Sermons of Maximus of Turin (Bruni's collection) 86.1–91.1

It is worthy and fitting, brothers, that after the gladness of blessed Easter, which we have celebrated in the church, we share our joys with the martyrs, and announce the glory of the Lord's resurrection to those who are sharers of the Lord's passion. For those who are companions in insult ought also to be partakers in gladness; for so the blessed Apostle says: “As you are companions in sufferings, so also will you be in resurrection”; “If we endure,” he says, “we shall also reign with him.” Those, then, who endured evils for Christ's sake ought also to have glory with Christ. Let us announce, I say, to the holy martyrs the grace of the Lord's Easter: so that, as we proclaim the unlocked barriers of his tomb, their tombs too may be unlocked; as we say that his dead body suddenly revived with warming veins, their members too, already cold, may be warmed with the heat of immortality; the same reasoning raises the martyrs that raised the Lord. For as they experienced the way of his passion, so they experience also the way of his life; for it is written in the psalm: “You have made known to me the ways of life”; this is surely said in the person of the Saviour at the resurrection, who, while he returns after death from the underworld to the world above, begins to have known the way of life, which before was held unknown. For before Christ the way of life was unknown, because it had not yet been trodden by the footstep of anyone rising; but when the Lord rose, it was made known, the ground worn by many, of whom the holy evangelist says: “Many bodies of the saints rose with him and entered the holy city.” Hence, since the Lord at his resurrection said, “You have made known to me the ways of life,” we too can now say to the Lord: You have made known to us the ways of life. For he himself made known to us the ways of life, who showed us the path to life: for he made known to me the ways of life when he taught me faith, mercy, righteousness, chastity; for by these roads one comes to salvation. And though the shadow of death surrounds us at the dissolution of the body, yet life does not desert its steps, but amid the very laws of the underworld we walk without hesitation by the powers of Christ. Hence the holy prophet says: “For even if I walk in the midst of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me.” Which the Lord says more plainly of the believer: “But whoever believes in me will not die; and though he die, he will live.” So, brothers, let us share with the holy martyrs the glory of the Lord's Easter. Let us share it, I say, and though they know all better, still let us proclaim to them how he rose from the bosom of the tomb to the world above. Let them reveal to us how he came back from the depth of the underworld to the tomb. Let them make known to us, I say, how warmth insinuated itself into the body, already lifeless and cold, how spirit was brought in, blood poured in, and the pulse of former vigour stirred the veins frozen with moisture. Let them make known to us, I say, how the loosened frame fitted the scattered organ of the body back into the former state of its sinews, and how the life-giving spirit turned the now silent harmony of the inner parts back to its old concord. Let the priests, then, proclaim the wonders the Saviour did after the resurrection in the world above. Let the martyrs reveal how great refreshments he worked, in death itself, among the dead.

The festival of the servants always follows the festival of the Lord; and the gladness of the faithful accompanies the joy of the householder; so that those who followed him in the likeness of the passion may also accompany him in the glory of the resurrection. And they do accompany him in the glory of the resurrection, as the Apostle says: “But if you are companions in sufferings, you will also be in the resurrection.” Do the holy martyrs, then, have fellowship with Christ in his resurrection? They plainly do; because, even if they have not yet risen in body, they have certainly already risen in merit; if they have not yet taken up their members, they have already taken up grace; if they are not yet freed from the underworld, they are freed from sins: for this is the first resurrection, to have escaped the darkness of sins and to possess the light of righteousness. Yet perhaps even many of these blessed martyrs either obtain, or have obtained, bodily resurrection with the Lord. For if we read that at the festival of the first resurrection, as the Lord raised himself, many bodies of the saints were raised and came to life and entered the holy city, why should we not believe that whenever the festival of his resurrection is celebrated, so often the saints too rise? For where there is a continual solemnity of prayers, there is also a continual grace of gifts. But perhaps someone says: the tombs are closed, the monuments built; how could they have come out from there? To say nothing of the fact that all things are possible to God, and that he can bring out a spiritual body though the inner chambers of the tomb are closed—to pass over all this—we have the example of John the apostle, whom the tomb, having received him, could shut in but could not keep; for it lost the body deposited, it did not take it up. For he, the doors of the tomb being closed, was taken away by the grace of resurrection, so that the burial was established, yet the buried man was not found. Indeed, when the priests sought his body in order to honour it, the entrance being opened, the tomb could not give back the one it had received. So the Saviour raises his victims with him when he rises.

