Sermons 158

There follow eight sermons on Pentecost, of which the first six Muratori transcribed and published from the Ambrosian codex; the seventh and eighth, not yet published, we give as transcribed from a codex once belonging to the abbey of Saint Dalmatius. All of these in the aforesaid codices are adorned with the name of Saint Maximus, whose abundance of speech and style anyone can recognize. But this first one is also read in the Turin codex, as the eighteenth on Pentecost. How great is the care of Almighty God for the salvation of mortals, the most frequent mysteries of our very solemnities declare.

For first of all, that human nature might be able to pass into heavenly glory, the divine substance took up the body of mortal man; and that He might prepare us for so great a blessedness by the grace of the mystical laver, the Lord consecrated the streams of the whole world by His own baptism, and the blessing of His sacred body granted to all waters everywhere the power of regeneration. Then, that the just Lord might in just combat triumph over the very devil, the enemy of our salvation and of His own will, He permitted Himself to be crucified by him, by His own and His Father's will, so that the Passion of the Immaculate One might become the condemnation of the persecutors. By dying too, Christ made Himself equal to mortals, that, death being overcome, He might restore the life of mortals.

Nonetheless He ascended to the heights of heaven, that He might confirm by the foregoing example of His marvelous ascent the hope of believers, which He had nourished by His gracious promise.

But because all these gifts seemed to have been conferred upon us in some special way through the Only-begotten of God, the Holy Spirit also, whose saving advent we celebrate today, in order to show Himself of the same will and deity as the Son of God, supplied by the power of His majesty those redeemed by the blood of Christ; so that He who had formed in the womb of blessed Mary the body of the new Man, her virginity being preserved, might also strengthen the hearts of His apostles with heavenly vigor, and enrich their tongues with new eloquence, so that the same Spirit, who had marvelously brought forth Christ from a woman's womb for the redemption of all, might, by the diversity of tongues bestowed, preach Him to all nations through the apostles.

Who would not perceive, dearly beloved, the will concordant in all things between the Only-begotten of God and the Holy Spirit, since those whom Christ chose on earth, the Spirit visited from heaven? And therefore, since we see one grace in the apostles, we must necessarily believe there is also one power in the Deity. Thus indeed the Paraclete filled the breasts of the apostles in such wise that the presence of Christ was not lacking; for those whose gifts are undivided, their divinity assuredly is inseparable. But that the Spirit enters into those in whom Christ dwells does not increase for them any augmentation of deity, but avails toward the faith of unity.

The Son of God, who had created the use of speech, could indeed have given to His disciples the diversity of tongues; but the working was reserved, through which the Spirit also might be proved to be true God. For this is, as we believe, the dispensation of the incomprehensible Trinity: that, although the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit all work together inseparably by the effect of the same deity, yet certain things are bestowed in a special way by each. For, as a remedy for our life, the Father bestowed upon us the Son, the Son granted the grace of regeneration, the Spirit ministered power; as the teaching of the psalmist declares when he says: 'By the word of the Lord the heavens were established, and by the Spirit of His mouth all their power' (Psalm 32).

How necessarily, moreover, did the Spirit give the apostles knowledge of the tongues of the nations, so that all the Gentile world might be able to hear through them the truth of the saving faith. But what the Spirit bestows, the Father also bestows, who has all things with the Father, who wholly ever proceeds from the Father. And what the Spirit bestows with the Father, the Son also bestows, since from the same Father the Son is born, from whom the Spirit also proceeds. For Christ says: 'All things that the Father has are Mine' (John 16). If all things that the Father has are the Son's, then also what the Spirit has is common with the Father and the Son. And therefore, since in their name there is no division, one must be believed to be their will and power in every operation.

Thus, therefore, the heavenly Trinity accomplishes its mysteries in its faithful in such wise that, although the operation may seem distinct, yet the dominion is proved to be undivided. There is therefore one deity of the Son and the Holy Spirit with the Father; and as none but God could be born of God, so there is no doubt that He is God who proceeds from God. But in what manner, from one and the same Father, both the Son who was born is born, and the Spirit who is not born proceeds, is known to the Divinity alone, which, as it alone is, knows itself. For no one, as it is read, knows the Father but the Son (Luke 10). What the Son therefore knows, the Spirit also knows, to whom with the Son and the Father there is one name and one deity. Who, as the Apostle Paul says, 'searches the depths of God' (1 Corinthians 2).

But the Spirit is said to search the depths of God, not as though He were seen to pry into things hidden and secret from Himself in another, but that you may perceive that the things which are God's are unsearchable to you. Consider therefore, brother, that none can know the deep things of the Father except the Son, who is of Him, and the Spirit, who is from Him. Nor attempt to gaze upon what has been granted to none to see. For it is just to believe of Him that which He is; it is not permitted to investigate this very thing, that which He is, in what manner it is. The apostles therefore received through the Holy Spirit the diversity of tongues; but there is one God whom they speak. And for this reason they began the variety of tongues, that the diversity of the nations might learn the unity of faith by manifold speech.

Finally, as it is read, when the most blessed Peter was discoursing, three thousand men believed (Acts 2). Nor let this seem incredible to us, for the same Spirit both instructed the tongues of the apostles, that they might speak the things to be believed, and, that the preaching apostles might be believed, the same Spirit prepared the hearts of the hearers. He who gave understanding to the speakers granted comprehension to the hearers, so that it is not doubted that there is one power in the mouth of the speakers and in the heart of the believers. In these things, dearly beloved, the work indeed is visible, but the worker invisible; the effect of the power manifest, but the majesty of the one effecting it hidden.

Most rightly, therefore, does the Spirit announce the victory and faith of Christ—the Spirit who had promised His advent through the prophets, who was present with Him in the virgin's womb, who was present at His baptism, with the testimony of the Father's voice, in the form of a dove. Believing therefore that the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit are ever of one will, and united also by the bond of Christian peace in the work, let us direct the paths of our life unto the divine precepts, that by the soundness of faith and by the conduct of our deeds we may merit the fullness of the grace of God and the visitation of the Holy Spirit, and so forth.