Sermons of Maximus of Turin (Bruni's collection) 49.1–55.2

After the feast of the Lord's Ascension, dearest brothers, today we celebrate the holy mysteries of Pentecost, so that, as we rejoiced that a man ascended to heaven for us, so now we may exult that for our sake the Holy Spirit came down from heaven. Christ went to the Father; the Paraclete came from the Father; so that we may not doubt that all the gifts of eternal salvation are conferred on us by the disposition and will of the almighty Father, from whom the Spirit comes and to whom the Son goes. The new man, then, ascended into heaven, so that by his grace the Spirit might deign to come to earth. The Holy Spirit came from heaven to announce to mortals that Christ reigns with the Father. For who else could open the divine secret to those who dwell on earth, had not one who shares the Godhead come from heaven? So it was read, as you heard: “And when the days of Pentecost were being fulfilled, they were all of one mind together in the same place.” And a little after it says: “They were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in various tongues, as the Spirit gave them to speak.” The apostles, then, were of one mind, and they were filled with the Holy Spirit. He comes to those of one mind, visits those in harmony, rewards the peaceable; and gladly did he fill the hearts of the venerable apostles, whose breasts Christ, their author and master, already inhabited. “And the Holy Spirit,” as we heard, “sat upon each one of them.” Notice, dearly beloved, that the breast of the peaceable is the seat of God, as blessed David says: “And his place has been made in peace.” Nor should we doubt that the apostles kept the grace of unanimity toward one another, to whom Christ, about to pass to the Father, had said: “By this all will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.” And again: “My peace I give you; my peace I leave you.” It is no wonder, then, if in the breasts of the apostles mutual love and the peace of Christ delighted the Holy Spirit. We read also in the Gospel that the Saviour said to his disciples: “I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Paraclete.” And again he says: “For if I do not go away, the Paraclete will not come to you; but if I go away, I will send him to you.” Who, then, can with impunity refuse to believe either that the Holy Spirit is God, who came as foretold by the Son of God, or that Christ is Lord, whose saving promise the everlasting Father fulfilled? Great, brothers, and incomprehensible is this sacrament: that a man goes from earth to heaven to send God to us on earth from heaven. And this indeed is the peace and harmony of the Godhead: that both Christ was born as the Spirit announced, and the Spirit came down as Christ promised. They speak of each other, they send each other, they obey each other, because there is in them no difference of will or power, and with the Father they always work one mystery for the eternity of mortals. “It is expedient for you,” he says, “that I go.” How wonderful is this gift of our salvation! That as it was expedient for you that Christ should come from heaven, so it was expedient that he should also return. It was expedient that he come, to give his blood for us; it was no less expedient that he return, to bestow on us his Spirit. They were filled, then, as was read, with the Holy Spirit, and began to speak in various tongues, as the Spirit gave them to speak. This variety of tongues announces the unity of the Godhead. A diverse and manifold speech came forth from each, but one spoke in all. The Hebrew sounds a language he did not learn before, so that the Gentile may hear the faith he did not know. Nor is it any wonder, dearly beloved, if Christ gave his apostles knowledge of languages through the Holy Spirit, he who could restore walking to the lame, eyes to the blind, speech to the dumb. And so, brothers, let us not doubt these things, but believe with all devotion, because all things are possible to God, and it was necessary that new miracles of speech should confirm the new faith.

