Sermons of Maximus of Turin (Bruni's collection) 79.1–85.1

What shall I first undertake to proclaim, dearly beloved, about the Maccabean brothers, whose birthday is today? Where shall I turn my speech in their praises, whose outstanding merits it is neither possible for me to unfold nor likely for me to follow? For as one faith shone in all, so a manifold courage shone in each. Truly venerable brothers, to be celebrated by the mouth of all, in whom confession is in words and triumph in courage. These, then, while they are compelled by fear of the king and the bitterness of tortures to eat what was unlawful and to share in what was forbidden, all succeed one another with one will to die, because all had one hope of living after death. With what fine judgment and praiseworthy constancy they shudder to touch pork, which was then held unclean by heavenly prohibition, they whose devotion was preparing itself for the coming of the spotless Lamb! The bravest young men, then, are seized, and are driven by various tortures of their limbs toward what was wicked and forbidden. Yet they stand firm manfully and do not yield to the tyrant's fury; so that, by a wonderful dispensation of almighty God, those whom the generation of the flesh had brought forth as temporal and mortal brothers punishment made eternal brothers. Who would not truly receive with all admiration that, for the authority of the divine law, boys display wisdom, adolescents do not fear torments, young men despise both the king's gifts and the blandishments of life itself? The artful persecutor begins, then, with the eldest, so as to bend the minds of those following to his commands by the punishment of the elder. But what the impious man contrives for fear profits the brothers as an example. Each of them understands that he can and ought to overcome what had been trampled by the vigour of a brother's mind and by fraternal religion. But what especially shall the mediocrity of our speech say of their venerable mother, to whom festive joys are born from such numerous griefs of bereavement, who exulted in as many torments of deaths as she rejoiced in children? Blessed Felicity likewise played in a manner a twofold mother; for those whom by bodily law she had given to the present life she brought forth by strength of spirit for everlasting ages. What mortal would not marvel, brothers, whose feeling would not tremble, that the mother trembled in all her inner parts lest any of her sons should either fear in so magnificent a conflict or not merit to be killed? And amid those deaths of her slain little ones there was in the mother's breast not only no groan of sadness, but, beyond the feeling of womanly tenderness, the wonderful mother exulted in the victory of those whom she knew she had nourished no less with faith than with milk. The order of birth, then, passes into the order of passion, so that by a most just rule of martyrdom they might be sent to heaven by the path by which the world had received them. O new feeling of tenderness! The sons are tortured, and the mother exults; and so she believed she would be approved as a true mother in the sight of the Lord if she stood by among such deadly tortures of her numerous offspring with unbent breast and dry eyes. Indeed, she rejoices with herself that she recognizes the eagerness of her own mind in her children, and that it fell to her to send her sons ahead by such a death that the underworld could claim nothing of them for itself. But after all these astonishing things, the woman, dying with the same confession as her sons, follows securely those whom she had so devoutly sent ahead. And it was most just in the sight of the Lord that the mother of so many martyrs should not pass from this world without the consecration of martyrdom. Nor need we ask, brothers, by what punishment especially she closed her most glorious day; since all the tortures of her sons we have heard of tormented the mother's inner parts, and she alone felt more sharply whatever each one endured.

