Having copied out this sermon from the second codex of St. Dalmatius, we place it among the doubtful works of St. Maximus, although we already have it published in the appendix of the sermons of St. Leo and St. Augustine; for the Benedictine monks of the congregation of St. Maur, in their preface, teach that in some printed books it was attributed to Augustine, in others to Leo the Great. They themselves, however, ascribe it neither to the one nor to the other, judging it to have been composed by some Spanish author; as also Quesnel does in his admonition. Since the testimony of the aforesaid codex does not make us more certain about its author, we admit it into this class; noting, nevertheless, that a purer text is to be had from the codex of St. Dalmatius, in which the sermons of St. Maximus are contained, than from the aforesaid appendix, as will be evident to those who compare both.
However much, dearly beloved brethren, one and the same faith makes the most glorious passions of the martyrs, whom places distinct by regions have merited, venerable to all with an undistinguished honor; yet in this homage of holy veneration they also claim for themselves their own dignity, who both erected the Church of God before other proofs and aided it by their patronage. Among whom we justly proclaim, with catholic zeal, the blessed levite Vincent, by whose preaching and death we have recognized that Christ was preached to unbelievers.
He, that he might more zealously commend the devotion of the faithful to God, at length faithfully offered himself to death with the higher affection of a flaming charity, so that he might leave the strength of faith, founded on that most solid rock which is Christ, to be imitated by those who followed him; and that the seed of apostolic preaching, disseminated through him, might afterwards be stored up in the heavenly granaries, filled for many with a continual harvest by the help of his intercession and of his perfect consummation. Let those, therefore, venerate him yet more as their own, whom foreigners also admire, insofar as he shows himself more generous in benefits to those to whom he knows himself more lovable in joys; and let there be, on his solemnity, more abundant gladness, whence the greater effect of faith has grown.
For his spirit shone with so great a gift of virtues, that, supported by the office of the most sacred ministry, whereby he was to follow the Son of God our Lord in His passion, he first ministered His chalice unto salvation: intoxicated happily by the draught of it, he approached undaunted the madness of the raging enemy who was raging against Christ, endured it modestly, mocked it with greater security, knowing himself prepared to resist, yet not knowing himself exalted in the manner by which he would conquer. For by whose love, fortified with spiritual arms, he resisted, by His help also he, unconquerable, valiantly overcame by suffering whatever of punishments the raging wrath of that man devised against him.
Therefore neither the fiery plate of the roasting-pan, nor the racks, nor the claws, nor the iron hands, nor the dreadful strength of those who struck, nor the pain of his torn limbs, nor the crackling of the fire, nor the sprinkling of crackling salt upon his open entrails, could in any degree subject him to the command of the most savage Dacian. But when the swelling of that insane man's madness grew so great that, exulting, he boasted either to have conquered or to have destroyed one subdued by such great pains of sufferings, being frustrated of the hope he had conceived, from the very thing whereby he seemed to appear the victor, from that he was compelled to blush as vanquished. For the harder the punishment by which God's martyr was pressed, the greater the constancy of his confession exulted.
Wherefore it pleases us, brethren, to recall more evidently the last things of his passion, so that your holiness may observe to what the devil led his minister by his wiles, and how Christ preserved His servant even to the end. From which this is indeed marvelous, that as much as this man was outwardly straitened, crushed by the manifold kind of punishments, so much was he inwardly enlarged by the exulting inner man; and as much as the other was outwardly puffed up by the boasting of temporal power, so much was he inwardly, perceiving himself despised, suffocated, vexed in the inner man.
For he saw that the hands of the raging executioners could find in him no further place for a wound, and that his still vigorous spirit reproached his folly in the very degree that the rule of truth provoked him. Wherefore, believing that he would avert the cause of his confusion if he removed from sight the person who had despised him, he ordered him to be taken away from public view. But not even so would he be free from torment; where he lay, a potsherd is strewn beneath him, so that the force of the sharp point cast upon his body might the more rend his mangled mass, and that his limbs, given back to torments, might meet the fragments that would cut them. Yet the blind cruelty is deceived in its opinion of conquering.