If the weakness of my body could carry through as much as I must say and you ought to hear, we would all surely be excused: I by commending the precept, you by carrying out the command. But since we are struck with weakness so that we cannot say as much as we ought, the devotion of the mind excuses us, whom the speech of preaching does not excuse: that is, if we cease from the praises of the Lord with the tongue, let us prove his wonders by the works of faith. If we do not speak his glory in words, let us carry out his grace in deeds, since deeds come before words. For the Lord says thus in the Gospel: “Whoever does and teaches, he will be called great in the kingdom of heaven.” You see, then, that the deed goes before, teaching follows: since doing good is the first teaching. For when words cease, the best work itself teaches a man while it is seen. Even if it does not rouse the ears with the voice, it pricks the hearts with its power. For who, seeing a good deed, would not gladly imitate it and, using it as a silent master, be taught by its example? Deeds, then, come before words; indeed, without deeds words are of no use. For this is why the Lord too willed [the good] to be done and so taught, lest without good work there be a useless and superstitious boasting of words. We are better taught, then, by deed than by voice. Indeed the holy martyrs, even if they are silent in voice, teach us by the power of their deeds; even if they are silent in tongue, they persuade by the passion of martyrdom. Hence, although an eloquent orator teaches me by his eloquence, yet what is useful to me I learn better by the example of the saints than by the assertion of words. My eyes persuade me more quickly of what they see than the ear can instil what passes by: for forgetfulness quickly steals what is heard, but the history of the eyes is always looked upon. For who does not see at every hour and moment how the blessed martyrs then underwent various tortures for the name of Christ, and in a manner triumphed over the punishments themselves? For the more they suffered, the more they believed themselves to be most virtuous. For the judgment of the persecutor is the martyr's victory, as it is written: “That you may conquer when you are judged.” For when the martyr is judged and condemned, then he conquers and lays low. By such a judgment he is not sentenced to death but absolved to rest. And by this it is most plainly reasoned that he has conquered, not perished. It is clear, then, that the holy martyrs teach more by their passion than by voice, although the passion itself is not without voice. For we read that their souls cry out from under the altar of God and say: “How long, holy and true one, do you not avenge our blood?” For the Lord also says of Abel's blood to Cain: “The voice of your brother's blood cries out to me.” The blood that is shed innocent is said to cry out, then, not so much by voice as by its cause. So too the souls of the holy martyrs cry out, while by their very passion they commend their faith and innocence to our senses. The end.

Rightly and as a duty do the churches celebrate the distinctions of the blessed martyrs, who, enlightening countless peoples by the power of their faith, alone felt the death inflicted on them, but did not alone possess the benefits of their death. For the immense kindness of our God, manifold in goodness and skilful toward salvation, setting forth the arduous palm of the virtues, finds few seekers of it, but provides for the advantage of very many in the precious triumphs of a few. For he wills their merits to be our helps, and at the same time, while he commends true faith to us by the hard contest of martyrdom, he makes the affliction of those who went before the instruction of those who come after. How great is our God's care for us! He tests them so as to instruct us; he crushes them so as to win us; and he has made their torments our advancements. Rightly, then, do we honour those who fight in our dangers and campaign for our benefits; who by their contempt of light and life teach us how great an affection we owe our God. Let us know, then, that it is not without great peril that we dispute about the truth of the religion which we see confirmed by the blood of so many. It is a matter of great danger if, after the oracles of the prophets, after the testimonies of the apostles, after the wounds of the martyrs, you presume to discuss the old faith as though it were new, and remain in error after such manifest leaders, and contend in idle disputation after the sweat of the dying. Let us, then, venerate our faith in the glory of the holy martyrs; let us congratulate ourselves, dearly beloved brothers, on our great faith, through which, while you receive exiles with abundant love, you may merit to have them as intercessors too. For this is the glory of the holy martyrs: that, though their portion is sown in ashes throughout the whole world, their fullness remains whole in powers. Let us, then, venerate our faith among such great soldiers of Christ. For the Catholic faith is the mother of martyrdom, to which that illustrious athlete subscribed with his blood and swore by his death. The