This most elegant sermon on the Pasch, together with the rest of St. Maximus's, was, as is ascertained, first brought to light by Muratorius from the Ambrosian codex. We augment the credit of so great a codex and editor by the testimony of the Turin codex, where it stands inscribed: 'Likewise on the Pasch, Sermon XII.' The very series of the sermons shows that they flow from one and the same source. 'The yearly festival of the Lord's resurrection returns to us indeed, most dear brethren; but where there is the truth of religion, the sacrament is ever new to the faithful, as most blessed Paul says: The old things have passed away, all things are made new (2 Corinthians 5). And not without reason is the Son of God always to be believed new, who feels no age of passing times;'
for he is new indeed, brethren, in whom there is no change of age, nor did he ever know how to be other than he was born. For God, proceeding from God, as he has no time of birth, so he cannot have an end of living, as the most glorious patriarch David says to him: 'But thou art always the same, and thy years shall not fail' (Psalm 102). And not only is Christ himself, the man who was made one with God, always new; but he is always given to be seen, and by the nourishment of spiritual waters and the sustenance of heavenly faith he renews the failing old age of the human race, blessed David saying: 'Send forth thy Spirit, and they shall be created, and thou shalt renew the face of the earth' (Psalm 104).
The face of the earthly man is indeed renewed, when, the old captivity of the devil laid aside, he puts on the new liberty of the new King. For it is the Lord's own sentence, who says: 'If the Son shall set you free, you shall be free indeed' (John 8). And rightly, most beloved, does the Son of God alone set sinners free, because he alone is free from sin, as he himself deigned to testify of himself through the prophet, saying: 'I am become a man without help, free among the dead' (Psalm 88). Without help indeed he then seems to have been made, when the Jewish fury received power to rage against him. But he stood free among the dead, because among all mortals he alone had no causes of dying.
Wherefore death, conquered through him, could not hold him as he rose again. But see, most beloved, how great a mystery lies in the humility of Christ, who, though he is eternal from the eternal and Lord of the universe, nevertheless accomplishes the liberty of his own servants. He rejoices in injuries, exults in reproaches, and all his triumph is in the cross; and by a wondrous kind of remedy he overcomes the devil by suffering, and gives life to man by dying. All of which the Only-begotten of God undertook for us in his mercy, sustained by his power, and perfected by his humility. Isaiah the prophet says of this humility: 'As a lamb before its shearer is without voice, so he opened not his mouth in his humility' (Isaiah 53).
How beautiful, brethren, is this comparison, and how suited to the truth! For just as, when the lamb is sheared, it knows not how to cry out against the shearer, so when Christ was crucified, he did not resist the one wounding him. The lamb is despoiled, and is silent; Christ is slain, and is silent. The silence of the lamb, its woolly fleece shorn off, clothes man. The silence of Christ weaves the garments of eternal salvation for all who believe. 'He opened not,' he says, 'his mouth in his humility'—that is, the fact that Christ was silent amid reproaches and curses was not of misery, but of power. For with such a purpose did the Son of God come to redeem the world, that he might triumph over the proud by humility, the obstinate by modesty, the slanderous by silence. So indeed it is also read:
'When he was reviled, he did not revile again' (1 Peter 2). Nor is it to be doubted, brethren, that he knew how to answer cursing with true blessing: for neither could he be moved by earthly curses, who had come to bestow blessings from heaven. And rightly did Christ, the Wisdom of God, return no curses to those who cursed, because every curse, repelled by patience, returns upon its own author. So then Christ humbled himself, as the Apostle says, 'made obedient unto death, even the death of the cross' (Philippians 2). Even unto the death of the cross he humbles himself, lest the heavenly victim should succumb to some base and usual death; but that, as the mediator of God and men, in the midst of heaven and earth he might perfect the sacrament of the death he had taken up.
The author of life therefore died by our condition, that by his privilege we might live. The Son of God was crucified, then, not that the cross might disfigure Christ, but that by the sacrament of Christ the cross might become the standard of our victory. In fine, all we who rejoice in the confession of Christ, glory in the sign of the cross. Nor indeed can anyone be reckoned in the Christian warfare, unless with a faithful hand he has raised the banner of the Crucified. On account of this death of the cross, as it is read, the Almighty exalted his Christ, and gave him a name above every name. He gave him a name above every name, when he handed over to his authority and power the things of heaven, and subjected to him the world and the lower regions, as the Saviour himself says:
'All things have been delivered to me by my Father, in heaven and on earth' (Matthew 11). Does he not appear to hold dominion over all things, does he not appear to possess sovereignty—he whom, as we read, every creature, bowed upon a bent knee, trembles at and looks up to as its ruler? Indeed, certain nations, although they differ among themselves in their diverse ways of living and in the variety of their tongues, nevertheless agree with one accord and one voice in the confession of Christ; and although some of them, by wicked persuasion, disagree with us concerning his divinity, they still confess together with us both that he suffered and that he rose again from the dead.
And therefore, most beloved, believing in the resurrection and kingdom of Christ, let us rejoice with pure minds and holy devotion, so that what the whole world believes, we too may prove that we do not disbelieve—by our faith and by our works.