Sermons of Maximus of Turin (Bruni's collection) 7.1–13.1

Today the true sun has risen on the world; today light has gone forth into the darkness of the world. God has become man, so that man might become God; the Lord took the form of a servant, so that the servant might be turned into a lord. The dweller in and maker of the heavens has dwelt on earth, so that man, the tiller of the earth, might move to the heavens. O day brighter than any sun! O time longed for by all the ages! What the angels awaited, what the cherubim and seraphim and the mysteries of the heavens did not know, has been revealed in our time. What they saw through a mirror and in an image, we behold in truth. He who spoke to the people of Israel through Isaiah, Jeremiah, and the other prophets now speaks to us through the Son. See the difference between the Old Testament and the New. In that one he spoke through a cloud; to us he speaks in clear sky. There God was seen in a bush; here God is born of a virgin. There was a fire consuming the people's sins; here is a man forgiving the people's sins—indeed God, pardoning his servants. For no one can forgive sins but God alone. Whether the Lord Jesus was born today or baptized today—for differing opinion is reported in the world, and our view varies with the variety of traditions—this much is perfectly clear: whether today he was born of the Virgin or reborn in baptism, his birth both of flesh and of spirit profits us. Both mysteries are mine; both benefits are mine. The Son of God had no need to be born or to be baptized, for he had committed no sin that might be forgiven him in baptism; but his lowliness is our exaltation. His cross is our victory; his gibbet is our triumph. Rejoicing, let us lift this sign on our shoulders; let us carry the banners of victories; let us carry the immortal washing on our foreheads. When the devil sees this sign on the doorposts he will tremble; and those who do not fear gilded Capitols fear the cross; those who despise royal sceptres and the purple and banquets of the Caesars dread the squalor and fasts of Christ. Indeed, in the prophet Ezekiel, when the angel who had been sent had slain all, and the slaughter had begun from the holy place, only those were kept safe whom the letter Tau, that is, the picture of the cross, had marked. Let us therefore rejoice, dearest brothers, and lift holy hands to heaven in the likeness of the cross. When the demons see us armed in this way, they will be crushed. When Moses held up his hands, Amalek was defeated; if they sank a little, Amalek grew strong. The yards of ships and the horns of sails fly in the figure of our cross. The birds too, when they are borne higher and hang in the air with outstretched wings, imitate the cross. And trophies and victorious triumphs are adorned with the cross, which we ought to have not only on our foreheads but also in our souls, so that, thus armed, we may tread upon the asp and the basilisk in Christ Jesus, to whom be glory for ages of ages. Amen.

The Gospel Scripture relates, as we heard read just now, that the Lord came to the Jordan to be baptized, and willed to be consecrated in that river with heavenly mysteries. We ought not to wonder why the Lord and Master did this act of baptism, for he himself says: “Whoever does and teaches will be called greatest in the kingdom of heaven.” He willed, then, first to do what he commanded all to do, so that as a good master he might not so much instil his teaching by words as practise it by deeds, and to that end confirm us equally by action and by meaning. That all this was done on this very day is clear; and that this is true we can gather by reason itself. For reason requires that after the day of the Lord's birth, though with years in between, yet at the same season, this feast should follow, which I think should itself be called a birthday feast. For then he was born to men; today he was reborn in the sacraments. Then he was brought forth through a virgin; today he was begotten through a mystery. For the Lord so arranged that men's rejoicings should not be far apart from each other, so that at one season they might rejoice that he was sanctified in heaven whom they had celebrated as born on earth; so that those who, at the announcement of angels, held the Virgin's child might, at the testimony of the heavens, hold him as the Son of God; and men might be certain that the one the Virgin had borne was himself the Son of God, whom the Godhead acknowledged. For a new birth deserves new honours. There, when he is born according to the man, his mother Mary warms him in her bosom. Here, when he is begotten according to the mystery, God the Father embraces him with his voice. For he says: “This is my Son, in whom I am well pleased.” The mother, then, caresses her child in her soft lap; the Father serves his Son with loving testimony. The mother, I say, presents him to be adored; the Father shows him to the nations to be worshipped. He is held in his mother's bosom when