mother of martyrdom, I say, is faith. Let us, then, venerate our faith in the glory of the holy martyrs. How our faith? Because by them, while death is accepted with undoubting endurance, the hope of immortality is plainly asserted. For they would never have spent this life steadfastly unless they had perceived with perfect certainty that there is another incomparably more blessed. In the holy praises of truth, then, there is both greatness of soul in the passion and authority of reason; for they perish readily, to be restored for the better, for whom through the straits of tribulations an exit is opened to this fullness of joys. The bloody sentences from an impious mouth they reject, repudiate with their hearing, flee from in act. So they provoke the onset of the passion by greatness of soul and avoid it by humility. With the fury of persecution pressing, while still catechumens they prepare their soul for heaven; they are regenerated by death, released by condemnation, consecrated by the sword. Hence let us understand how much the Redeemer's passion availed to take away the sin of the world. See, a man's death is proved to confer innocence and life; hence let us understand how much the sacred death of the Son of God has profited all. See, human blood washes away personal and original sin, and, what is more, no one now takes away what that blood conferred by its baptism. We, after the brightness of baptism, after the whiteness of holy regeneration conferred on us, after acquiring the angelic dignity of the wedding garment, falling back into the mire of sins, rolling in the wallow of crimes, soil the snowy garment with the black contagions of iniquities and lusts, and stain with spots of deadly corruption the silk robe on which we had received the impressed seal of the divine image; and after the singular indulgence of our Lord we defile what was renewed, tear what was whole, violate what was expiated, repeating works to be purged no longer by waters but by flames. Happy this baptism, by which every offence so went out of the catechumen that it can no longer return; by which he so paid off his offences that he would no longer fear a creditor; by which he paid off the sins of his enemies in himself by faith and condemned them by his end; by which baptism he sought innocence by devotion, found it by perseverance, kept it by death. This being so, dearly beloved, although every such great witness of Christ is precious by his confession, he is more precious by his blood, more beautiful by his cruel wound, whiter by his dyed garment; although in each case he is thought to belong to someone by the privilege of his tomb, he is ours and everyone's by the fellowship of his help. For the abundant love and the grasping faith of that city mentioned above did not take so much from him, while it claims him for itself, as to believe that the benefits of that patron are shut up only within its walls. He is not shut in by places who is spread abroad by merits. You have called on the martyr everywhere; everywhere he hears, who is prayed to in the martyr. So, as he who weighs your prayers and dispenses his gifts governs, the near presence of an effective advocate will be granted as much as the devoted faith of the one received has been. For prayer which is helped by works of chastity, righteousness and almsgiving goes beyond the world, penetrates paradise, and flies up even to the very sight of the highest majesty, an angel offering it; as the voice of an angel testifies in a certain place: “And when you prayed,” it says, “I offered your prayer in the sight of the glory of God.” Blessed is the soul, dearly beloved, whose prayer, whose incense of compunction, whose holocaust of supplication—clouded by no unbelief, polluted by no stench of fleshly allurement, bloodied by no savagery, stained by no grudge of hatred, but fiery with faith, shining with conscience, fragrant with sincerity of heart, perfected by harmony and love—is carried by the service of heavenly messengers even to the face of God. This being so, let us honour the holy martyrs, princes of faith, intercessors of the world, heralds of the kingdom, co-heirs of God. But if you say to me: Why do you honour flesh already dissolved and consumed, for which God has no more care? Then where is that, dearly beloved, which he himself says through the prophet: “Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his saints”; and again: “But to me your friends are greatly honoured, O God.” We ought to honour the servants of God; how much more the friends of God, of whom it is said in another place: “The Lord guards all their bones; not one of them will be broken.” I honour, then, in the flesh of the martyr the scars received for the name of Christ. I honour the ashes consecrated by confessing the Lord. I honour in the ashes the seeds of eternity. I honour the body which showed me how to love my God, which taught me not to fear death for God. And why should I not honour that body, faithful ones, which even the demons reverence, which they afflicted in torture but glorify in the tomb? I honour, then, the body which honoured Christ under the sword, which reigns with Christ in heaven.

