Homilies of Maximus of Turin (Bruni's collection)

Contents

Reading pages: 1.1–7.1 · 8.1–14.1 · 15.1–21.1 · 22.1–26.1 · 27.1–33.1 · 34.1–38.1 · 39.2–42.1 · 43.1–47.1 · 48.1–53.1 · 54.1–59.1 · 60.1–64.1 · 65.1–70.1 · 71.1–77.1 · 78.2–82.1 · 83.1–86.1 · 87.1–91.1 · 92.1–96.1 · 97.1–102.1 · 103.1–108.1 · 109.1–114.1 · 115.1–118.1

1. 1.1As courtiers adorn themselves and fill the emperor's treasury for his birthday, Christians should prepare for Christ's birthday with purity of soul and generous alms to the poor.
2. 2.1Christ comes at night to scatter the Antichrist's darkness, and the two in one bed show that each will rise according to the merit of his life.
3. 3.1The two women grinding are explained as the two Testaments working together like upper and lower millstones in the Church, while the synagogue grinds uselessly with one stone.
4. 4.1As the winter solstice heralds Christ's birthday, Christians should prepare by clothing the soul in virtue, like Christ's garment that no fuller could whiten, and by cleansing conscience through almsgiving.
5. 5.1On Christmas Day the preacher celebrates Christ's birth of a virgin who remained a virgin, a birth attested by the whole Trinity, and calls Mary's womb a temple higher than the heavens.
6. 6.1A Christmas homily, incomplete in the manuscript, on the two births of Christ, eternal from the Father and in time from the Virgin, preached while foreign armies threatened.
7. 7.1Against pagans who mock the virgin birth, the preacher argues that the God who created everything from nothing could certainly cause a virgin to conceive and bear a son.
8. 8.1A short Christmas homily rejoicing that the new Adam, born in Bethlehem, opens heaven to mortals, and that he is both God and man, as the star and the angels show.
9. 9.1Celebrating Christmas, the preacher defends the virgin birth against a recently condemned heretic who equated marriage with virginity, arguing from God's power in creating Adam and Eve and in other miracles.
10. 10.1Christ has two births, eternal from the Father and in time from the Virgin, both beyond telling; the believer should confess them in faith rather than scrutinize them with reason.
11. 11.1The preacher sets Isaiah's prophecy beside Luke's annunciation to confirm the virgin birth and explains the swaddling cloths, the manger, and the crowded inn as mysteries of salvation.
12. 12.1Christ's birth from an untouched virgin shows him to be both man and God, and the God who formed Adam from clay and Eve from Adam could surely cause a virgin to conceive.
13. 13.1Christ, the eternal Son and second Adam, was born of a virgin for all nations; his lowly birth is matched by heavenly signs, so the believer should accept both his humanity and his divinity.
14. 14.1The mystery of Christ's birth exceeds human understanding and calls for faith and wonder; the swaddling cloths and manger signify his taking our sins and giving his body as food, and all the earth should sing the new song.
15. 15.1Christ was born of a woman without a man to undo through Mary what came through Eve, to show that both sexes are saved, and to redeem the dead by his death and resurrection.
16. 16.1A sermon against the pagan festivities of the January Kalends, with their masquerades as women and beasts and their taking of auspices for the new year, urging Christians not to look back like a ploughman to such vanities.
17. 17.1An Epiphany homily on the Magi, whose three gifts signify redemption, true worship, and resurrection, and on the wedding at Cana, where Christ showed himself the author of marriage and the Son of God.
18. 18.1The Magi, the firstfruits of the Gentiles, recognized the newborn King by a star, while the scribes who knew from Scripture that he would be born in Bethlehem did not seek him.
19. 19.1At Epiphany the star given to the Gentiles, foretold by Balaam, led the Magi to worship Christ as God and man; they came as pagans and left as Christians, and believers should imitate them.
20. 20.1At Epiphany the preacher explains why a star was given to the Gentiles, recounts the Magi's journey and worship, and urges his hearers to imitate them by abandoning idols and doing works of mercy amid a barbarian threat.