he is born, but the Father continually supplies him with the warmth of his own bosom. For we read that he rests without ceasing in the Father's lap, as the evangelist says: “No one has ever seen God except the only-begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father.” The Lord, then, gladly rests in the bosom of the saints; and so he gladly chose the bosom of John the evangelist to recline on. The bosom in which Christ rests is not prepared in a bodily lap, nor arranged with showy garments, but gathered from heavenly virtues. For Christ's bosom was in John the evangelist faith, in God the Father divinity, in Mary his mother virginity. There is Christ's bosom where there is a dwelling of virtues. There he lays his head where he finds a home of heavenly commandments. That is why he says to sinners and unbelievers: “Foxes have holes, and the birds of the sky nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head.” The Lord Jesus, then, today came to baptism and willed his holy body to be washed in water. Perhaps someone will say: Why did he who is holy wish to be baptized? Listen, then. Christ is baptized not to be sanctified by the waters but to sanctify the waters himself, and by his own purity to purify the streams he touches. For the consecration of Christ is the greater consecration of the element. For when the Saviour is washed, already then all water is cleansed for our baptism, and the spring is purified, so that the grace of the washing may be ministered to the peoples who would follow afterwards. Christ, then, goes before through baptism, so that the Christian peoples may follow after him with confidence. Understand, then, the mystery. For so too the pillar of fire went before through the Red Sea, so that the children of Israel might follow on a fearless path; and it itself first went through the waters, to prepare a path for those coming after it. This event, as the Apostle says, was the mystery of baptism, in which the cloud covered the people and the wave carried them. But all these things Christ the Lord worked, the same then as now: as then he went before the children of Israel through the sea in a pillar of fire, so now he goes before the Christian peoples through baptism in the pillar of his body. This, I say, is the pillar that then gave light to the eyes of those following, and now supplies light to the hearts of believers. Then he made a firm path in the streaming waves; now in the washing he strengthens the footsteps of faith. Through that faith, whoever walks fearlessly, like the children of Israel, will not fear the persecutor Egypt.

We should rejoice, dearest brothers, that festivals follow festivals and joys are heaped on joys. For see, our hearts are still exulting at the solemnity of the Lord's birthday, and already we glory in the feast of holy Epiphany. We ought, then, to give thanks to the Lord, who visits us often, gladdens us often, and seeks us more abundantly so as to bless us more abundantly. Although the pagan rejoices, vainly, in a numerous round of festivals because of the variety of his masters, yet the visitation of one day affords us more feasts than the superstitious presumption of many demons affords them. For as we conquer them by the truth of religion, so we surpass them by the number of festivals. Today, then, we keep the joys of the Epiphany. Someone may ask what this word means: namely, that what is Epiphania in Greek is called in Latin apparitio, “appearing.” Because the Saviour then first appeared in the world, the day itself was given the same name, Epiphany. But let us ask how he appeared: not that he was not in the world before, since the world was made through him, but that then for the first time God the Christ shone into the hearts of believers by signs and miracles, and the splendour of faith came into the darkened consciences of men. Since, then, God is everywhere and possesses all things, he is said to have appeared as though not seen before. He appeared, however, not so much to men's eyes as to their salvation. For even if earlier, born of the Virgin, he was seen by fleshly eyes, yet he did not appear, since the eye of faith did not yet know his power. That is why it is said to the Jews through the prophet: “Seeing you will see, and will not see”; that is, the Saviour whom they saw with bodily eyes they would not see with spiritual light. For after he declared his humanity by wonders, appearing to human minds as something new and unexpected, he poured into them certain eyes of the heart, so that the understanding might know him whom sight had not known. So it comes about that we contemplate by faith Christ the Lord, whom we have never seen, while the Jews, who looked on him with their eyes and touched him with their hands, even today do not see him. Let us ask, then, what sign he worked to declare his divinity to the peoples. He is said to have worked this first miracle: changing water into wine. A great sign indeed, and enough for believing the majesty of