It is plain, brothers, and clear to all, how great is the care of almighty God the Father for all mortals, for whom it was too little to have handed over his only Son to death for us, unless he had also poured out the fullness of his gifts in the hearts of his faithful, as was said by the Lord through the prophet: “In the last days I will pour out of my Spirit upon my servants and my handmaids, and I will give wonders in the heaven above and signs on the earth below. The sun will be turned into darkness and the moon into blood.” The Lord indeed gives wonders in heaven, when at Christ's birth a new star shines before the eyes of the Chaldeans, and at his passion the noonday sun sets, darkened by sudden gloom. He gives signs on earth, when the earth itself trembles with unwonted heavings, when rocks split and leap apart, when even tombs give back to the light the bodies of the dead. “The sun,” it says, “will be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood.” What else, dearly beloved, if we contemplate spiritual things, is the sun's being turned into darkness, but when Christ passes into death; or the moon's being turned into blood, but when the holy Church is bloodied by various sufferings for the confession of her Christ? Christ is handed over to death, not to remain in the corruption of the tomb, but to shine more brightly after the darkness of the underworld. The Church is harassed by the hands of bloody men, not to fail amid torments and punishments, but to be adorned to all beauty through manifold titles of victories by the blood of triumphant martyrs. All these things are done and accomplished by one and the same grace of Christ and the Spirit in agreement: Christ, who kindles the hearts of his servants to every desire of suffering by the hope of eternal reward; the Spirit, no less, who by the vigour of divine power strengthens the hearts of believers to despise death. And so, after the Lord returned as victor to the Father and took himself back into his kingdom, by the Father's grace bestowing it with him, he gave his apostles the Paraclete whom he had promised, so that the Spirit, coming from above, might guard the faith which he himself had planted in them. The Spirit, then, came down on the apostles as Christ had promised, so that it might appear that their will is one and indissoluble in all things. How fittingly the Godhead inserts itself into human senses by mutual testimony, when Christ foretells that the Spirit will come from heaven, and the Spirit testifies that Christ reigns in heaven! Who would doubt that the voice of him who goes to heaven and of him who comes from heaven is most true? So today the apostles, as was read, were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in various tongues, as the Spirit gave them to speak. The Spirit surely filled those whose hearts Christ's blood and teaching had purified for his coming. And this was the first benefit of the Spirit's coming: that these men, who had been appointed for the salvation of all nations, should speak the speech of all. And the grace of the Paraclete so filled both the tongue and the heart of the apostles that power was not lacking to their words nor words to their power. Nor is there anything else in divine and human affairs that makes a man so glorious as the perfection of holy speech and the fullness of heavenly strength. The apostles, then, spoke through one Spirit in various tongues, so that the variety of nations might come together into the one faith of Christ. Hence there is no doubt that this Holy Spirit must be confessed God with the Father and the Son: for who else but God would bring it about that a Roman, a Parthian too, and a Mede, and a Phrygian, and every barbarian, a stranger in Judea, should hear his own language, and a Galilean should speak the secrets of heaven not only in the elegance of Greek and Roman speech but even in harsh murmur and groaning effort to barbarian ears? For once, when human presumption, striving to go to heaven, was building itself a tower, and its stubborn effort did not succeed, the fellowship of one speech was divided by a variety of tongues suddenly sent upon it, so that while one did not understand another speaking, that whole fabric of impiety was at once dissolved. But now, where God prepares for man the ascent to heaven, skill in all languages is given to the heralds of so great a grace, so that so great a promise of God might be hidden from the people of no nation, as was said many ages before by the prophetic word: “There are no speeches nor languages in which their voices are not heard.” Hence it is plain, dearly beloved, that the Son of almighty God, who willed the mystery of eternal salvation to be preached in the truth of all languages, came as the redeemer not of the one Jewish people only but of all men. And so, brothers, since the goodness of Christ wills that no mortal perish, let us cleanse ourselves from all impurity and iniquity, so that the most kind Spirit of God may also deign to enlighten our hearts in aid of our life, etc.

How great is the care of almighty God for the salvation of mortals, dearest brothers, and with what affection of condescension, pitying human dangers, he has made void the devil's power, we can judge most fully and beyond doubt from this: that he both drew us to the faith of truth by the blood of his Son and strengthened the hearts of believers by granting the visitation of the Holy Spirit. For Christ redeemed us to life; [the Spirit] raises us to virtue; so that the grace we received when the Son handed it over we may keep as the Spirit guards it. We see indeed, dearly beloved, that the benefits of the Only-begotten of God and of the Holy Spirit are distinct under the dispensation of the mystery, but we notice in both the same will and one sacrament of kindness. For Christ is born of a woman for our salvation, but the Spirit works together to form the man himself in the Virgin, as was said to blessed Mary: “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you.” The Son of God is also baptized for us in the Jordan, but to glorify his baptism the Holy Spirit is present from heaven in a dove. So far indeed is their purpose one and their counsel one, that both Christ promises the Spirit to men and the Spirit announces Christ, as the Lord says: “When the Paraclete comes, whom I send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth who proceeds from my Father, he will bear witness about me.” They proclaim each other by mutual testimonies, who know that they reign in undivided majesty. Indeed, so that we may know more plainly that they are separated by no division at all, the Paraclete visits and enlightens those very men whom the Saviour chose as fit for his mysteries. The Lord Jesus hung on the cross for the whole human race, but his Gospel would not have shone on all, had not the Lord's passion come to the knowledge of all nations by the gift of the Holy Spirit, when he gave the apostles the knowledge of various tongues. For Parthians and Medes and Elamites, and the other nations, as we have read, hear in Judea in their own tongues the mighty works of God and the remedies of their life being preached. Who, then, could have accomplished this but truly almighty God: that wild minds should learn religious holiness and barbarian speech receive heavenly doctrine? Let us, then, brothers, venerate with divine worship this Spirit, to whom belongs the full power of regenerating and the authority to forgive sins, as the Lord instructs his disciples, saying: “Go, teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit”; and elsewhere: “Receive the Holy Spirit: whose sins you forgive, they are forgiven, and whose you retain, they are retained.” Who, then, is so mad as to doubt that he is God, who with the Father and the Son has inseparable glory and an undivided name, who by common dominion both punishes the pride of the sinner and absolves the humility of the one who confesses, etc.

