Upon those words of Matthew, chapter 2: When Herod was dead, behold an angel of the Lord appeared in a dream to Joseph in Egypt, saying: Arise, and take the child and his mother, and go into the land of Israel; for they are dead who sought the life of the child. We note that not even the manner of writing of this sermon is like that which St. Maximus uses. Wherefore we judge that it was rashly ascribed to that same holy bishop by the scribe of the codex of the Lambach library of the thirteenth century. So then, Herod, who had made himself the author of such great crimes that he did not draw back his hand even from the persecution of the Lord himself, could not remain unavenged.
For he who had fraudulently, first among the Gentiles, obtained the kingdom of the Jews, had not only inflicted many evils upon the Jews, but had even shown himself a parricide toward his own sons; and above all his evils, which it would be long to recount, when he had heard that the Saviour of the world was born, being moved indeed by envy, so that he might destroy the one whom he had heard was born to reign, he ordered all the boys in Bethlehem and in all its borders to be killed. And so great a madness had inflamed his mind, that neither because of the multitude of the dying, nor because of the innocence of the little ones, did his savagery cease; for which cause, struck by divine vengeance, he suffered an incurable sickness.
He had a fever and most acute gasping, and continual panting, and also convulsion of his whole body. The disease of dropsy had wasted his body, so that his feet were weighed down with swelling; his inner entrails too were burned with such pain that they seemed to be discharged through the secret parts of nature. An itching also of his whole body was so intolerable that even his private parts, putrid, swarmed with worms. There was also a stinking breath so great that scarcely any of the physicians could approach him to apply remedies. Finally, being in that very sickness, he is said to have ordered several of the physicians to be killed, since those who could have been of use to his health were unwilling.
Moreover he endured intolerable hunger and thirst, and, what was worse, all food and drink were loathsome to him. He endured such sleeplessness that he passed days and nights wide awake; and if he slept a little, he suffered phantasms, so that he repented of having slept. But since he burned with excessive love of the present life, he ordered himself to be carried across the Jordan, where there were warm waters, which were said to bring a remedy even to the sick; but those which were useful to others profited him nothing, so that it might be understood that he had been struck by the divine will. It also seemed good to the physicians to place him in a fomentation of warm oil;
and when he had been put in, his whole body is said to have been so dissolved that his eyes were turned as in the likeness of the dying, his voice was cut off, and sensation was absent. And when after a little while, roused by the voices of his friends and servants, he had recovered his senses, he ordered himself to be carried to Jericho. And when he was already despaired of as to life, he ordered all the chief men of the Jews, summoned to him from the several cities and fortresses, to be thrust into custody; and calling his sister Salome, and her husband Alexander, he said: I know the Jews will rejoice at my death; but I shall be able to have an honourable funeral procession from the lamentation of mourners, if you are willing to obey my precepts;
and as soon as I have breathed out my spirit, kill all the chief men of the Jews whom I have shut up in custody; and so let it come to pass that those who desire to rejoice at my death may be compelled to mourn the destruction of their own citizens. And that they might not draw back their hand from the shedding of their blood, he ordered five hundred silver drachmas to be given to each. And when he was straitened with pain of mind, he ordered his son Antipater, whom he had bound in chains as one plotting his father's death, to be killed; and because, having heard of his death, he rejoiced. But now, beset by such great evils, and because he had recognized that he could not live, he desired to hasten his death.
Whence on a certain day, when he had sat up, he poised the blow of one striking against his own self, and would have struck himself with his own hand and immediately ended his life, had not one of his friends who stood near, Achiabus by name, drawn back his hand. Such then was the end that Herod had, who out of hatred of the Saviour had shed much innocent blood. When he was dead, behold an angel of the Lord again appeared in a dream to Joseph in Egypt, saying: Arise, and take the child and his mother, and go into the land of Israel; for they are dead who sought the life of the child. And rising up, he took the child and his mother, and came into the land of Israel (Matthew 2:19 and following).
And because he did not say 'he is dead,' but 'they are dead,' from the words of this angel we understand that many of the chief men of the Jews had consented with Herod, and therefore it was brought about by divine vengeance that many of these perished with him with whom they had consented to the death of the Lord. But spiritually the death of Herod signifies the end of the envious strife by which Judea now rages against the Church. And that after the death of Herod the child Jesus returned to the land of Israel signifies that toward the end of the age he will return to the Synagogue, when through the preaching of Elijah and Enoch it will have believed in him. Whence, when he is ordered to be carried into Egypt, he is bidden also to flee by night. But when he returns to the land of Israel, no mention is made of night;
because those whom he now abandons in darkness on account of unbelief, he will receive toward the end of the age into the light of faith. But hearing that Archelaus reigned in Judea in place of his father Herod, he was afraid to go there. Now Archelaus was one of Herod's sons, whom Herod had appointed to reign in Judea after him. But afterward, when the Jews accused his insolence, by the judgment of the senate he was banished into exile at Vienne, which is a city of the Gauls, and there ended his life. And Archelaus, which is interpreted 'a conquering lion,' signifies Antichrist, because for a time he will have victory among his own, and will appear as a terrible lion.
