Although the Maurists number this sermon among the Ambrosian ones, no. 61, in the edition of the works of St. Ambrose (Paris, 1690), they nevertheless judge it more likely to be true that St. Maximus was its author. And they now say that there is a general homily on the martyrs, which is praised by Gennadius and is covered under no. 12 in the St. Gall codex. In the ancient codices of Holy Cross in Jerusalem, 90 and 99, this same sermon bears the inscribed name of St. Maximus. Wherefore we make no account of the copyists of later times — such as the Vatican codex 1269, p. 26, and the Laurentian 37, Plut. XVII, p. 159 — who ascribe it to St. Ambrose. By Muratorius, vol. IV of the Anecdota, p. 26, we note that it was edited with the title 'On the Birthday of the holy martyrs,' the beginning of which is:
'As we know, brethren, the vows of the Lord are always followed by the festival of His servants.' In the codices of Orvieto and the fourth of the library of the Friars Minor Conventual, now in the Laurentian, the same sermon is read without the author's name: 'It is worthy and fitting, brethren, that after the joy of blessed Easter, which we have celebrated in the Church, we should share our joys with the martyrs, and announce to them the glory of the Lord's resurrection — to them who are partakers of the Lord's passion. For those who are companions of the reproach ought also to be sharers of the joy; for so the blessed Apostle says: As you are companions of the sufferings, so shall you be of the resurrection (2 Cor. 1); If we endure, he says, we shall also reign together (2 Tim. 2).
Those, therefore, who have endured evils for Christ's sake ought also to have glory with Christ. Let us announce, I say, to the holy martyrs the grace of the Lord's Easter: so that, while we proclaim the unbarred bolts of His tomb, their sepulchers too may be unbarred; while we say that His dead body suddenly flourished with warming veins, their limbs, now cold, may also be warmed by the heat of immortality; for the same principle both raises the martyrs and raised the Lord. For as they experienced the way of His passion, so they experience also the way of His life; for it is written in the psalm: 'You have made known to me the ways of life' (Ps. 15);
this is assuredly said in the resurrection in the person of the Savior, who, when after death He returns from the lower regions to those above, begins to have known the way of life which before was held unknown. For unknown was the way of life before Christ, because it had not yet been trodden by the footstep of any rising one; but when the Lord rose again, once made known it was worn by the ground beneath the feet of many, of whom the holy evangelist says: 'Many bodies of the saints rose again with Him, and entered into the holy city' (Matt. 27). Whence, since the Lord in His resurrection said, 'You have made known to me the ways of life,' we too may now say to the Lord: 'You have made known to us the ways of life.' For He Himself made the ways of life known to us, who revealed to us the path to life:
for He made the ways of life known to me when He taught me faith, mercy, justice, and chastity; for by these paths one arrives at salvation. And although the shadow of death, by the dissolution of His body, surround us, yet life does not desert its steps, but even amid the very laws of hell we walk without hesitation by the powers of Christ. Whence the holy prophet says: 'For even if I walk in the midst of the shadow of death, I will fear no evils, for You are with me' (Ps. 22). Which the Lord says more plainly of the believer, saying: 'He who believes in me shall not die; and though he die, he shall live' (John 11). Therefore, brethren, let us share with the holy martyrs the glory of the Lord's Easter.
Let us share it, I say; and although they know all things better, yet let us proclaim to them how He rose again from the bosom of the tomb to those above. Let them reveal to us in what manner He returned from the depth of hell to the sepulcher. Let them make known to us, I say, how warmth insinuated itself, spirit was infused, blood was poured in, into the now lifeless and cold body, and how the pulse of former vigor stirred the veins congealed by moisture. Let them make known to us, I say, how the dissolved framework of the body refitted the loosened joining of the sinews into its former state, and how the life-giving spirit brought back into the old harmony the concord of the inner organs, now silent.
Let the priests, therefore, proclaim what marvels the Savior wrought after the resurrection unto those above. Let the martyrs reveal how great refreshments He wrought in the dead in death itself. The vows of the Lord are always followed by the festival of His servants; and the joy of the Father of the household is accompanied by the gladness of the faithful — namely, that Him whom they followed by the likeness of His passion, they may also accompany by the glory of His resurrection. And they accompany Him also by the glory of the resurrection, as the Apostle says: 'But if you are companions of the sufferings, so shall you be of the resurrection' (2 Cor. 1). Is there, then, for the holy martyrs a fellowship with Christ in His resurrection? Plainly there is, because although they had not yet risen in body, they had certainly already risen in merit;
if they have not yet taken up their members, they have already received grace; if they are not yet freed from the lower regions, they are freed from their sins: for this is the first resurrection — to have escaped the darkness of sins, to possess the light of justice. Yet perhaps very many of these same blessed martyrs may also obtain, or have already obtained, the resurrection bodily with the Lord. For if we read that, at the festival of the first resurrection, when the Lord raised Himself, many bodies of the saints were raised and revived, and entered into the holy city — why should we not believe that, as often as the festival of His resurrection is celebrated, the saints too rise again just as often? For where there is a perpetual solemnity of vows, there is also a perpetual grace of gifts.
But perhaps someone may say: the sepulchers are closed, the monuments built; how could they come forth from there? To pass over the fact that all things are possible to God, and that even with the recesses of the tomb closed He can bring forth a spiritual body — to omit all these things, we nevertheless have the example of John the apostle, whom the tomb, once it had received him, could shut in but could not keep; for it lost the body deposited, it did not take it up. For he, with the doors of the tomb closed, was carried off by the grace of the resurrection, so that the burial remained, but the buried one was not to be found. Finally, when the priests, for the sake of honoring him, sought the body, the entrance being unbarred, the tomb could not give back him whom it had received. The Savior, therefore, raises up His own victims with Himself when He rises.