From the beginning of the ages, dearest brothers, the Holy Spirit promised us through patriarchs and prophets that the Son of God would come for the redemption of the world: for he prophesied many thousands of years before that he would be born of the Virgin, taking the flesh of the new man, would suffer injuries, insults and the cross from the impious, and also his resurrection from the underworld. When this had been fulfilled through our Lord Jesus Christ, and the mystery accomplished, he illuminated the hearts of his apostles by the wonderful coming of his majesty, so that he might now proclaim the eternal glory of the kingdom of him whose lowliness and passion he had earlier sung, the devil having been triumphed over and death conquered. This Paraclete our Redeemer himself announced to his disciples not many days before, saying that he would come from heaven and be sent from the Father. And so it comes about that, while the Spirit prophesies Christ, the only-begotten of God the Father, and Christ promises that the Spirit will come from the Father, and they foretell each other by mutual attestation, they are believed to be one, to will one thing, and always to have one power. This, dearly beloved, is the Holy Spirit who by the working of a more secret mystery enriched the Virgin's womb with heavenly fruitfulness. This is the Spirit who visited the baptism of Christ our Lord, seen indeed by John in the form of a dove, but in silence; nor did he think his own voice necessary, at the time when the Father himself was speaking from heaven, saying: “You are my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.” We are taught these things by the testimonies of the holy Scriptures so that the undivided majesty but distinct property of the persons may be revealed to us. For as regards the unity of the Godhead, in the Word of the Father is the consent of the Spirit, and in the speech of the Spirit is the will of the Father. For who, unless perhaps an impious heretic or a faithless Jew, would doubt that the Holy Spirit is God, without whom neither is the sacrament of baptism accomplished nor forgiveness of sins granted? Who is so mad as to deny that he is God, against whom it is so impious and deadly to have blasphemed that no pardon follows the blasphemer's sin, as our Saviour pronounces, saying: “Whoever speaks a word against the Son of Man, it will be forgiven him; but whoever against the Holy Spirit, it will not be forgiven him, neither in this age nor in the one to come.” This Holy Spirit, I say, proceeding from the Father, promised by the Son, deigned to pour the gifts of his glory into the apostles of Christ, so that they spoke of his passions and kingdom in the speech of all nations—by this condescension, that since the whole human race was being called to life, the whole world everywhere might hear the dispensation of God's mysteries. How great a miracle was it, brothers, that a Hebrew, suddenly breaking out into words not his own, instructed the Greek about the mighty works of God, taught the Roman, addressed the Egyptian, and formed all barbarian nations for faith in their own tongues! And so, dearly beloved, let us implore the mercies of almighty God, that we may be able to announce worthy things of God, and you may be able to hear and understand what is said with due reverence, etc.