God. For who would not marvel that elements were changed into something other than they were? For no one can change nature except him who is the Lord of nature. From this we must now believe that mortal man can be changed into immortality, since a cheap substance was changed into a precious substance. For I do not want you, hearer, to look only at the names of wine and water; if you wish to prove his power, look at the force of the things. For something, I know not what, much higher is shown here. For when the Lord turns water into wine, he does not do this only so that drink may not fail the guests, but so that eternity may abound for believers. For Christ came into the world not to see to the cellars of banqueters but to provide for the salvation of men; not to fill water jars with a fragrant substance but to water souls with the grace of the Holy Spirit. So, when the guest was to taste the flavour of the best wine from that cheap water, he wished rather that believers should taste, from this cheap flesh, the wisdom of the heavenly resurrection. For this sign certainly contains the whole mystery of the resurrection. Cheap water, pale and cold, turned into wine, which is precious, red and fiery, signifies that the substance of man, cheap in its condition, pale in weakness, cold in death, is to be changed into the glory of the resurrection, which is precious in eternity, coloured with grace, and fiery with the spirit of immortality. It is right, then, to believe that the Lord willed to work this, so that through this earthly sign the heavenly mystery to come might already then be seen by the wise. For if it is wonderful to have supplied the wine that had run out at a banquet, how much more wonderful to have restored to men the life that was exhausted? And if it is glorious to change water into wine, how much more glorious to change sins into righteousness, and to temper morals rather than cups? I dare say that those jars supply that precious substance not only to that banquet but to the whole world—except that they serve it to us better. For it is clear that from those very vessels they drew drunkenness, we draw righteousness; they received a cup of wine, we receive the cup of salvation; and, if it may be said, with them what they drank passed through, but with us what we have received remains.

The day of the Epiphanies is so called by a Greek name. For what we call an appearing or showing, the Greeks call Epiphania. We announce this because today our Lord and Saviour appeared according to the flesh on earth. For though he had long before been born of Mary and had completed thirty years of age, yet he was unknown to the world. He became known at the time when he came to John the Baptist to be baptized in the Jordan, and the voice of the Father thundering from heaven was heard: “This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.” Him whom the Father had pointed out from heaven by his voice, the Holy Spirit, coming as in a dove and settling on his head, willed to point out by touch, so that no one else from the people might be thought the Son of God. What is loftier than this lowliness? What is nobler than this lowliness? He is baptized by a servant, and called Son by God. He comes to the washing among tax collectors and prostitutes and sinners, and he is holier than the one who baptizes him. He is baptized by John in the flesh, but he himself washes John in the spirit. The waters, which were accustomed to cleanse other things, were cleansed when our Lord washed. The river Jordan, which had been dried up at the time when Jesus son of Nun led the people of Israel and brought them into the land of promise, now wished, if it could, to gather itself with all its waves, so as to touch the body of the Lord. “The Jordan,” it says, “turned back.” See, brothers, how what was read in the Gospel had been foretold in the twenty-eighth psalm: “The voice of the Lord is upon the waters.” For the Son of God spoke to John: “Let it be so now; for thus it is fitting for us to fulfil all righteousness.” It continues: “The Lord of majesty thundered”: when the Father bore witness to the Son, saying: “This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.” “The voice of the Lord breaking the cedars.” For Christ was baptized, and the demons, formerly erect and lofty, fell. The Lord cut them down like the cedars of Lebanon, and broke them in pieces like calves, tossing the fragments of the trees and scattering the stumps in every direction with his heels. What, on the other hand, is said of the Saviour? “And my beloved is like the son of unicorns.” The beloved is our Lord and Saviour, the Son of God, of the unicorns, the son of the cross, of whom it is said in the song of Habakkuk: “Horns are in his hands; there he hid his strength.” After this beloved one was crucified, then, that which follows in the psalm was also fulfilled: “The voice of the Lord cutting off the flame of fire.” For when he was baptized, and the whole world was cleansed as