That the spirit of the New and Old Testaments is one, the greatness of soul and the faith of the Maccabees also declare, who, secure of the glory of eternity by God's promise, overcame by a holy death the savagery of a bloody king. For our Lord Jesus Christ, whom almost all the Gentile world believes, on the testimony of the Gospel, to have come from heaven, the whole of Judea had long been learning through the law and the prophets would be born on earth of a virgin. And hence it is, dearly beloved, that the Maccabean brothers submitted themselves to sufferings for reverence of their fathers' law before the Lord of the law suffered. Hence that they despised death before the underworld was conquered through Christ. Hence that they gave their own blood for the honour of the Redeemer before the Redeemer shed his blood for them. Who would doubt that they could neither have approached nor endured so countless evils of the present world unless they had believed with the fullest faith in the good things of the age to come? No one, brothers, no one despises a tyrant except one who is raised up by hope of a lawful emperor; no one prefers death to life except one who believes there is life after death; no one willingly endures torments except one who hopes for rewards after torments. When, then, Antiochus was raging with unbridled madness against the servants of God, he orders the most religious band of seven brothers to be brought to his tribunal with their mother, so that either she would be conquered, tortured by the punishments of so numerous an offspring, or, if perhaps his own death did not terrify one of the boys, his brothers' death would disturb him. But the madman erred, not knowing the power of religion, in which this above all is piety: to have preferred God to brothers, God to sons, God to parents. He commanded them, then, to eat pork against the heavenly decrees; on those who refuse he uses various kinds of punishments. But the hearts of the faithful do not know how to yield to the wills of the faithless. So he deals with them by iron, flames, and various tortures. This one's head is stripped of its skin, this one's tongue is cut out; that one is fried, his hands and feet cut off. But amid such deadly hands of torturers neither does the feeling of the mother standing by bend the sons, nor does the crowd of dying children break the mother. And so in the boy brothers and in the very old woman there was the same wish to die for the law of God, so that she seems to have borne her sons by the spirit rather than by the flesh, and they are thought to have sucked from their mother the substance not so much of milk as of faith. Who, of the faithless and the faithful, would not marvel that the very old woman does not groan at the death of so many sweet children? Who would not be astonished that the glad mother mocks the raging king over such cruel tortures of her sons, and the persecutor is rather tortured by her greatness of soul, whom by impious design he thought either to pollute by transgression or to condemn by bereavement? For what is beyond all wonder, the mother says to her youngest son, whom she had received from the king to be persuaded: “I beg you, son, become worthy of your brothers and accept death, so that in that mercy of God I may receive you back with your brothers.” Truly incomparable faith of a most glorious woman! She stands in the sight of the king, secure about the dead, anxious about the living. For she knew that she would lose this son alone if he alone had feared to be killed. But the young man, not unworthy, who had watched his brothers' contests patiently, gladly heeded his mother, and not only did not fear the torturing king, but rebuked the wild beast with a fitting reproof. And well, dearly beloved, did the wonderful woman, certain of her sons' triumph, certain of the heavenly reward, mock the king and exult in the Lord, since she believed she was then giving birth more blessedly when she saw her sons going before her to God by a glorious death. And Antiochus multiplied the tortures; but the faithful old woman, in place of that multitude of temporal punishments, counted the eternal rewards of her triumphant little ones; after whose death she herself lay down among their most sweet bodies by a longed-for death and a desirable end. Nor was she terrified by any tortures, who had already conquered every kind of torment in the inner parts of her sons. Nor did she tremble to be killed, who was hastening to that life to which she knew she had sent her children ahead.

Though we marvel with fitting honour at all the blessed martyrs whom antiquity hands down to us, yet we ought to receive with all veneration especially Saints Alexander, Martyrius and Sisinnius, who suffered in our times. For I do not know how it is that we have a greater affection toward those whom our own knowledge has known than toward those whom history teaches. For we know that the former were martyrs by reading, these by the seeing of our eyes. We learn the former's passions by the report of fame; these men's tortures we hold by the testimony of our sight. I owe greater affection, then, where conviction encourages my belief. I owe greater affection, I say, there where through what I have seen I am compelled to believe more devoutly even what I have not seen. For when some things I heard seemed impossible to me, I began to believe they could have happened when I saw similar things done. And so the passion of our time has given us this: that it both conferred present grace and confirmed past faith. We ought, then, to receive the above-named blessed men with all veneration: first, because they deigned to illuminate the days of our life with their precious blood; second, because they conferred on us no small privilege before God, showing what faith there was among Christians in our age, from whose fellowship martyrs merited to come forth; third, because they were of such holy life that they found the crown of martyrdom in a time of peace. For when no persecuting king pressed, no sacrilegious tyrant was urgent, it was not public persecution but Christian devotion that made them confessors. For when, in the region of Anaunia, having built a church at their own expense, they presided over its holy altar—since one of them performed the office of deacon, the two others the office of cleric—and the men of that region, among whom the Christian name had not been known before, wished by their customary sacrilege, which they call the lustrum, to pollute all the places, and the holy men rebuked them and plainly refuted their errors with reasonable reproof, then they, drunk more with fury than with wine, seized them and wounded them with most cruel slaughter, so that one of them, after many tortures, half-alive, awaited and saw the end of his death; for, having pulled down the structure of the church, they built a pyre of its beams and handed the blessed bodies over to the flames. Truly blessed bodies, which no deadly fire of an idol took up for punishment, but a holy flame of the Lord's house received for rest. A holy flame indeed, which received the martyrs not to consume them with harmful heat but to keep sacrilegious hands from them. By such a burning the inner parts of the blessed were consecrated, not cremated. What the Apostle says fits this passion: “But he himself will be saved, yet so as through fire.” For these were saved while they were burned in the fire of a venerable confession. This, then, brothers, is the whole cause of the passion, for which the holy men, handed over to death, urged others to be like them in their course; for their exhortation advanced so far that, as they departed from the world, their faith pervaded all the places of that region. So Christ, where he then suffered persecution in three martyrs, now exults there in very many peoples of Christians.