21. 21.1The angels promise peace to men of good will; the soul conceives Christ as Mary did; and the Magi, who gave up their magic after finding Christ, shame Christians who return to the pagan Kalends.
22. 22.1Epiphany commemorates the star, the wine at Cana, and Christ's baptism, by which he sanctified all waters for our regeneration; the three gifts of the Magi confess the one God in Trinity.
23. 22.2The closing sentence of the homily: the faithful must neither divide the unity of God nor confuse the persons of the Trinity.
24. 23.1Epiphany unites the Magi, Cana, and Christ's baptism; the preacher dwells on the wine miracle, which shows Christ the author of marriage and the Creator, and on Mary's request and Jesus' reply.
25. 24.1The apostles believed after one miracle at Cana; since Christ's works are always present to God and to us through Scripture, Christians who have received so many benefits should believe in deed and not only in word.
26. 25.1Christ gradually revealed his majesty; the Magi, led by a star, worshipped him as King and God, shaming the unbelief of the Jews, and returned by another way.
27. 26.1The star, foretold by the pagan Balaam, made Christ known to the Gentiles; the Magi's three gifts are mysteries of redemption, true worship, and resurrection, and believers should offer the gifts of their works.
28. 27.1The Epiphany star revealed Christ to the nations through the Magi while Judea did not receive him; Herod's rage killed the innocents, whom Christ made sharers in his passion and heirs of eternal life.
29. 28.1Christ's birth and his manifestation by the star are equally wonderful; the Chaldeans, steeped in superstition, believed through a silent star, while those who had the prophets did not.
30. 29.1Epiphany commemorates three works of the Trinity: the Magi's worship, Christ's baptism, in which Father, Son, and Spirit were revealed, and the wine at Cana, which the Creator of water could easily make.
31. 30.1Christ's baptism, kept at the same season as his birth as a second birthday, sanctified the waters for Christian baptism, as the pillar of fire once went before Israel through the Red Sea.
32. 31.1Christ, sinless, was baptized for our sake; if he and John longed for baptism, the catechumens should not delay receiving it, since without it they cannot reach paradise.
33. 32.1A fragment of a homily on the wine at Cana as a revelation of Christ's creative power and his approval of marriage.
34. 33.1The preacher holds that the Magi's worship, Christ's baptism, and the wine at Cana all fell on Epiphany: the Church of the nations was born, baptism was instituted, and the baptized are changed like water into wine.
35. 34.1Whatever event Epiphany marks, Christ's baptism shows his humility and sanctifies the waters; John points to the Lamb of God, the heavens open, and the Trinity is revealed.
36. 34.2A second version of the preceding homily: the three Epiphany mysteries, John's testimony to the Lamb of God, and the revelation of the Trinity at Christ's baptism, which consecrated all waters.
37. 35.1Christ fulfilled every ordinance of the law, circumcision, purification, and baptism; John's protest and Christ's reply show his humility, and the Spirit and the Father's voice confirm the sacrament of baptism.
38. 36.1Before Lent the preacher explains Christ's rule for fasting: not with a show of gloom like the hypocrites, but with alms and sincere joy, though true sorrow for sin is not rejected.
39. 37.1Christ's temptation in the wilderness is retold with the devil's imagined bewilderment at the virgin-born, sinless man; the preacher then lists the virtues by which Christians sanctify their Lenten fast.
40. 38.1Lent's forty days are divinely set and fall in spring, when creation revives; as the thorn brings forth the rose, fasting turns sins into virtues, after the pattern of Christ, who hungered for our salvation.
41. 39.2Lent's forty-two days match the stations of Israel's journey to the promised land; baptism is the Jordan turned back and the Red Sea crossed, and the cross sweetens the bitter law as the wood sweetened the waters of Marah.
42. 40.1Lenten fasts are stations and a camp that guard Christians against the devil; breaking the enjoined fast is grave, as Jonathan's tasting honey during Saul's fast shows.
43. 41.1Israel's journey from bitter Marah to Elim, with its twelve springs and seventy palms, figures the passage from the law to the Gospel: the springs are the twelve apostles, the palms the seventy disciples and the martyrs' victory.