Christ washed, the fire of Gehenna was put out. “The voice of the Lord shaking the desert.” The Church was a desert, which before had no children. At the preaching of Christ this desert was shaken, and was in labour, and a whole nation was born in one day. At the same time she who was earlier called the desert of Kadesh, that is, a desert, since she had had no holiness, began to bring forth deer and to send out flocks of her saints, who kill serpents on the earth, who despise poisons; and as they run about and preach the Gospel of Christ in the whole world, in his temple all will say: Glory to God. It continues: “The Lord makes the flood to dwell.” Let us consider the whole world, look at the barbarian nations, survey the Roman empire too: everywhere they are baptized into our Lord; and so it happens that there is not one water but in a manner a flood of baptisms. Therefore, dearest brothers, since the tabernacle has been completed (for this is set at the head of this psalm in its title), and since the Church has been built of living stones, let us bring to the Lord sons of God, let us bring sons of rams, of the apostles and saints; and let us imitate our Saviour, who himself is called both Shepherd and Lamb, who is sacrificed for us in Egypt, who in place of Isaac is held by the horns in the thorns; and let us say: “The Lord feeds me, and I shall lack nothing. In a place of pasture there he has set me; by the water of refreshment he has brought me up.” To him be glory and dominion for ages of ages. Amen.

Many recall that on this holy day of the Epiphany wonders were done by the Lord: that, invited to a wedding, he changed the substance of water into the appearance of wine, and by his blessing transferred the liquid of springs to a better use; that the servants drew water from the wells and found wine in the jars, and by a more profitable loss lost what was lacking; and that then for the first time, by this wonderful sign, he declared the power of his divinity. Some, however, testify that on this holy day he was baptized by John in the Jordan, and that at the grace of his washing God the Father was present, speaking, and the Holy Spirit also descended. No wonder if at the Lord's washing the mystery of the Trinity was not lacking, since it is the Trinity that completes the sacrament of our washing. For the Lord could not but first show in his own case what he was afterwards to command the human race; since he did everything not for his own sake but for the sake of our salvation. Or did he wish to be baptized for his own sake, when he had no sin, as the prophet says: “He committed no sin, and no deceit was found in his mouth”? Surely it was for our sake, who, liable for the sins of many crimes, needed to be cleansed in Christ's baptism. And so the Lord came to the washing not to be purified himself by the waters but to purify for us the streams of the waters. For from the moment he plunged himself into the waters he blotted out the sins of all believers. And he who took up the sins of all must have blotted out the sins of all, as the evangelist says: “This is the Lamb of God, this is he who takes away the sin of the world.” In a wonderful way, then, one is plunged in, and the salvation of all is restored. God the Father, then, is present when the Lord is baptized; the Holy Spirit is present. See the kindness of the Saviour: in the passion he alone submitted himself to insults; in the washing he did not seek grace alone; he wills others to share the glory. The Father, then, as I said, is present, and the Holy Spirit is present; and because God cannot be seen, the Spirit descends in a dove, the Father in a voice, and—what alone was necessary to build up faith—shows forth the Saviour. For since our faith rests only on hearing and sight, the Spirit submits himself to the eyes in a dove, the Father offers himself to the ears in a voice. For unless these things had to be done because of our belief, the Father and the Spirit, as invisible God, could have descended to the Word, the Son, by an invisible movement. So for our faith's sake, when heaven was opened, the Spirit came down to Christ, the Father to the Son, the voice to the Word. For Christ is the Word, of whom it is written: “In the beginning was the Word.” Rightly, I say, is the Father called the voice and the Son the Word, because a word proceeds only from a voice. So voice and word agree together and provide for the salvation of men by the fellowship of the mystery. But let us see for what reason the Holy Spirit descended upon Christ in the form of a dove: whether there is some likeness between the dove and the Lord, as there is between voice and word. There plainly is. For I would call the Lord himself a dove, because he is quick, gentle, and simple. He is a dove, because he commands his saints to be like doves, saying: “Be simple as doves.” And that Christ is a dove the prophet says in his person, describing his return to heaven after the passion: “Who will give me wings, and I