Some days ago, when we were keeping most festively the birthday of Saints Alexander, Martyrius and Sisinnius, we especially praised this in their passion: that by resisting the sacrilegious they merited to be martyrs, and by contradicting their superstitions obtained the palm of righteousness. For they were not handed over to death on the ground that they were Christians; rather they were seized for punishment because they rebuked the sacrilegious for not being Christians and devout. In a time of peace, then, when no persecuting king presses, it was not public persecution but religious devotion that made them holy martyrs. For they did not fear to undergo danger to their own safety while they desired to provide for the safety of many. For when they saw the pagan men in their region polluting all the places, by their customary sacrilege which they call the lustrum, with deadly processions, and staining all the innocent, even those absent, if not by complicity then by connivance—for connivance stains the one who, when he could have prevented it from happening by contradicting, allowed it to happen as though by pretending not to see—when, then, the blessed men saw these things, they rebuked them steadfastly, reproved them faithfully, and achieved this: that they became martyrs there and made their persecutors Christians. Therefore, brothers, since we have an example, let us imitate the holy men, if not in the martyrdom of suffering, at least in the duty of Christianity. And since we have heard that the lustrum is customarily sent round by some sacrilegious people, following the example of the saints let us reprove the impious and chastise those who err; for it is a share of martyrdom to have done what the martyrs did. But if, seeing this, we are silent and suffer it in silence, we make ourselves guilty, if not by doing the crime, at least by the assent of pretending not to see. For as opposing sacrileges justifies the one who contradicts, so pretending not to see what you have seen stains the one who keeps silent. For many wretched people are accustomed to say: I do not know; I did not order it; it is not my affair; it does not touch me. But these words, as I said, are spoken by someone wretched or fearful; for he denies that he ordered it to be done, who would not order that it not be done. For an evil that comes from custom, when it is not restrained, is admitted. “It is not my affair,” he says. You are mistaken and ignorant: you do not know that God's affair is the affair of all, and what one sins is avenged on many. For as many are sanctified by the holiness of one, so very many are polluted by the sacrilege of one. And so an evil which, though committed by another, is committed with your knowledge, touches you, since it is held enclosed in your conscience. I do not know, brothers, what it is that we carry out God's precepts so evasively, when all anxiously obey what the princes of the world have commanded, all vigilantly keep their orders. God commands, and at his precepts we sleep. How often has the same God commanded that the sacrileges of idols be destroyed, and we have never been willing to be anxious on this score? We have always pretended not to see, always despised it. Afterwards an imperial command admonished us. See what a disparagement of the Godhead is this addition of human power! Or what is judged of us, who are compelled to live religiously not by devotion but by terror? The princes, being such good Christians, promulgate laws for religion, but the executors do not enforce them competently. And so, the prince being free of fault, the executor remains in guilt; who, if he exercises the severity of the law, is both himself absolved of sin and will be rewarded with eternal reward for the salvation of many.