44. 42.1In the temptation Christ answered the devil with Scripture so that the devil could neither prevail nor discover that he was God; Christians conquer the devil by clinging to Christ and fasting from vices.
45. 43.1The preacher retells the three temptations, showing how Christ's answers concealed his divinity from the devil, and teaches that a good fast includes almsgiving, self-control, forgiveness, and hunger for righteousness.
46. 44.1Comparing the forty-day fasts of Moses and of Christ, the preacher explains why only Christ hungered, and insists that Christians fast from vices, quarrels, usury, and lies as well as from food.
47. 45.1The title of Psalm 22 (Latin 21), “for the morning help,” is explained: as dawn comes before sunrise, Christ the sun of righteousness and his apostles first enlighten sinners with simple teaching.
48. 45.2Psalm 22 is read as spoken by Christ: his cry of abandonment, the worm born without seed as a figure of his virgin birth, and the divided garments and seamless tunic as the Scriptures divided by heretics and Christ's heavenly wisdom.
49. 46.1Christ's silence before Pilate is compared with Susanna's silence before her accusers; both conquered by innocence, but Daniel freed the innocent while Pilate, declaring Christ just, handed him over.
50. 47.1Susanna's trial and Christ's are compared in charge, accusers, and place; Judas, unlike Susanna's accusers, condemned himself, as the heretic does who separates himself from the Church and denies Christ's divinity.
51. 48.1The potter's field bought with Judas's silver for burying strangers figures the world redeemed by Christ's blood, God as the potter who forms and re-forms us, and baptism as the Christian's burial with Christ.
52. 49.1As Ulysses bound to the mast escaped the Sirens, so the cross, the Church's mast, carries believers safely past the world's pleasures; the bronze serpent on the pole foreshadows Christ crucified, the cure for the poison of sin.
53. 50.1The cross, which brought salvation, is traced in the ship's mast and sail, the plough, the four quarters of heaven, and the posture of prayer with raised hands, as Moses' hands defeated Amalek.
54. 51.1The penitent thief earned paradise at once because he believed in Christ on the cross, saw his own sins borne in Christ's wounds, and confessed him King while the disciple Judas betrayed him.
55. 52.1Faith brought the thief to paradise before the apostles, while fear made the disciples flee and Peter deny Christ at a maidservant's question, as Eve once led Adam to sin.
56. 53.1Peter's denial at the doorkeeper's word parallels Adam's fall through Eve, but Peter was restored more quickly: he wept silently when the Lord looked at him, and his threefold confession of love made him a shepherd.
57. 54.1Peter, made better by his fall and tears, is the rock of the churches by his faith, as Christ is the rock by power; his walking on the water and sinking show that faith upholds and doubt sinks, and that Christ saves those who cry to him.
58. 55.1The passion and resurrection were prefigured in the Old Testament: Eve from Adam's side, Abel, the ram caught in the thicket, Elisha's bones, and above all Jonah, whom the sea monster could not consume; therefore redeemed man should value himself and resist vice.
59. 56.1Christ's words to Mary Magdalene, “Do not touch me, for I have not yet ascended,” rebuke her for seeking him among the dead; only faith that places him at the Father's right hand touches him, as Stephen did.
60. 57.1On Easter the psalm “This is the day the Lord has made” calls all creation to rejoice, for Christ the day shines in heaven, on earth, and in the underworld; even sinners should hope for pardon.
61. 58.2At Easter Christians pass with Christ from death to life and are renewed in a spiritual infancy of innocence; the child the apostles must become like is Christ himself, who did not return evil for evil.
62. 59.1The newly baptized are renewed like the eagle that grows young by moulting, and the one eagle whose youth is renewed is Christ, whose flesh flowered again in the resurrection.
63. 60.1Christ's flesh flowered again in the garden tomb and bore fruit at his ascension; like an eagle he carried captive humanity to heaven and, as a victor, gave the gift of the Spirit and of tongues.
