? That he, having passed through the underworld, gave life back to himself after the tomb? Do not despise him dead, then, who glorifies his burial by his resurrection. For from his mother he drew that by which he underwent death; from the Father he brought that by which he raised the dead. Rising from the underworld, to show that the reality of his raised body was in him, he said to his disciples: “Touch and see, for a spirit does not have flesh and bones, as you see that I have.” He showed his bones and flesh, so that no one might doubt that the one who had been pierced with nails on the tree had himself returned from the tomb. “Touch,” he says, “and see”: that is, touch with the hand, see with faith, that there is in me both the reality of my body and the property of the Godhead. “A spirit does not have flesh and bones, as you see that I have”: that is, it is not of nature that a spirit can have bones or flesh; but by my mystery, by my power and my Father's, it has come about that my flesh in the spirit and the spirit in the flesh always stand inseparable in me. See, then, see, that it is I myself, who, pierced with nails and lance, feared death and did not fear it; who healed my wounds not by the skill of medical art but by dying; who kept the marks of the nails in my body not for myself but for your faith. For I willed not to blot out in myself the memory of that saving passion, so that the truth of my resurrection might remain in your hearts. And so, brothers, let us honour the mystery of the dying Lord, so that we may receive the glory of the rising one. Let us venerate the crucified, so that we may merit to see him reigning. For he chose to die, not so that the underworld might claim him for itself, but so that he might free the dead from the dead.