Into that part therefore where Archelaus reigned, Joseph was unwilling to go with the child, because the people of the Jews, who are to believe in Antichrist, Christ will not inhabit through faith. But after the death of Archelaus, Christ returns to the land of Israel, because after the slaying of Antichrist the Synagogue is to believe in him, as the Apostle says: When the fullness of the Gentiles shall have come in, then all Israel shall be saved (Romans 11). But as to what remains and shall remain in the Church, let us hear where he dwelt. And being warned in a dream, he withdrew into the parts of Galilee; and coming he dwelt in a city which is called Nazareth.
For because Nazareth means 'flower' or 'shoot,' it signifies also her who has both the flower of purity and the shoot of the virtues, the beauty of which shoot the bridegroom admires in the Song of Songs, saying: Who is this that comes up through the desert, like a wand of smoke from the aromatic spices of myrrh and frankincense and every powder of the perfumer (Song 3); to whom again it is said by the voice of the bridegroom: I am the flower of the field and the lily of the valleys (Song 2). And because the Church passes from love of the present life to heavenly desire, rightly also it is called Nazareth of Galilee, which is interpreted 'migration.' And as to what is added, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophets, that he shall be called a Nazarene (Matthew 2);
this testimony which we have mentioned is not found in the Septuagint translators. For some wish it to be written from the book of the prophet Isaiah, where it is written: There shall come forth a rod out of the root of Jesse, and a flower shall rise up out of his root (Isaiah 11); but we have said that, if the evangelist had set down a fixed testimony from the Scriptures, he would not say 'through the prophets,' but 'through the prophet.' For all the prophets who proclaim him to be the Christ call the Lord a Nazarene. For he is the one of whom it is said through Daniel: When the Holy One shall have come, the anointing shall cease; and by David: You will not give your Holy One to see corruption (Psalm 15). And again: Know that the Lord has made his Holy One wonderful (Psalm 4).
We assent to the Maurists, who doubt whether this sermon is to be attributed to Maximus; consult them in the appendix of the works of Augustine, number 158, page 198, of the Antwerp edition of 1700. After the passion of our Lord Jesus Christ and the resurrection, in which the sum of our faith consists, there emerges a certain Joseph, a lover indeed and disciple of the Lord, and one who, according to the circumstance of the time, rendered funeral rites to the deceased, since the fury of the persecutors forbade also that mercy be known. St. John narrated the deed thus: Joseph, he says, asked Pilate secretly, for fear of the Jews, and requested the body of Jesus; and Pilate permitted it (John 19).
When in his religious mind fear contended with devotion, he straightway devised how he might satisfy both his faith and his fear, secretly requesting both that he might commit the slain one to the earth, and might avoid the malice of the Jews. But the judge kept the same disposition toward the dead man which he had shown when he heard the request: for the one whom he had compelled to give over to punishment, he willingly delivered over to burial. But after the body of Jesus was buried, straightway it reclaimed its power, by which the majesty that had come was to return. For he whose nativity had shown the son of man, his death revealed to be God. For when Mary Magdalene had come to the tomb, her devotion, mindful of the Saviour, having lost faith, compelled her to tears;
Seeing the stone rolled back from the door, when she had not found the Lord in the tomb, she began to grieve more bitterly, because she had lost even the one who had died. Straightway she hastened to Peter, His disciple, whom, by reason of the quality of his merit, a greater concern for the Lord's death also touched. She announced the empty tomb; the body carried away is sought. But Peter, aware of the resurrection of the Son of God even before the cross, which He Himself had foretold that He would suffer, at such a report neither wept nor grieved; but keeping his custom in the divine powers, he hastened to prove by experience what he had believed. And so with swift course he sped to the Lord's tomb, intending to return more joyful if he had not found Him whom he sought. And the blessed evangelist also proves from what follows the power of Him who rose again.
"Simon Peter came," it says, "and went into the tomb; and when he had not found the Lord, he saw the linen cloths lying there, and the napkin that had been over His head" (John 20). Now that God is made manifest, about to carry into heaven the one He would give life to, He empties both death and the tomb. For with the linen cloth laid aside in which the body had been wrapped, He left upon the earth the spoils of death, His majesty now clothed with life in the body. Peter therefore, seeing the resurrection which the Son of God had foretold now fulfilled, having come anxious, departed secure. Mary, however, ignorant of the resurrection, did not cease to pour out her tears, not knowing that this was the glory of the Lord's body, which she supposed to be an outrage.
The angel rather forbids her vain grief than consoles it, as the evangelist also testifies: "Mary," he says, "why do you weep?" (ibid.). If you understand the meaning of the divine discourse with spiritual foresight, he does not ask the cause of her tears as one who is ignorant, but rebukes the untimely weeping of the sorrowful woman. "Mary," he says, "why do you weep" over an empty tomb — not over the loss of a corpse, but over the merit of one rising again, since the power of Jesus Christ, not a crime, had claimed His body? He blames that tears should be poured out by Mary at the very moment when she ought to have rejoiced. "Why do you weep? Or whom do you seek?" The angel instructs the woman in her ignorance with wholesome counsel, that she should not seek the living among the dead.
This woman, because even when corrected she did not recognize that the one she bewailed had come back to life, is afterwards called back from her superfluous tears by the voice of Him who was rising again. For Jesus addresses Mary with similar words: "Woman," He says, "why do you weep? Or whom do you seek?" This is to say: while I already live, for whom, as dead, do you weep? Or, while I am present, whom do you seek? But she, recognizing Jesus when addressed a second time, by the working power of the divine majesty found alive the one whom she had sought as slain — Jesus Christ our Lord, to whom in the Father is glory forever and ever. Amen.