From the most approved documents it has been shown that the preceding homily is to be attributed to no one but St. Maximus of Turin. But since this one evidently refers to that one and makes mention of it, it is sufficiently proved to have been devised by the same man and handed down in writing. Then the two manuscripts of Santa Croce in Gerusalemme mentioned above take away all hesitation, in which it is announced under the title 'What follows, on the Grain of Mustard,' and the Sankt Gallen codex, indicating Maximus as author. We advise, however, that the monks of St. Maur placed part of this sermon in the appendix of the sermons of St. Augustine, first class, number 88; where they taught that it had been published among the printed works of Ambrose, which by common counsel they struck from the roll of the holy doctor. For, besides the two manuscripts of Santa
Croce in Gerusalemme, the Vatican codex 6451 also supports Maximus. It exists also in the Orvietan codex, page 169, in which, with these words prefixed: 'As above, it begins: To what is the kingdom of heaven like, and to what shall I estimate it? says the Lord'; and so it is likewise begun in the Vallicellian codex A 9. 'Last Sunday, discoursing on the Lord's parable in which he says, To what is the kingdom of heaven like, and to what shall I estimate it? It is like a grain of mustard, etc., we touched on many things by which we might prove that the kingdom of God is not undeservedly compared to a grain of mustard, and that the distance lies only in the estimation of words, not in the comparison of powers. For Christian faith is the kingdom of God; it obtains the same vigor which the nature of mustard puts forth.'
For just as, when we take the juice of mustard, we are driven to tears, saddened in countenance, wrinkled in brow and moved, and we receive the very healthfulness of our body with a certain weeping of austerity. For thence bitterness exasperates us, pungency penetrates, hence the heat of the fiery savor kindles, and, disturbed in the whole body, we are made more healthy the more we lament. So too, when we receive the commands of the Christian faith, we are saddened in mind, afflicted in body, moved to tears, and we obtain our very salvation with a certain weeping and grief. Thence also fasts exasperate us, thence the conscience of sins wears us down, hence the loss of patrimony
disturbs us, and, saddened in our whole being, we the more obtain salvation if we weep the more, according to what the Lord says: 'You shall weep and lament, but the world shall rejoice' (John 16). But just as, when the head is perhaps to be cured with mustard, we are ordered to shave off the hair, to lay aside all the impediments of the skin, so that medicine may come more perfectly to the bare body; so too, when the soul is to be cured through faith, we are commanded to take away from ourselves the substance of the world, to lay aside the impediments of gold and silver, so that spiritual medicine may come more fittingly to the bare and lone soul. For whoever is entangled in the things of the world and the riches of the age—to him the medicine of faith will not profit.
Therefore, what the juice of mustard is in the body, let Christian faith be enacted in the soul. But since in the same Sunday's saying it is written that the kingdom of heaven is likened to a grain of mustard, which a man took and cast into his garden, and it grew, and became a tree, and the birds rested in its branches, let us inquire more diligently who this is to whom all these things may fit. We said above that the nature of mustard can fit the holy martyrs, who were worn down by various sufferings.
But since Scripture says, 'and it grew, and became a tree, and the birds rested in its branches,' I judge that this is more rightly compared to Christ the Lord himself, who, being humbled by his birth into man, is like a grain, but, exalted by his ascension to heaven, is like a tree. Clearly Christ is a grain while he suffers, and a tree when he rises again. He is a grain, I say, when, hungering, he endures famine; he is a tree when with five loaves he satisfies five thousand men. There he suffers barrenness by the human condition; here he bestows abundance by his own divinity. But I would call the Lord a grain when he is struck, despised, rebuked; and a tree when he enlightens the blind, raises the dead, forgives sins.
That he is a grain, he himself says in the Gospel: 'Unless the grain of wheat falling into the ground die, it remains alone' (John 12). The Jews, then, not at all enduring the pungency and bitterness, as it were of mustard, of this grain—that is, of the Lord the Savior—scorned to receive the juice of heavenly discipline, saying to the man born blind whom he had enlightened: 'Be thou his disciple; but we are disciples of Moses' (John 9). They too were utterly ignorant of the commands of Moses himself, who enjoined upon them this bitterness to be eaten: when he was arranging the sacraments of the Passover to be celebrated by them, he said, 'You shall eat it with bitterness; for it is the Lord's Passover' (Exodus 12).
For he did not (as they suppose) command the most bitter juices of vile herbs to be eaten with the flesh of the roasted lamb, but he enjoined that the profitably bitter words of Christ's commands be devoured together with the very sacrament of the Lord's passion. For do not the words of the Lord seem bitter when he says: 'If you would be perfect, leave all that is yours, and come, follow me' (Matthew 19)? And when he says that two tunics are not to be had, nor a wallet, nor sandals—this bitterness of words is the medicine of souls. But as to what the Gospel says: 'which a man took and cast into his garden' (Matthew 13); whom do we suppose this man to be, who sowed the grain he had received, like a grain of mustard, in his little garden? I judge him to be the one of whom the evangelist relates:
'But behold, Joseph, who was a councillor from Arimathea, came to Pilate, asking that he might bury the Lord's body taken down' (Luke 23); which having received, he handed over for burial in the tomb that had been prepared in a garden, and therefore Scripture says: 'which a man took and cast into his garden.' Therefore Joseph was a garden of the heavens, full of various flowers, but had not yet grafted such a seed into it. His special soul's garden was indeed fragrant with the varied sweetness of virtues, but he had not yet placed Christ with the spices in the secret of his heart. So while he buries the Savior in the monument of his little garden, he rather set him within the inmost parts of his soul.
But if you seek the branches of this tree, you will find that Peter is a branch, Paul is a branch, all the apostles and martyrs are branches; and if anyone will hold fast to them, he will by no means be submerged by the waves of the age; but rather, hiding beneath their shade, he will not suffer the burning of Gehenna, being safe from the storm of the diabolical tempest, and from the fire of the burning judgment.