When it is the day of the holy martyrs, what should rather delight us than their glory? May the Lord of the martyrs help us, for he is our Lord. We heard the voice of the martyrs a little while ago, when the blessed Apostle was preaching and saying: “Who will separate us from the love of Christ?” That is the voice of the martyrs. “Tribulation? Distress? Persecution? Or famine? Or nakedness? Or danger? Or the sword? As it is written: For your sake we are put to death all day long; we are counted as sheep for the slaughter. But in all these things we overcome through him who loved us.” This is the voice of the martyrs: to overcome all things and to presume nothing of themselves; to love him who glories in his own, so that he who glories may glory in the Lord. They knew too what we sang a little while ago: “Rejoice in the Lord and exult, you righteous.” “Rejoice in the Lord and exult.” If the righteous rejoice in the Lord, the unrighteous know how to rejoice only in the world. But these are the first ranks to be defeated: first delights must be conquered, and afterwards pains. How can he overcome the world when it rages who cannot put it to flight when it flatters? This world flatters by promising honours, riches, pleasures. This world threatens by holding out pains, poverty, humiliations. Whoever does not despise what it promises, how can he overcome what it threatens? Riches have their delight, who does not know? But righteousness has more to delight. Let riches delight along with righteousness, [until] such a moment of temptation occurs that two things come into temptation, riches and righteousness, so that you cannot have both equally. If you put your hand to righteousness, let riches perish. If you put your hand to riches, you must lose righteousness. Now choose, now fight. Now let us see whether you sang not without reason: “Rejoice in the Lord and exult, you righteous.” Now let us see whether you sang not without reason: “Who will separate us from the love of Christ?” And indeed he passed over all the things by which the world flatters. Why? Because he was proclaiming the contests of the martyrs: those contests in which they overcame persecutions, hunger, thirst, poverty, disgrace, and finally the fear of death, the last enemy. But see, brothers, ... the Apostle warns us to prefer the love of Christ to the world. What distresses those suffer who wish to seize others' property! “Persecution?” he says. That too does not break the avaricious man; [is he frightened?] The avaricious man seizes and fears punishment, and yet burns in his robbery: for many suffer hunger while they acquire and make profits; when we command them to fast, they excuse themselves on account of their stomach. Let them have leisure all day to count their gold coins, and let them sleep fasting. “Or nakedness?” What shall I say about nakedness? Every day merchants escape naked from shipwreck, and sail again into danger. Why are men in danger every day, except to acquire riches? Nor does the sword deter them. Forgery is a capital crime; and yet inheritances are forged. If, then, temporal greed deserves this, why should not Christ's inheritance deserve it? The avaricious man would say in his heart, though perhaps he would not say it with his tongue: “Who will separate us from greed for you? Tribulation, or distress, or persecution?” The avaricious can also say to gold: “For your sake we are killed all day long.” Very well, then, do the holy martyrs say in the psalm: “Judge me, O God, and distinguish my cause from an unholy nation, from an unjust man.” “Distinguish,” it says, my tribulation; the avaricious too suffer tribulation. Distinguish my distresses; the avaricious too suffer distresses. Distinguish my persecutions; the avaricious too suffer them. Distinguish my hunger; to acquire gold the avaricious too go hungry. Distinguish my death; for gold the avaricious too die. What is “distinguish my cause”? “For your sake we are put to death all day long”; they not for your sake. The punishment is similar, but the cause is distinct. Where, then, the cause is distinct, there surely is victory. If, then, dearly beloved, we love the festival of the martyrs, let us love in them not their sufferings but the causes of their sufferings. For if we loved sufferings, we would find many who suffer worse things in bad causes. But let us attend to causes. Look at the cross of Christ: there was Christ, there also the robbers. A similar punishment, but a dissimilar cause. One robber believed, the other blasphemed. The Lord, as from a tribunal, judged between both: the one who blasphemed he set in Tartarus, the other with himself in paradise. Why this? Because, though the punishment was equal, the cause was unequal. Choose, then, the cause of the martyrs, if you wish to attain the palm of the martyrs. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, to whom be glory for ages of ages. Amen.