Of inestimable goodness is the grace, dearest brothers, which the Almighty either mightily bestowed on us by creating or mercifully granted by regenerating. For by creating he brought it about that, dust being given life in man by a wonderful working, all of us who were not came to be; by regenerating he conferred that a second birth should give what our first nature had not given us: which second birth, through the sacraments of baptism, begets servants into sons and promises heaven to the faithful. Noble indeed was that first creation of men; but this following one is not only nobler by the purity of the mysteries but heavenly by the consecration of the blessed Spirit. The former birth takes on sins; this one lays them down. There by being born we die; here we live by dying. Indeed, so that Christ might bestow this nobility on the human race, he took upon himself for us the indignities of a servile birth: though unlike in conception, yet like in the manner of being born. In that conception, though the eternal Father was present, still neither was the law of giving birth changed for the Mother nor was the crying of infancy lacking to the child being born. The Father surely held in his Son the power of a twofold substance, so that by the majesty of his power the venerable Mother might both conceive one and the same Christ as God and bear him as man. Does not the Son of God appear to have been conceived, where, with no fleshly seed, both a man is believed formed in a virgin womb and he who was born is not doubted to be God? Wonderful is the childbearing of an untouched Mother; but much more wonderful that virginity remained to her after giving birth. For—wonderful to say—flesh born of flesh kept inviolate the barriers of natural modesty. These things so holy and so magnificent that God did to whom all the works of heaven and earth answer according to the will of his power, for whom to do incomprehensible things consists not in labour or work but in command. To give a virgin a new childbearing, he acted by the power by which he made all things from nothing; for that it was a divine work that virginal fruitfulness shone upon this world the angel Gabriel, sent to Mary, revealed, saying to her: “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; and therefore the holy one who will be born of you will be called the Son of God.” And blessed Mary, keeping the seals of her undefiled womb intact for that venerable Joseph, by heavenly dispensation always a betrothed, never a husband, brought forth not a son but the Lord. To this Joseph it was said by the angel: “What Mary has in her womb is from the Holy Spirit.” And so the voice of angelic testimony thundered this into the patriarch's ears, lest perhaps the stain of a sinister suspicion should wound the mind of the young man astonished at so great a miracle, and he should think there was a woman's fault where a saving mystery was being born for us. Nor could that innocent and anxious betrothed, brothers, otherwise believe so great a novelty of a fruitful womb, had not an advocate sent from on high proclaimed the virginal chastity of the betrothed who was to give birth. The Holy Spirit, then, as we read, united man's flesh to the Only-begotten of the Father in the Virgin's womb; united it, not by the skill of a craftsman shaping, but by the majesty of one forming; and the power and truth of the new work testify that this Spirit is truly God. For how, in that workshop of our salvation, in the conception of Christ, where the Father was not absent, where the Son was present, where our flesh was being joined to divine fellowship, is the same Spirit declared as author, unless he had the same power in nature and the same fellowship in will with the Father and the Son? You see, then, brothers, that the co-worker of God could not be anything but God. For the Holy Spirit was, as he is, both undivided from the Father and inseparable from the Son, between whom, as the faithful word of the sacred reading teaches us, there is no distance in power but distinction in working. For Christ says of him to his disciples: “When the Paraclete comes, whom I will send you from the Father, the Spirit of truth who proceeds from my Father, he will bear witness about me.” Again the Saviour says of himself: “I am the way, the truth, and the life.” “I am,” he says, “the truth.” If, then, the Son, who is the truth, declares that he is the Spirit of truth, who could deny that he is God, except one who does not believe the truth about the truth? So the Spirit is true God, whom Christ testifies with equal profession both proceeds from the Father and is to be sent by himself. And the Son of God sends the Spirit of his Father; he sends him, not as one obeying a command, but as one in harmony with the mystery. And for this reason the Spirit himself, proceeding from the Father, is read to be sent by the Son, so that he might not be believed either to be anything other than the Father is, or to will anything different from what the Son wills. Therefore, brothers, it shines out without hesitation that the will of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit is one, since both the Son sends what is the Father's and the Father imparts what is his own so that it may be directed by the Son. This Spirit, then, accomplishing with the Father and the Son one sacrament of redemption, announces in the languages of all nations the majesty of Christ who sends him, not as one paying a service to a superior, but as one making known the rule of one who reigns with him. He gave the apostles a variety of languages for this reason: so that through them the teaching of saving faith might reach the hearing of all peoples. The Paraclete himself was indeed manifold in speech, almighty in power, diverse in tongues, and one in all. Every hearer marvels that the mouth of a foreign nation utters speech not foreign to him. The speaker himself is amazed that words not his own come from his mouth. And so it came about that, while varied speech spoke one faith through many, discordant nations came together into the fellowship of one faith. And so, brothers, turning away from the vanities of the world and trampling the delights of this very short life, let us always savour him and always speak of him who has granted mortals to savour heavenly things and to speak divine things on earth. To him be honour and glory for ages of ages. Amen.