The devotion of a twofold festival invites us, dearest brothers, to run together with all eagerness to the celebration of the present day, which we plainly have from the triumph of the Maccabees and the victory of a confessor. For over the Maccabees we have a general joy with the others, and through blessed Eusebius a proper and special gladness of domestic rejoicing; and though they fought at different times and in a different contest, yet one spirit fought in them. For who would doubt that there was one sense, one mind, one spirit in them, since the former suffered for the Lord's law, and this one underwent passion for the Lord himself? Let us now consider more carefully, dearly beloved, what was specially the cause of contest for the Maccabees and what for blessed Eusebius. When, then, in ancient ages the pagan world burned, kindled by the torches of the devil's envy against the servants of God, and impious madness filled especially the most ferocious breast of Antiochus, he orders the Maccabean brothers and their most religious mother to be seized and brought to his deadly tribunal, so as to persuade them by fear of death, terror of punishments and offers of gifts to pass over into his error. But neither the threats of the world call back the most devout youths from their God, nor do royal blandishments seduce them. So the first of them, by the disposition of divine justice, enters the arena of the heavenly contest, so that he who went first in age might go first in passion, and the order of birth might hold among the brothers the order of triumph. This eldest of the brothers, then, is ordered by the king to be fried in a heated pan, but is cooled by God; he is cut off in hands and feet, but is quite secure of his own restoration, because he knew he was suffering these things for the law of him with whom alone, he believed, lay the power of forming and repairing the body; for this reason, surely, the bravest youth is cut up in his whole body and limbs, so that he might notice that by God's gift he had as many martyrdoms as members. Another is deprived of his tongue, another is stripped of the skin of his head, so that the diversity of punishments might beget a variety of rewards. Cruelty, exasperated by the virtues of the saints, gnashes its teeth to every savagery. The hands of the butchers grow weary, the bloody eyes waste away, and impiety itself now blushes; the order of the trial reversed, the torturer groans, and the tortured mocks his torturer. When six brothers had thus been cut down and laid low, the seventh, who was also the youngest, is brought forward to be examined; him the tyrant king, having spent so many such tortures in vain, strives to soften with most gentle speech. He promises wealth, offers honours, and pledges his friendship besides, if he can obtain faithlessness from the boy. But the most steadfast youth, despising the king and the king's gifts, walking about paradise in thought and running through heaven in mind, judged tortures more advantageous to him than gifts, and chose to die for God rather than to live with the tyrant; nor indeed could the king's promises bend him whom his brothers' torments had not bent. Indeed, as the outcome showed, the most faithful boy seemed to be tortured more in this respect, that he was tortured later. Meanwhile the outstanding mother, divinely inspired, rejoiced at the tortures of her sons, certain that she would be adorned with as many crowns as the deaths she had borne in her sons. Who, hearing this, would not marvel? For God's honour natural affection grows cool in the mother's breast, nature is overcome by faith, and the woman, stronger than her sex, teaches her sons to love tortures. Having sent her children ahead to God, she herself also, despising the world, falls in a most glorious death. And it was truly fitting that the mother of martyrs should end her life by martyrdom.

After this, dearly beloved, let us now review as best we can what our most blessed father Eusebius endured for the defence of the faith, so that we may notice how great a labour and what merits brought him to this great glory of confession. He, then, as the account of our fathers instructs us, was seized from this city of ours and taken to Scythopolis, and there handed over to the Arians to be done to death. It is not unknown, brothers, how much wickedness the freedom to rage, once permitted to an enemy, can exercise. For to run through the sequence of his sufferings: after that dragging along the stairs, as of a prophet, such a torture is said to have been appointed for him by the Arians that they prepared for him in the upper part of a house a very narrow cell, so short, so low and so cramped that it did not so much hold a man as torture him, and the Arian hospitality was more a punishment than a rest. For they say it was so narrow that the martyr could not stretch out his foot lying down, nor raise his head standing, but was always contracted, bent and lowly, bearing nothing free except the spirit of faith. His feet, fixed in one place, grew numb, but he walked in paradise with the steps of faith; his head lay bowed in it, but Christ raised his head in him. These things, then, the blessed martyr suffered in the hospitality of the heretics—not that they were owed to a martyr, but because such is Arian hospitality that its dwelling is the punishment of a prison, not the lodging of humanity. And although, from the sweetness of his deeds, we have no surfeit of speaking and hearing with one another, yet the victory of the most blessed Maccabees must not be passed over in silence, since this same day, snatched from the world, sent them too with great triumph to heaven. And though that bravest band passed to their God amid torments, Eusebius is not unequal, who, faithlessness having been refuted, departed after torments to the same God, conquered in body. And so that we may notice more plainly that Eusebius' victory was not inferior: they fought for the old law, he campaigned for the new Gospel. They underwent tortures for God's precepts, but Eusebius fought for the truth of the Godhead itself. They resisted King Antiochus so as not to eat flesh then forbidden; he withstood the devil, so that he might not stain the Lord's bread for us with the leaven of heretical speech. Let us exult, then, brothers, giving thanks to our God, because under the devotion of this present day we rejoice in a twofold festival, welcoming the triumph of Eusebius and marvelling at the torments of the victorious Maccabees. Are not the Maccabees wonderful, whom, by the fellowship of their birth and passion, we see to have been brothers in the world and to be brothers in [Christ]; who sucked from the richest breast of their outstanding mother both the substance of living and the power of conquering? For they grew up to such perfection by their mother's milk and speech that there was inseparably both wisdom in their hearts and strength in their bodies. Indeed Antiochus could neither terrify with the sharpest tortures nor call away with great promises the choicest young men, steadfast in their own faith and their mother's exhortation, so as to turn them from reverence for their fathers' law. For such was the vigour in their limbs, such the spirit in their breast, such the learning in their answers, that by despising punishments and refuting faithlessness they conquered both the terror and the fury of the impious king. And the venerable mother, dying by an equal confession and a like death, departed from this world more gladly to her children. No wonder if she bore the king's savagery against herself with greatness of soul, who could bear it so bravely in her sons. Truly blessed woman, and one to be followed with the praises of all, whom no fleshly affection broke for the faith of her God even in the deaths of her sons, and from the torments of her own body neither her sex nor her old age could call back. These, then, dearly beloved, are the festive joys of the faithful on this day. Let us always show these honours to blessed Eusebius and the most glorious Maccabees, whom a different time indeed, but the same faith and one day, brought to the eternal kingdom.