will fly and be at rest?” When, then, Christ the Lord was inaugurating the sacraments of the Church, a dove came down from heaven. I understand the mystery; I recognize also the sacrament. For it is the same dove that now comes to the Church of Christ in baptism which once hastened to Noah's ark in the flood: then announcing safety to him with an olive branch, now conferring eternity on this one by the token of the Godhead; then bringing a sign of peace in its mouth, now pouring out over us Peace himself, Christ, by its own substance. The Lord, then, was baptized in the Jordan. Scripture records that many wonders were often done in this river; among others: “And the Jordan turned back.” I think what was done when the Lord Jesus Christ stood there is more wonderful. For before, the waters were turned back; now sins have been turned back. And as then the rush of the river lost the bed of its course, so now the rush of sins has lost the dominion of its error. I think this was already done at that time in the prophet Elijah. For as Elijah made a division of the waters, so the Spirit of the Lord in the same Jordan worked a separation of sins; and as under Elijah the waves sought the beginnings of the springs from which they had come out, so under Christ the Lord men returned to the infancy of their origin from which they had sprung.

Your holiness remembers, brothers, what we said on the most festive day of the Epiphany: that the Lord was baptized in the Jordan; and we went on to say that he willed to be consecrated by this mystery for our sake rather than his own. Plainly he accomplished all this for our sake. For to what advantage was consecration needful to him who is himself the sacrament? Of what use the solemnity of a mystery in him in whom is the fullness of the mystery? For in him is the fullness, as the Apostle says: “For in him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily.” And again the evangelist: “From his fullness we have all received.” He, then, in whom was the fullness of the Godhead had no need to be filled with the mysteries of the sacraments. But he willed to fulfil the mystery, not to gain advantage himself, but so that the fullness of the mystery might profit us. Indeed, when John the Baptist resisted and said, “I ought to be baptized by you, and do you come to me?” the Lord said to him: “Let it be so now; for thus it is fitting for us to fulfil all righteousness.” “To fulfil,” he says, “all righteousness.” Why, then, is the Lord baptized? Righteousness does not justify Christ, but righteousness itself is sanctified by Christ, and a half-full virtue is filled by him in whom is the fullness of the virtues. John says, then: “I ought to be baptized by you”; he testifies, then, that the Lord was not baptized for his own sake, since before he was baptized by him John was asking rather to be baptized by him. For by saying this he shows that there is greater grace in the Lord's mystery than in the master of the mystery. For what consecration could he give to the one from whom he himself desired to receive sanctification? The master was lower in merits than the disciple in holiness. For in comparison with Christ, the master is unskilled, the righteousness half-full, and the water muddy. But when the Lord is baptized, by his blessing the master advances, righteousness is filled up, and the water is cleansed. For the water was cleansed, which, though cheap and cold, was enriched by the warmth of the Lord's blessing; so that what before could scarcely wash away the worldly stains of things now purifies the spiritual stains of souls. And do not wonder that we say water, that is, a bodily substance, reaches to the purifying of the soul. It plainly reaches it; it penetrates all the hiding places of the conscience. For though it is itself fine and thin, yet, made finer by Christ's blessing, it passes through hidden channels to the crimes of the soul with the dew of the Spirit. For the flow of blessings is finer than the passage of waters. That is why we also said that at the Saviour's baptism the blessing, which flowed down like a special river, permeated the courses of all streams and the veins of all springs. It is wonderful, I say, that while Christ stood in the Jordan the rivers of water were indeed washed; but streams of blessings were also running. From there the turbid flood of the river bed was carried along; from here the most pure spring of the Saviour was cleansing; and with a kind of astonishment the consecration of baptism went up toward the source of the Jordan, and against the river of waters a river of blessings was carried. That is why I think holy David said: “The Jordan turned back.” For in the baptism of Christ the Jordan was turned back not in its waters but in its sacraments, and returned to its source by blessing rather than by substance. For while the grace of consecration is carried round through it to all springs, it seems to have recalled its own course to the beginning of its veins. The end.