64. 61.1The fifty days from Easter to Pentecost are kept as one long Sunday without fasting or kneeling, because Christ was present; after the ascension, when the cloud of the Father's embrace received him, Christians fast with longing.
65. 62.1Pentecost is kept with a vigil and joy like Easter; Christ sits at the Father's right hand as King and Judge, and stands, as Stephen saw him, as the advocate of Christians.
66. 63.1Pentecost marks not the ascension, which was on the fortieth day, but the coming of the Spirit, who teaches what Christ promised and is therefore of one substance with him; Christians should purify themselves to receive him.
67. 64.1Stephen saw the Son of Man at God's right hand to confound unbelief, became the first martyr though a deacon, and prayed for his persecutors; Christians must likewise forgive enemies, since without love no good work profits.
68. 65.1On the feast of John the Baptist's birth the preacher recounts the wonders of his conception and birth and applies his call, “Prepare the way of the Lord,” to moral reform, since the people's vices open the way to barbarian invaders.
69. 66.1John the Baptist surpassed all prophets by pointing out the Lamb of God present among men; his birth to aged parents, his father's muteness, his austere life, and his death for rebuking the king are recounted.
70. 67.1John the Baptist is “more than a prophet” because he saw and pointed out the present Christ, baptized him, and witnessed the Trinity at the Jordan; the Church everywhere celebrates his birth.
71. 68.1On the feast of Peter and Paul the preacher praises Peter's confession, keys, walking on the water, pastoral charge, and inverted crucifixion, and Paul's conversion, rapture, and martyrdom, both ending their lives in Rome, the capital of the world.
72. 69.1On the feast of Peter and Paul the preacher praises Peter's confession, his power of the keys, and his walking on water, and Paul's calling, blinding, and rapture to paradise.
73. 70.1Peter, the fisherman made helmsman of the Church, and Paul, the persecutor made teacher, are celebrated together; Paul's rapture to paradise and Peter's power to bind and loose show their greatness, and Rome now glories in their patronage.
74. 71.1Christ chose the poor fisherman Peter and the persecutor Paul, erring from zeal for the old law; Peter's confession “the Christ, the Son of the living God” expresses both natures of Christ, and the two are the pillars of the churches.
75. 72.1Peter and Paul excel the other apostles, Peter holding the keys of power and Paul the key of knowledge; equal in merit, they died on one day in Rome, the head of the nations, after Peter's prayer brought down Simon the magician from the air.
76. 73.1Peter and Paul, the apostles to the Jews and to the nations, were equal in merit, the one called on earth and the other from heaven; they died together in Rome, and honor paid to martyrs is paid to Christ.
77. 74.1On the feast of the deacon Lawrence the preacher tells of Xystus's prophecy that Lawrence would follow him in three days, of his distributing the Church's treasures to the poor, and of his martyrdom on the gridiron.
78. 75.1In the persecution under Xystus, Lawrence, foretold to follow his bishop in three days, gave the Church's treasures to the poor and was burned on a gridiron, but the fire of faith within him overcame the persecutor's flames.
79. 76.1Lawrence's feast teaches that no tribulation should separate Christians from Christ's love; the inner fire of faith overcame the outer fire, so that he burned in order not to burn for ever.
80. 77.1Celebrating a bishop who withstood the Arians, the preacher expounds “I and the Father are one” and “He who sees me sees the Father”: the Son is distinct in person but one in substance with the Father, and both God and man.
81. 78.2A memorial sermon for a holy bishop of the city, praised after death as one safe in harbor, who healed the spiritually blind, deaf, and dead, guarded the windows of the senses, and drove vices from his people's hearts.
82. 78.3The conclusion of the memorial sermon: God set the holy bishop before his people as a model, like a portrait for a painter, so that each may copy one of his virtues and be received by him at the end.
83. 79.1Cyprian's feast falls at the vintage: martyrdom is a saving wine and cup, Christ is the cluster on the cross, and the spies carrying the grapes figure the Jews, who walk ahead with their backs to Christ, and the Christians, who follow with their eyes on him.
