The very reading of the homily makes manifest, to anyone not unacquainted with Maximus's eloquence, who its author is. There is added the authority of four codices ascribing it to St. Maximus, that is, three of Holy Cross, and a fourth of St. Gall. In the codex of Holy Cross no. 90 it stands under no. 38, in codex 99 under no. 8, and in codex 9 under no. 2, with this uniform inscription: 'Where the Lord on the Sabbath healed the withered hand.' The same is the title of the St. Gall codex, no. 41. The Benedictine monks of the Congregation of St. Maur have nothing, either in the appendix of St. Augustine's sermons or in the preface to the sermons of St. Ambrose (Paris edition, 1690), which opposes us.
I believe you have diligently listened, brethren, to the evangelical reading which was lately read, where the Lord Jesus Christ, having entered the synagogue on the Sabbath, cured by spiritual medicine a man who had a withered hand—not by applying the juices of herbs, not by binding on remedies of pigments, but commanding by a word, and in anger restored health to the body. In anger, I say, as the Evangelist relates, He restored vigor to the right hand. Whence we understand of what sort is the healing of the Lord's benignity, whose indignation is such a medicine; or in what manner He profits when appeased, who thus shows mercy when angered. By a word, therefore, He commands that the sap of the veins should pour itself back into the parched right hand.
It is no wonder if He restored the withered right hand who fashioned the whole body from that same dry dust, and by the command of His word gave back that which He established at the beginning by the working of creation; so that the thing formed, recognizing its own Author, obeys Him even in a little part, to whom in the whole mass it owed itself entirely. But let us see what the withered hand in the Synagogue may be, which profits its own body nothing, since it dried up in its works; let us also inquire when it first began to be withered. For the cause of not one man only is being transacted through the Saviour, nor is the weakness of one man alone provided for, but the infirmity of the whole human race is saved.
But there is no doubt that the right hand, being the more excellent portion of the whole body, performs this office, that it supplies daily nourishment to its own body, and by a certain providence feeds and nurtures the other members for the enjoyment of life. This right hand, then, I would call the scribes or teachers among the Jewish people, who, being appointed by the Lord as it were the more excellent portion in the body of the Pharisees, neglected to feed their remaining members from the oracles of the prophets; that is, they refused to hold out Christ to their own body, according to the oracles of the prophets, as the food of eternal life; and therefore their teaching withered like a feeble hand, because it did not seek the fount of perennial wisdom.
Therefore it finally came to pass that the right hand, being as it were contracted, could not hold the key of knowledge, as the Lord says: Woe to you, Scribes and Pharisees, who hide the key of knowledge (Luke 11), and the rest. Now this key is Christ the Lord, by whom the secrets of our hearts are unlocked unto belief in Him. This key is lost by the Pharisees and found by the apostles; as the Lord says to Peter: To thee I will give the keys of the kingdom of heaven. Therefore the right hand of the Synagogue withered, forsaking Christ; in the chief men of the Jews, then, the right hand of the Synagogue grew worse. For whoever forsakes the fount of Christ is at once weakened, nay, is found feebler than all the members.
But I find that this same hand was once better than the other members. For holy Moses, the leader of the Jewish people, was as it were the illustrious right hand of his body, when he was counted worthy to receive from the Divinity the law which was to be handed down. Moses, I say, was the right hand, who nourished the sons of Israel with heavenly manna as with a provident hand. This is plainly the right hand which convicted the magicians Jamnes and Mambres by the brightness of its snowy splendour. For thus you have it written: When Moses had drawn forth his hand from his bosom, it shone with the light of a glorious brightness; and therefore the darkness of the magicians was overthrown, because by the merits of Moses his shining right hand gleamed. But let us see when this hand first began to be withered or dead.
I affirm that it first withered in Adam, when against the Lord's prohibition he plucked the fruits of the forbidden tree, and then lost the sap of immortality. And it was then in a manner dried up, when by his own sin he caused man, made to the image of God, to be dissolved into dust. And would that the hand alone had been held liable to sin; but what is more grievous, the whole body was condemned to death, when the right hand first sinned. Nor should you wonder if the member of the right hand did not remain whole in Adam: for in it the vigour of eternity withered away. For just as the right hand of Moses, keeping the commands of the Lord, shone with snowy brightness, so also the right hand of Adam, transgressing the precepts of God, was contracted with a deadly pallor.
This hand of Adam, therefore, the Saviour heals in the synagogue, that is, He hastens to heal the weakness of the whole race; whence the remedy is thus common. For He says even to that man: Stretch out thy hand, thou who didst contract it by sacrificing to idols; stretch out thy hand, whose right hand withered by taking usury. He says to him: stretch out thy hand, thou who longest through it to seize the property of orphans and widows. But thou also, who thinkest thou hast a sound hand, beware lest it be contracted by avarice. Rather stretch it out often to the poor for mercy's sake, more frequently to the stranger for hospitality's sake. Stretch it out always to the Lord for thy sins, be merciful, be generous; observe what the prophet says:
Let not thy hand be stretched out to receive, and contracted when it is to give (Ecclus. 4). For thus thy hand can be sound, if it is withheld from evil deeds but stretched out in good works.