Of this sermon, which William Cave had come to know among the Ambrosian works (edition of the works of St. Ambrose, Paris 1569, no. 93), he writes that the same St. Maximus was the author. We think it better to place it among the doubtful sermons of Maximus. Nor do we omit to note that part of this sermon—namely, from the words: Rightly, therefore, and by due right, down to these: you would contend with idle disputation—was taken from sermon 83 of St. Maximus on the birthday of the three holy Martyrs (col. 623), the rest being stitched on by an uncertain author. Even if we were rendering the due debts of pious vows to martyrs of a foreign region, we should be shown to be consulting our own advantages and interests. For faith would make them ours, and though of borders however remote they would gather for us the patronage we hope for.
For helps of this kind belong to zeal, not to places. Therefore you will earn from God's own household as much intercession as you have paid in veneration. It behooves us, then, that devout religion should rather reconcile strangers to us, than that the negligence of an irreligious age should perhaps estrange our own from us. Let us acknowledge, dearly beloved, the more abundant largess of divine gifts toward our Church. The peoples of individual cities exult happily if they are fortified by the relics of even a single martyr. Behold, we possess whole peoples of martyrs. Let our land rejoice, the nurse of heavenly soldiers and the fruitful parent of such great virtues. Rightly, therefore, and by due right, the honors of these blessed martyrs are celebrated by the children of Mother Church.
They, illuminating countless peoples with the vigor of their faith, indeed felt for themselves alone the death inflicted upon them, but did not for themselves alone possess the benefits of their death. For the immense goodness of our God, manifold toward beneficence and skilled toward salvation, setting forth the arduous palm of the virtues, precious because sought by few, in the triumphs of a few looks to the advantage of very many. For He wills the merits of those to be our supports. And let it be so, that while by the hard contest of martyrdom He commends to us true faith, He may make the affliction of those who go before the instruction of those who come after. How great is the care of our God toward us! He puts them to death, that He may instruct us. He crushes them, that He may gain us, and He wills their torments to be our advances.
Rightly, therefore, do we venerate those who battle amid their own perils and do military service for our advantages, who through contempt of light and life teach us how great an affection we owe to our God. Let us know, then, that not without great peril do we doubt concerning the truth of religion, which we see confirmed by the blood of so many. It is a matter of great peril if, after the oracles of the prophets, after the testimonies of the apostles, after the wounds of the martyrs, you presume to shake the ancient faith as though it were new, and after such manifest guides you remain in error, and after the death-sweats of the dying you contend with idle disputation.
We congratulate you, therefore, most beloved brethren, upon your great faith, through which, while with overflowing charity you receive exiles, you have merited to have also the inhabitants of paradise and the citizens of heaven. Therefore the holy Church of Milan, though it retains with itself the whole body of the blessed Nazarius, martyr of Christ, has nevertheless transmitted him whole to the world in blessing. For this is the glory of the holy martyrs: although a portion of them be sown throughout the whole world in ashes, yet their fullness remains entire in virtues. We venerate, therefore, our faith in so great a soldier of Christ; for the mother of the martyr is the catholic faith, in which this illustrious athlete, his blood poured out, trod death underfoot for her sake: the mother, I say, of martyrdom is faith.
Let us venerate, therefore, in the glory of the holy martyrs our faith. In what way our faith? Because from these, while the endurance of death is undoubtingly received, the hope of immortality is evidently asserted. For they would never so steadfastly have laid down this life, unless by a perfect determination they perceived that there was another incomparably more blessed. In the holy heralds of truth, therefore, is the authority of the resurrection. For they perish, ready and to be restored to something better, they for whom, through the straits of tribulations, an exit is opened to the amplitude of joys.