84. 79.2Cyprian, martyred at the vintage, gives the new wine of martyrdom; Christians, the Lord's vineyard, must not bear the thorns of worldly care and avarice but share their harvest and vintage with the poor.
85. 80.1Cyprian, bishop, teacher, and martyr, is praised for his inspired eloquence, his exhortations that made many martyrs, and his death, which confirmed his teaching throughout the world.
86. 81.1Local martyrs, whose relics the city holds, deserve special honor: they suffered for their fellow citizens, guard them in life, receive them at death, and burial near their bones protects from hell, provided their faith is imitated.
87. 82.1Martyrs became martyrs by living the Gospel before they died; the whole Christian life is a cross, but avarice, which drives merchants, soldiers, and officials alike, keeps people from it, while the virtues are riches that follow their owner to paradise.
88. 83.1The creed, like the password of Judges 12, distinguishes the faithful from heretics; the preacher explains each article in turn: God the Father, the only Son, the virgin birth, the cross, burial, resurrection, ascension, session, judgment, the Spirit, the Church, forgiveness, and the resurrection of the flesh.
89. 84.1A visiting bishop's sermon is praised, and Joseph of Arimathea's new tomb is compared with the Virgin's womb as a second, more glorious birth of Christ.
90. 84.2Joseph's devotion in burying Christ is compared to Mary's in bearing him; the 'open sepulchre' is read as the evangelists' mouths, and Mary Magdalene's question is read as unwitting prophecy of the ascension.
91. 85.1Humility and patience are the way to the narrow gate of heaven; the millstone of Matt 18:6 is read as the pagans' stone idols, the penalty of those who persecute Christians.
92. 86.1Wars signal the nearness of Christ's kingdom; the city's gates should be defended by the 'gates of justice' and the Christian's spiritual armour, as David defeated Goliath with a stone that figures Christ.
93. 87.1Prayer, fasting and almsgiving are the true defences of a city threatened by barbarians; heretics are like foxes that lie in wait for the Church's chicks.
94. 88.1Life is a 'pirates' den' of trials; barbarian raiders can take property but not Christ, so Christians should trust God rather than magic, and should fast, give alms and give thanks.
95. 89.2Christians should give thanks at meals, begin each day with thanksgiving and the sign of the cross, and end it with psalms, like the birds and the nightingale, not like the owl, figure of heretics and pagans.
96. 90.1Nineveh, led by its fasting king, was saved by humility and abstinence; so Christians threatened by enemies should send an 'embassy' to God by fasting, prayer and almsgiving.
97. 91.1Citizens who flee their threatened city out of fear for their wealth desert their mother homeland; the city is saved by the presence and prayers of the just, as with Nineveh and Lot.
98. 92.1Prayer, mercy and fasting are the Christian's arms against barbarian enemies, as Elisha's prayer revealed the angelic army at Dothan and blinded the Syrians without bloodshed.
99. 93.1The saints share fellowship with the angels, as Elijah's ascension and Elisha's double spirit show; Elisha's healing of Jericho's waters with salt in a new vessel prefigures Christ's incarnation and the apostles making the barren Church fruitful.
100. 94.1At the dedication of a church rebuilt after barbarians burned the city, the preacher explains that God destroyed buildings, not his Church, which is the people, and that he will restore the city as he restored Job.
101. 95.1The first Christians held all things in common, but now Christians hoard and even plunder; like Ananias they keep back what they promised God, and should now provide for the refugees in the city.
102. 96.1Ananias's avarice warns against Christians who profit from the barbarian invasion by buying plundered goods and captive Romans; one may buy only in order to restore.
103. 97.1Almsgiving quenches sin as water quenches fire; the spring of mercy is Christ, who at the well gave the Samaritan woman living water, so that she returned home chaste and a preacher.
104. 98.1The cleansed Samaritan woman is the Church of the Gentiles washed in baptism; baptism quenches the fire of Gehenna, and almsgiving is a second, repeatable washing for sins committed after baptism.
105. 99.1Christ's instruction to stay with a worthy host is read spiritually: the faithful house is the Church and the worthy host is the Saviour, whom believers must never leave for idols.