Since it is clear, as we said before, that Jesus Christ was baptized not for his own sake but for ours, we ought, dearly beloved brothers—I am speaking to you catechumens—to receive the grace of his baptism with all haste, and to draw the blessing of consecration from the spring of the Jordan which he blessed, and to have our sins plunged into the flood into which his holiness plunged itself; that is, so that the same water which surrounded the Lord may also cleanse his little servants all round, so that from Christ's venerable washing the holy water may profit us, and by the same footsteps and mysteries by which it borrowed blessing from the Saviour may purify us with a more blessed warmth, and pour back on Christians the grace it received from Christ. Therefore, brothers, we ought to be dipped in the same spring as Christ, so that we may be what Christ is. For—and I say this without prejudice to the faith—although both baptisms are the Lord's, I think this baptism in which we are washed is so much the more gracious than that in which the Saviour is baptized. For this is celebrated by Christ; that was celebrated by John. In that one the master excuses himself; in this the Saviour invites us. In that one righteousness is half-full; in this the Trinity is complete. To that one a holy man came, and a holy man went out; to this a sinner comes and a holy man goes away. In that one blessing is conferred on the mysteries; in this, by the mysteries, offences are forgiven. We ought, then, brothers, to be baptized in the same flood as the Saviour; but to be plunged in the same spring we need not seek the region of the East, nor the river of the land of Judea. For where Christ is now, there also is the Jordan. The same consecration that blessed the rivers of the East sanctifies the streams of the West. So, even if the river perhaps has another name in the world, still the mystery of the Jordan is in it. Indeed, the business is carried out with the same sacraments with which it was done then, except that with fuller grace. For then we saw the Trinity with fleshly eyes; now we contemplate the same Trinity with the eyes of faith. Then a human face could scarcely behold Christ; now the human mind embraces him. Then the Holy Spirit, as in the form of a dove, poured himself around a man; now by the very power of the Godhead he pours himself into a man's inner parts. Then the Father came for the Son's sake, by a voice heard from afar; but now the Father himself comes down to us with the Son. The grace, then, is fuller where God comes down to men, not in an assumed form, but deigns to come down to his sons in his own substance. For there, as with unbelievers, he wishes to persuade them to faith by bodily signs; here, as with believers, to confer grace by spiritual power. It belongs, then, to fuller grace to see God as God is than to see him in such a way that you still seek him. Here is the Trinity complete; there the Godhead was still to be searched out. Fuller, then, is the grace of knowing God by his own power than of surmising him in an assumed form. Let us, then, do for ourselves what we see God did for us; let us do in our own case what John desired to be done in his. If he, who was a prophet, a master, and a holy man, longed for the Saviour's baptism, how much more ought we sinners, lowly and ignorant, to seek this grace! See the mercy of the Saviour: this is freely offered to us which the prophet, though asking, does not obtain. But we ought to consider why John asked for Christ's baptism and we received it. For the Lord said to him when he asked: “Let it be so now; for thus it is fitting for us to fulfil all righteousness.” We know, however, that John the Baptist bore the type of the law; it was right, then, that he should baptize the Lord, so that, just as according to the flesh the Saviour was begotten of the Jews, so according to the spirit the Gospel might be born of the law; so that from the source from which it drew the succession of its origin it might also receive the handing on of consecration. This, then, is what he says: “For thus it is fitting for us to fulfil all righteousness.” For it was right that he should himself fulfil the commandments of the law which he himself had established, as he says elsewhere: “I have not come to abolish the law but to fulfil it.”