We ought to rejoice and exult, brothers, because a great festival has been added to our festival, and our prayers have been heaped with prayers. For it is a great joy when, as the birthday of the martyrs comes upon us, a priest has come upon us as well. I think this happened by divine providence: because the victims of the Saviour were to be honoured, the high priest of the Saviour arrived; namely, so that, since one would not be enough to unfold the glory of their preaching, the other might complete it; so that he might both adorn the martyrs with his service and also instruct your holiness with his discourses and soothe you with his blessings. We must give thanks, then, and rejoice that Christ wished his victims to be praised by the twofold mouth of priests; so that as much as their glory is set forth before God, so much their merit might be praised among the people; so that, since they are honoured the more readily in heaven, they might be magnified the more abundantly on earth. Truly the martyrs are to be called victims, who appeased God for us by their passion and, like accepted libations, brought us the Lord's favour by their death. There is plainly a victim in the martyrs, not that by which a dumb animal is consecrated, but that by which faithful simplicity is consecrated. That is not, I say, the victim which is sunk into the earth with sorrowful feeling, but that which is raised into heaven with eager feeling. It is plainly a victim, but not in him who offers in order to profane the altar, but in him who, knowing it, offers himself in order to be approved. Hence the prophet says: "Offer to God a sacrifice of praise." Martyrdom is truly a sacrifice of praise. And what the angels praise, the peoples praise, and he too praises who suffers. For he understands its glory; for unless he understood its praise, glory and power, he would never pour himself out as an offering while others were afraid. And so it is said as if to the martyr himself: "Offer to God a sacrifice of praise"; that is, as if he said: offer in yourself, you yourself, sacrifice yourself; be yourself both priest and victim to yourself, and by the devotion of your mind offer the soul of your body in the function of a high priest; let the faith of a Christian lead you to God's altar. For though the members of a Christian are laid low on the earth, yet his spirit is consecrated in heaven by that very death, and life is granted where destruction is applied. Hence the holy prophet says: "Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his saints." Precious plainly is the death which is honoured with a kind of gain of immortality; of which blessed Paul also says: "For me to live is Christ, and to die is gain," counting it gain that through the death of martyrdom eternity succeeds frailty in him, life comes to slaughter, and temptations are ended by justice. "Precious," it says, "in the sight of the Lord is the death of his saints." Precious is the death of the saints; their life certainly is more precious. If the death of the saints is precious, the life of sinners is cheap; and those whose life is cheap, their death too is without doubt shameful. Hence those too who counted the Lord among sinners said: "Let us condemn him to a most shameful death." Ignorant of justice and enemies of truth, they tried to condemn the light with the darkness. They killed the Lord, the founder of heaven and earth, by a most shameful death, because they hanged him on the gibbet with criminals, since that death seemed both shameful and a punishment more dreadful than other punishments. The blessed martyrs imitated his example and freely followed his footsteps. But the death of the Lord became glorious, and in his sight the death of all the saints precious; and today, together with the arriving high priest, we celebrate their devout annual feast. O happy celebration of today, which has earned to have the service of a high priest! Today a twofold joy of solemnity has shone for us: from the patronage of the saints and from the arrival of this high priest. Therefore, brothers, let them rejoice in the Lord, who in the immense clemency of his kindness has deigned to bestow such great benefits on us, that we may be illumined by the examples of those in whose triumphs we rejoice, and supported by the protection of those in whose merits we delight. May the immense Godhead grant us that with a clean heart and chaste body we may be able both to keep the kindly festival of this day and to receive with an unblemished mouth the sacred mysteries from the hand of the high priests; by the gift of our Lord Jesus Christ, who lives and reigns with the Father and the Holy Spirit for ever and ever. Amen.

The crown of all the martyrs shines, and especially of those whose birthday of victorious glory is celebrated, who entered the contest of suffering with robust faith, knowing for certain that Christ suffers in all, and that they are carried over at once with exultation of body to the kingdom of heaven; and while the Gentiles shudder at death in sickness, in death itself they obtain an everlasting inheritance, and they believe that through their sufferings there is a passing over rather than an end. This is the hidden wisdom which in your elect, Lord, is not gathered by persuasion but is drawn by your martyrs from the divine spring of virtue; because "to live well is Christ, and to die is gain," triumphing in Christ and gaining the loss of their sins. Although one who suffers in him does not die at all; for confession is not death but the inheritance of life. Martyrdom, then, is the pardon of crimes, the head of the virtues, the occasion of justice, the imitation of the Lord's passion. O most happy martyrs, renouncing the world! They preferred to be better at the last than at the first; whose consummation, in the end, makes a just beginning. By your divine will, almighty God, the most glorious martyrs earned to be witnesses of Christ; and meditating on victory, they confessed Christ in scourgings, in prisons, in workhouses, in solitude; for confession ought always to be the companion of the just. O illustrious souls of the blessed martyrs, and glorious victory! Among them even most devout women conquered at once the world and their sex, and, fighting with the devil, proved stronger than the men who tortured them, giving thanks to the raging executioner. For almighty God looks for faith from all rather than death. But the devil, who hates those who confess, bestows crowns unwillingly. He who kills them makes martyrs, and while he strives to conquer the servants of God, he himself is despised in his raging. Your generosity, then, Lord God, has thus far set martyrdoms before us, so that the adversary might be crushed ... For you willed not only to rescue man from the devil's power through faith, but to slay his oppressor through virtue; so that we who rejoice, having been freed more easily by the blood of Christ, ... may afterward triumph crowned in Christ. Through Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns for ever and ever. Amen.