106. 100.1The preacher rebukes his people for shouting to 'help' the moon during an eclipse, a pagan superstition that ascribes weakness to God's creation; the Christian should not change like the moon.
107. 101.1The moon waxes and wanes by the Creator's design, not by spells; it figures Christ's self-emptying and the Church, which shines with Christ's borrowed light and survives the magic of Jannes and Jambres and Simon Magus.
108. 102.1The clergy's office is a trade in which Christ's commandment is the talent to be invested; Isaiah's innkeepers who water the wine are worldly priests, and also the Jewish priests who denied Christ's divinity.
109. 103.1Christ was born amid pagan festivals so that Christians would leave them; the preacher condemns New Year's drunkenness, the bought kisses and forced strenae gifts of the Kalends of January, and its omens.
110. 104.1Christ came to give eternal, not temporal, goods; Christians must guard their faith against heretics now active in the region, whose presbyters sell forgiveness for money instead of requiring repentance.
111. 105.1The priest's office is a spiritual trade: alms given to the poor are a treasury that earns interest at the judgment, and the Saviour's sayings are a loan whose interest the preacher and hearers must render.
112. 106.1David teaches the fear of the Lord by first commanding control of the tongue, the devil's instrument from the serpent in Eden onward; Christians should pray, with David, that God guard their mouths.
113. 107.1David's prayer for 'goodness, discipline and knowledge' (Ps 119:66) teaches the balance of kindness and correction, shown in Peter, Paul and John the Baptist; true knowledge includes faith in the one substance of Father, Son and Spirit.
114. 108.1Christ's crossing by boat shows his true humanity and figures his guiding the ship of the Church; the healing of the paralytic, forgiven before he is healed, proves Christ's divinity, since only God forgives sins.
115. 109.1The gospel text for the homily: the parable of the mustard seed.
116. 109.2The mustard seed, cheap in appearance but fiery when crushed, is like Christian faith, which shows its power when crushed by trials.
117. 109.3The martyr Lawrence, roasted on the gridiron, is like the crushed mustard seed whose fragrance spreads through the whole world.
118. 110.1Faith, like mustard, heals through tears and stripping away; the mustard seed that becomes a tree is Christ, humbled and exalted, sown in Joseph's garden tomb, with the apostles and martyrs as his branches.
119. 111.1The leaven hidden in flour is Christ, broken in his passion to bind the scattered Gentiles into his body; the woman is the Church who grinds catechumens and hands on the creed, while the synagogue grinds in vain.
120. 112.2Returning from a gathering of bishops, the preacher compares priests to bees, then rebukes the people, and even the clergy, for staying away from church while he was absent: Christ, the Bishop of bishops, is always present.
121. 113.1After a rebuke the preacher explains that loving correction profits the hearer; then on Peter's confession he teaches that Simon was named Peter from Christ the Rock, and that Christ's ascension surpasses Elijah's.
122. 114.1Soldiers and officials cannot excuse their extortion by their office; John the Baptist's words to tax collectors and soldiers condemn unjust exaction, and apply also to clergy who trade or prey on widows.
123. 115.1Christ rejected the man who boasted he would follow him anywhere, comparing him to a fox, and chose the silent man who left his dead father; foxes are also deceitful Christians, thieves and heretics who lie in wait for the Church.
124. 115.2The conclusion: beware of the 'foxes' of false doctrine, like Samson's foxes that burned the fields, and be simple as doves and wise as serpents.
125. 116.1Christ healed the withered hand by a word in anger; the withered right hand is the scribes who withheld Christ from the people, and ultimately Adam's sinning hand, which Christ heals in all who stretch out their hands to the poor and to God.
126. 117.1The camel and the needle's eye describe rich men whose cares kept them from church on the feast of Epiphany; the preacher urges them to fear God's judgment more than a civil judge.
127. 118.1The preacher explains that he withheld a sermon to punish the people for neglecting the feast of the apostles Peter and Paul, and urges them to honour the martyrs, since honour to them is honour to Christ.