You all know, brothers, how venerable is the solemnity of this day and with what joys so great a feast is to be celebrated by all. For today that promise of our Saviour has been fulfilled by which he had said that, when he ascended into heaven, he would send the Holy Spirit upon the apostles. For he had promised: “When I ascend to the Father, I will send you the Paraclete, the Spirit of truth, and he will teach you all things.” For we believe that the Son has truly reached the Father when we see that the Paraclete has come down upon the holy apostles. We do not doubt that he reigns in heaven when we see him giving the most sacred gifts of the Holy Spirit on earth. Surely he already sits as victor at the Father's right hand, since he bestows gifts as a victor does. So the Saviour, victor over the devil, after his triumph enriched with the blessing of the Holy Spirit the disciples whom he had freed from the devil's captivity. He freed us when through himself he shut Tartarus to us for our rising; he enriched us when through the Paraclete he unlocked heavenly things to us for reigning. For then we learned to return from death to life; now we are taught to ascend from earth to heaven, as it is written: “He will teach you all things.” What, then, does that Holy Spirit teach? Surely he knows how to teach only what is holy. What does the Paraclete make known to us? Surely what the Saviour says: “I have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. When that Spirit of truth comes, he will teach you all things.” A good teacher, then, is the Paraclete, because he teaches what Christ reserved to be said. For the Holy Spirit teaches what the Lord says he had to teach. A most excellent teacher plainly, who is the executor of the Saviour's precepts. It must be, then, that he has a nature of one substance with Christ, whom we see to be of one teaching with Christ. And so, dearly beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from every defilement of the flesh, so that we too may merit to receive the Holy Spirit. If now we let go of the world with its pleasures and desires, we too shall have a like Paraclete, as the apostles did, namely the Spirit of truth, whom the Father will send us, since there is no respect of persons with God. So if we strive to fulfil the law of the Lord, which is spotless and converts souls; if we strive to carry out the commands sweeter than honey and the honeycomb, we shall reach that eternal homeland which God himself has prepared for us; which may he deign to grant. The end.

Today, brothers, we celebrate that most festive solemnity on which our Lord Jesus Christ, when he had returned more gloriously to the Father, death having been conquered, granted to his apostles—the Father's grace bestowing it with him—the Holy Spirit whom he had promised them before, so that he might make solid and fortify the faith which he had preached earlier while he lived on earth. Today, then, that divine Paraclete came down upon the apostles, when, as was read before, the days of Pentecost were being fulfilled, and all were of one mind together in the same place. The apostles were together, then, when the Holy Spirit came down upon each one of them. That divine Spirit came, then, upon those of one mind; he came down upon those in harmony; and, as was read, the apostles were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in various tongues, as the Spirit gave them to speak. That Spirit who filled the hearts and minds of the disciples cleansed them wholly from earthly enticements. That heavenly fire consumed all the depravities of the old desire. The tongues in which the apostles, filled with the Holy Spirit, spoke signified the Church to come among the nations. “And they began to speak in various tongues, as the Spirit gave them to speak.” The apostles, then, spoke in various tongues, as the Holy Spirit himself gave them to speak, so that the whole of all nations might be united into one and the same faith. For Parthians, Medes and Elamites, and the other nations, as was read, hear the apostles speaking in their own languages the mighty works of God. [Fifteen lines are missing in the original, the writing entirely effaced.]

For even if they too gather together on this most holy day; even if they too hear what we say, they hear it for judgment unless they come to their senses. For what will it profit them to hear with pricked-up ears what they reject in heart, and to celebrate with us the day of the same Holy Spirit whose light they turn away from? But you, brothers, members of the body of Christ, living shoots of sincere unity, celebrate this day always. For this is fulfilled in you even now which was foreshadowed in those days when the Holy Spirit came down on the apostles. For as then whoever received that Spirit descending on him spoke, even if a single man, in the tongues of all, so now through all nations the truth itself speaks in the tongues of all. The end.