And so the blessed Nazarius, whose glorious victory over the enemy of the world the universal Church today celebrates with festive exultation—when in the time of paganism he was born of no ignoble parents—while yet a boy began suddenly to detest both the soldiery and the teaching of his sacrilegious father; and, being anticipated by his innocent mother, who, already distinguished with the marks of Christian faith, diligently pressed on toward Christ, he, now instructed in a faithful spirit and faith, demanded that the streams of most sacred regeneration be shown to him. For not yet having obtained baptism, but perfected amid the first principles of religion, and with the laws not yet made manifest to him, full of God, he suddenly became a possession and a dwelling-place of God;
and thus he merited first to raise the summit of a tower that would reach even to heaven, before he laid its foundation. Not yet conscious of the sacraments, yet already chosen beforehand for sacrifice. What shall we wretches be able to answer to these things? we who, after the brightness of baptism, after the whiteness conferred on us by holy regeneration, after the angelic dignity of the nuptial garment acquired, have relapsed into the mire of sins and been rolled back into the ancient wallowing-places of crimes; we who befoul the snowy garment, once stained with earthly things and with the contagions of lust; who have infected with the spots of deadly corruption the silken robe upon which we had received impressed the seal of the divine image, and after the singular indulgence of our God, we defile what was renewed, we rend asunder what was entire,
we violate what was expiated, seeking again works no longer to be cleansed by waters, but by flames. What of that gift, how illustrious a gift of divine grace, that after he had received the saving laver, after innumerable signs of virtues, after countless regions traversed on every side for the preaching of Christ, when for the confession of the Most High God almost the whole world raged against him through diverse tortures, and now he was hemmed in with the most atrocious punishments to be tormented,
and now was to be carried off into the most distant borders to be exiled: yet with the most robust breast of Christ's athlete he vanquished all torments, and bore away a valiant trophy over the prostrate enemy; and, cast amid the whirlpools of the vast sea by the bloody commands of Caesar, it was granted him by divine providence to walk upon the waters, and, while the nature of things stood astounded, bringing his suspended step along the strange ways of an unaccustomed journey, he trod the swelling ridges of the sea. You might have seen the watery waves spread themselves beneath the holy man's merits, and him, comforted above by angelic addresses, exulting in the praises of Christ Jesus. Behold, the profane enemy never profited the blessed martyr as much by service as he profited him by hatred.
But at length, the contest of the struggle being perfected, together with the little boy Celsus—whom he himself had taken up from the polluted world as a holocaust to God—he is released by cruel command through condemnation, and is consecrated by the sword. Happy is he in such an end, whereby every offense so departed from him that it can never even return; whereby he so paid his debts that he need fear his creditor no more; whereby in himself he closed by faith and damned by faith the sins of his enemies; through whom he sought innocence by devotion, found it by perseverance, and preserved it by death.
Since these things are so, dearly beloved—although this so great witness of Christ, precious by his confession, more precious by his blood, more precious by his cruel wound, and whiter for his robe dyed red, although he be thought the special property of the Milanese by the privilege of his sepulchre—yet he belongs to all by the fellowship of his suffrage. For a charity that overflows and a faith that is greedy would not so far detract from this martyr by these words, while it arrogates him to itself, as to believe that the benefits of his patronage would be a help only around its own walls. That which is diffused by merits is not shut up in places. You have invoked the martyr everywhere; everywhere He hears you who is honored in the martyr.
Therefore, with Him ordering all things who weighs your vows and dispenses His own gifts, the effective presence of an efficacious advocate will be afforded you as near as your devout faith in receiving him shall have been. For prayer that is aided by works of chastity, of justice, of almsgiving, transcends the world, penetrates paradise, and flies up even to the very sight of the supreme Majesty, an angel conveying it. As in a certain place the angelic voice testifies: And when you, he says, prayed, I offered your prayer in the sight of the brightness of God (Tobit 12).
Blessed is the soul, dearly beloved, whose vow, whose incense of compunction, whose holocaust of supplication—smoky with no infidelity, polluted with the stench of no carnal enticement, bloody with no cruelty, stained with no vice of idleness, but fiery with faith, gleaming with conscience, fragrant with sincerity of heart, perfect in concord and charity—is borne even to the countenance of God by the services of the heavenly messengers. Since these things are so, let us honor the blessed martyrs, princes of faith, intercessors of the world, heralds of the kingdom, co-heirs of God. But if you should say to me: why do you honor flesh already dissolved and consumed, for which God now has no care? And where, dearly beloved, is that which Truth Itself speaks through the prophet:
Precious, he says, in the sight of the Lord is the death of His saints (Psalm 115). And again: Your friends, O God, are exceedingly honored (Psalm 138). We ought to honor the servants of God—how much more the friends of God? Concerning whom it is said in another place: The Lord, he says, keeps all their bones, and not one of them shall be broken (Psalm 33). I honor, therefore, in the flesh of the martyr the scars received for the name of Christ. I honor the memory of one living by the perpetuity of his virtue. I honor the ashes hallowed through the confession of the Lord. I honor in the ashes the seeds of eternity. I honor the body which my Lord showed that He loved, which taught me not to fear death for the Lord's sake.
But why should the faithful not honor that body which even the demons revere, which they afflicted in torment, but which sits glorified in the sepulchre? I honor, therefore, the body which Christ honored in the sword, which will reign with Christ in heaven.