For the divine goodness, accompanying its beloved yet more in his confession, brings a new light into the darkness, and rendered the gloomy dungeon a splendid tabernacle. The healing hand of God cherished his torn limbs, and with a more comely increase of his former holiness supplied the losses of his weary side. Struck, therefore, by the unwonted brightness of this light, the guards were astounded; nay, the mind of the pale doorkeeper was terrified even at the voice of the angels singing hymns in concert to God. The minister runs, half-dead, to the president—one whom the report of the messenger was to strike more grievously than the stroke of the sword. And since, from the greatness of that matter, he could not be silent about what he had seen, terror seizes the judge, grief tears him, fury inflames him.
And lest, conquering amid punishments, Vincent should obtain the glory of martyrdom: Let him quickly, says Dacian, be brought forth from prison, lest, while we persist in punishing the rebel, we should rather seem to crown him with victory. From that pit, therefore, of the foul prison he is brought forth, indeed more beautiful by heavenly grace, and, if he were still to suffer, more robust. But when he understands that the desire of one striving toward the calling of the heavenly kingdom is to be broken by no kind of punishments or of death, the envious mind orders the supports of a gentler couch to be substituted, and him to be tended with a more soothing rest. Namely, that if, the executioner being removed a little while, he should quietly breathe out his soul, he might be said not to have been slain, but to have died, as though the punishment had not destroyed him, with whom the punishment itself likewise perished.
Meanwhile the heavenly court receives blessed Vincent and endows him with the gift of blessed felicity. At his entrance the angelic spirits rejoice, and all the saints together congratulate him. And we give You thanks, O Lord Jesus, that the soul worthy of Your fellowship, which bore the persistent torment, fled the lying homage, and which was content that its persecutor should rage, disdained that he should spare. Knowing, therefore, of his holy departure, the insane judge—and not knowing that Christ had conquered in Vincent—Dacian promises himself vengeance by the exposure of that corpse whose victory he groans over from its virtue.
For the deluded pride of his fury commands the lictors to cast him out to be devoured by wild beasts and dogs, that with such food he might fill the belly of those whose mind he himself bore. But that, by these growing divine benefits, a greater victory might be conferred on Vincent, a raven is sent, a bird friendly to corpses, that, fasting, it might guard the exposed banquet of the body. Here, however, brethren, mark the distinct services of merits. Elijah once, cautiously shunning the impious hands of Ahab and Jezebel, is fed by the ravens ministering to him in the desert. But Vincent, the asserter of truth, slain by the rage of Dacian, is exposed to wild beasts to be consumed, yet by the serving raven he is preserved unharmed. Elijah, therefore, obtained by divine command that he be nourished by the ravens supplying him;
it was granted to Vincent that, the raven likewise serving, he should not be eaten. And this raven, that it might show itself appointed as a guardian from heaven, drove off with no sluggish onslaught the other approaching birds from afar. Among them it also drove far away a monstrous wolf drawing nearer, as one who by sacrilegious daring would presume to defile the entrusted treasure, beating it back with feathers and wings. But that wolf, showing by a certain bearing that it was stunned, indicated that it had come not now to inflict injury, but to increase the pomp of the miracle. O shameless fury! O foolish madness! The raven serves, the wolf reveres, Dacian persecutes; nor does he, still ferocious, blush to will to destroy him whom the tamed savagery of beasts busied itself to protect.
Whence, to hide the martyr's praise, he chose not now a secret place, but the deep sea, believing that not enclosures but the seas would keep faith with him for concealing his glory: as if He were not Lord of that same element through whom, a little before, the hidden places of the prison had shone for him, radiant with heavenly splendor. The body is given to sailors to be sunk in the waves, that the waters at least might avail for the aid of one for whom, to conquer Christ's soldier, even the earth had failed. Therefore, when the whirlpools of the strait had for the most part been sailed over, the all-powerful right hand of God reached the body cast amid the swallowing waves; and that which had borne the spirit into heaven soon brought back the body to the sepulchre.
Thus the preacher of truth, dearly beloved, is neither conquered by the punishments of torments, nor overcome by the straits of the dark prison. He is not torn apart by beasts, not hidden by the deep, but restored to the shore, published abroad by proclamation; so that he who had truly confessed the name of the Godhead might truly experience the suffrages of the Divinity present to him. And the grace of a precious death so adorned his life, glorious by its virtue, that what he had taught by living he steadfastly built up by dying; and it was consequent that he should attain by death to the vision of Him whom he had always attested by the conduct of a praiseworthy life, knowing that from contempt of the present life arises the glory of eternal beatitude: