Sermons 136

This sermon, whose title in Gennadius is On the Fast of the Servants of God Begotten, is in the codices which assign it to Saint Maximus inscribed On Fasting and on Lent. These codices are the Sangallensis, number 61; Holy Cross in Jerusalem 90, sermon 47; likewise Holy Cross 99, sermon 37; and the Turin codex, sermon 1, On Lent. Here Maximus treats of the right manner of fasting and the time at which the fast is prescribed, and he commends that fast, not which some choose for themselves by their own judgement, but which the true faithful, that is, the servants of God, perfectly carry out as instituted in the Church. This is the sum of the sermon. Therefore they agree with Gennadius who inscribed it On Fasts and on Lent;

for in it those who fast do not indulge their own vanity, but obey God commanding through the Church, and as household servants imitate Christ their leader and teacher. The Benedictine monks of the congregation of Saint Maur published this among the Ambrosian sermons under number 23, in the cited Paris edition of the year 1690, and discoursed much concerning it, and especially concerning the naming of Quinquagesima, which was not in use before the ninth century. We, relying on the trust of Gennadius and of the described codices, have ascribed this too to the holy bishop of Turin.

Some of the Christians, brethren, thinking that they observe the precepts of the Godhead more religiously, having set aside the devotion of Lent, whose beginning we undertake today, falsely claim to keep a Quinquagesima, when this is neither commanded in the divine Scriptures nor handed down by the authority of our forefathers. Therefore they do this by the presumption of their own mind alone, and while they think they are acting more devoutly, they conduct themselves more superstitiously. He claims to observe Quinquagesima who perhaps can scarcely fulfil Lent. It is indeed good to fast at all seasons, but better to fast Lent with Christ. For this Lent the Lord consecrated to us by his own fast. When I said fast, I did not say fasts;

for the Lord's fast was one, who for forty continuous days and nights took no food at all. Whoever therefore, being a Christian, does not fulfil by fasting the consecrated Lent, will be held guilty of transgression and contumacy, in that he himself, by taking his midday meal, rescinds the law given by God for his own salvation. For you rescind the law, you who do not keep the example of the Lord's fast. But what sort of Christian are you, when, while the Lord fasts, you eat your midday meal? What sort of Christian are you, when, while Christ hungers, you refresh yourself? He sustains hunger for your salvation; do you dread to fast for your sins?

Tell me, I ask you, you who eat your midday meal in Lent, whether you are not guilty in your consciences, that, while the whole people abstains, you alone devour against the Lord's precept? Whether you feel no shame when you go out in public, lest anyone fasting should meet you: or whether you do not consider, when you proceed to the church, how you shall offer the peace to the bishop, lest perchance by the very spirit of your kiss he should reject you? But if perchance you do not consider these things, you err most vehemently; for you ought to know that when in the days of Lent one who has eaten meets one who is fasting, he who fasts does not judge well of him.

For I say this because I hear that very many of the faithful, what is graver, abstain in alternate weeks of Lent, and violate that consecrated number of days by the intemperance of the gullet, that is, eat their midday meal through a stretch of seven days, and fast for a space of seven days. To these I say: why do they defraud themselves even during those seven days by fasting, since such a fast profits them nothing? For although one may abstain on certain days, although he may not take the sweeter nourishments of foods, nevertheless the fast of Lent is not reckoned to his credit, who does not fast for forty days. It is shameful to say: old men and little old women keep Lent; young men and young women do not.

With all solicitude, therefore, let us celebrate this most sacred time; let no day pass us by without fasting, let not one week go past us without vigils. For he keeps Lent who by fasting and keeping vigil ascends to Easter. For as in the rest of the year to fast is a reward, so in Lent not to fast is a sin; for those are voluntary fasts, these are necessary; those come of free choice, these of law; to those we are invited, to these we are compelled. But let us see whence this most sacred number of forty days took its beginning.

We read first in the Old Testament, in the times of Noah, when wicked iniquity had seized upon every kind of men, that, the cataracts of heaven being opened, rains of waters flowed down for the same number of days, and that, by a certain mystery of the number forty, when the flooding of the world had come about, there befell the earth not so much a deluge as a baptism. Plainly it was a baptism, by which in the sinners iniquity was taken away, and in Noah justice preserved. So then, even now, the Lord has given us Lent after the pattern of that time; that, the number of days being appointed, and the heavens opened, the rain of heavenly mercy may bedew us, and, the flood having come about through the baptism of the saving laver, the shower may enlighten us;

and as it was then done by the waves of the waters, so now let the iniquity of offences be extinguished in us, and the justice of virtues preserved. For the same principle which was under Noah is turned even now; for baptism is a deluge to the sinner, a consecration to the faithful. For through the laver of the Lord justice is saved, injustice is slain: which we see done in one and the same man, the apostle Paul, who, before he was washed by the spiritual precepts, was a blasphemer, a persecutor, and Saul. But when the rain of the heavenly laver flowed upon him, the blasphemer is slain, the persecutor is slain, and Saul too is slain; the apostle is quickened, the just man is quickened, and Paul too is quickened.

And to such a degree did he lose the old man with his deeds, that he changed even his name along with his ways. Whoever therefore in this devotion of Lent shall keep the Lord's commandments, in him the diabolical impiety will be slain, but the apostolic grace will be preserved; and in a manner succeeding himself, he dies in that part in which he is a sinner, and is quickened in that part in which he is just. Let us see also whether elsewhere in the Scriptures we can find this mystical number of forty. We read that holy Moses (Exodus 16) in the wilderness nourished the sons of Israel with heavenly manna for the course of forty years. A good number, then, which ever opens heaven: a good number, I say, through which the justice of Noah is saved, and the sons of Israel are fed.

Whence let us too observe this number, and let the heavens be opened to us, so that both the rain of heavenly grace may bedew us, and the manna of spiritual sacraments may refresh us; for after the likeness of our fathers, by this observance of Lent we are both justified and fed: we are justified by the laver, we are fed by the sacraments. But someone will say: the sons of Israel, when they were filled with manna in the wilderness, did not fast at all. But I say that they then gave themselves to nothing but abstinence, and therefore deserved the grace of heavenly nourishment. First, because all the desert is a fast; because the anxiety of solitude repels the desire of foods; then, in the wilderness, whence choice banquets? whence precious wines? whence, in the time of forty years, any substance whatever?

We understand therefore that the sons of Israel fasted, because we know that a plenty of foods was lacking to them, and that they then took food when it pleased the Lord to bestow it. And he fasts long enough who refreshes himself according to the will of Christ. But so greatly did the abstinence of the sons of Israel in the wilderness please the Saviour, that the intemperance even of certain ones among them was marked; so that whoever more greedily had gathered for himself a double portion of food in the morning, he was struck with this injury, that he was found to have preserved for himself not so much food as worms: namely, that because he had coveted beyond a moderate refreshment, he was goaded, as it were by certain stings of conscience, after the manner of worms.

Therefore let us too, brethren, observing the daily and moderate fasts of Lent, and as though established in the wilderness, think nothing of worldly delights, let no sweetness of bodily desires solicit us. Let us be sober, let us be chaste, having indeed our conversation in the cities, yet let us possess in mind a wilderness. If we thus act as abstainers, it will come to pass that we are refreshed by the nourishment of heavenly manna, and are pricked by no stings of worms.