Today is the birthday of the most blessed Cantius, Cantianus and Cantianilla. How well and pleasantly the three martyrs are called by almost one name! No wonder if those who are alike in passion are alike in name, if they have one appellation among men who have one calling before God. For they were called together by the Lord, not suffering one way and another with time between, but all endured martyrdom alike by the same stroke. This was granted them by Christ out of a kind of family affection: that those who agreed in names should agree in merits; that those who were brothers by blood should become brothers also by holiness; and that those whose members the substance of one body quickened the confession of the same faith should crown in their souls. The history of the blessed ones mentioned above relates that at the time of the passion, when the persecutor was searching for them, they wished to withdraw, having mounted a carriage with mules yoked; and when they were travelling not far from the walls of the city, one of the yoked animals suddenly fell, and so they were seized by the persecutors and held for punishment. How glorious this event was, and arranged by the Godhead, we ought to notice. For as Elijah, when a chariot was brought, ascended as it were to heaven, so these too, when a carriage was brought, came to martyrdom; and as the four-horse chariot carried him to rest, so it carried these to glory. And though that was a fiery chariot, this one is not to be held inferior, because that carried one prophet, this bore three martyrs. But someone will say: it is more glorious to be carried by a fiery chariot than an earthly one. This was plainly not lacking to the holy men: for as a fiery chariot carried Elijah, so a fiery faith was already carrying the martyrs. Christ, I say, was carrying them, who is light, who is fire, of whom it is written: “Our Lord is a consuming fire.” When, then, the persecutor pressed the blessed ones of whom we speak, they mounted a carriage. For what reason? To flee? Far from it. Not to flee, but to come more quickly to martyrdom; not to hide, but to show themselves more plainly as Christians to all who passed by. Otherwise they could have hidden more secretly among many in the city, could more safely each have trusted to the protection of flight in different directions. But when someone, having gathered a company, with carriages spread and equipment arranged, goes out along the public highway, that is not to be called flight but a setting out. For the holy men by this deed, placed as it were in a triumphal chariot, were declaring: See, persecutor, see, we are setting out, see, we are going ahead; why do you sit? Why do you delay? Follow our footsteps; for we do not wish to seem to be led unwillingly to punishment, who profess that we are going ahead to glory.

Yesterday we had the birthday of the Lord Saviour. Today, with the highest devotion, we venerate the passion of the holy martyr Stephen. Yesterday, by which we are redeemed for the reward; today, by which we are challenged to an example. Well, then, is the festival of yesterday's solemnity joined to today's, so that the one might carry believers to life, the other lead confessors to the crown. Blessed Stephen, then, has been given to the whole Church for its advancement. While still a layman he merited election to the diaconate, and as a deacon he merited the primacy of martyrdom. He was still placed among the people, but so outstanding was he in virtues; he was in a lowly place, but lofty in faith; he was a disciple in rank, but became a master by example. It is written of him in the Acts of the Apostles that he was appointed by the apostles to the service of widows. In that he was put in charge of this ministry, he received a testimony of most holy chastity. Blessed, then, dearest brothers, will he be who has followed and imitated him: he will attain both the palm of chastity and the crown of martyrdom. Of him the reading of the Acts of the Apostles which was read to us today, etc.