Sermons 4

From the same Sangallense (St. Gall) codex Mabillon took care to transcribe and publish this homily also, just as the preceding one, in the first volume of the Musaeum Italicum. From Mabillon Galland received it and transferred it into the ninth volume of the Bibliotheca Patrum, Venice edition of the year 1773, retaining the title: Here begins on the birthday of the Lord Saviour, which title Mabillon himself had rendered from the Sangallense codex itself. That this kind of homily ought to be ascribed to Maximus is confirmed in a still greater degree by the Turin codex, in which this inscription is prefixed to the same homily: Likewise concerning the nativity of the Lord, Homily 35.

What if the style and the interpretation of the passage of Isaiah, which the author adduces, sufficiently prove that this same homily ought to be reckoned as belonging to that holy prelate—since this manner of adducing passages of Sacred Scripture was peculiar to that prelate, who indeed either himself made those passages into Latin from the Greek, or excerpted them from some Latin version by some method? Last Lord's day, beloved, we admonished you, brethren, concerning the coming of this day, on which we said that we today receive the Lord's nativity, even with the world as witness. For the world bears witness, since as Christ is born it too is reborn. For it is reborn when out of the deep darkness of the nights it is brought forth by a certain birth of light.

It is reborn, I say, when its diminishing is ended and its brightness restored. And therefore at Christ's rising we ought to call it the rising of the world. For on this day all things arise unto salvation. For on this day light arises to the world, resurrection to the dead, life to mortals; and therefore today is not so much the birthday of the Saviour as of salvation. Christ, then, the salvation of all, is born, whom the prophets attest to be the King of the nations: He is born of a virgin, as Isaiah (chapter 7) declares, saying: Behold, a virgin shall conceive in her womb, and shall bring forth a son, and they shall call His name Emmanuel, which is interpreted, God with us. The order of His birth, therefore, proves the truth of the Lord. A virgin conceived, ignorant of manly consortium:

the womb is filled, tasted by no embrace, and the chaste belly received the Holy Spirit, whom pure members guarded, whom an innocent body bore. Behold the miracle of the Lord's mother. She is a virgin when she conceives, a virgin when she gives birth, a virgin after the birth. Glorious virginity, and illustrious fruitfulness! The Strength of the world is born, and there is no groan of one in travail; the womb is emptied, the infant is received, nor is virginity violated. For it was fitting that, as God was being born, the merit of chastity should increase: that integrity should not be violated by His coming, who had come to heal what was corrupted: nor should bodily purity be injured by Him through whom the virginity of baptism is granted to the unchaste. The child, then, being born, is laid in a manger, and these are God's first swaddling-cradles:

nor does the Ruler of heaven disdain these straits, He for whom a virginal womb was a dwelling-place. Plainly Mary was a fitting dwelling-place for Christ, not for the habit of her body, but for original grace. Therefore, unburdened of her happy burden, Mary joyfully knows herself a mother, who knows not herself a wife; and she is glorious in her offspring, who is ignorant of a spouse; and she marvels that she has borne an infant, since she testifies that she has received the Holy Spirit; nor, because she has given birth unwed, is she terrified, because she has the testimony of virginity and of offspring. For the offspring points to the divine Father, virginity excuses the suspicion of the astonished. Hence divinity bears witness to virginity; there, the secret of nature. Divinity, I say, bears witness to the virginal birth.

For that Christ might be conceived according to the pre-announcement of the Gospel, she is filled with the grace of the Holy Spirit; she is overshadowed by the power of God the Father, as it was said to Mary: The Holy Spirit shall come upon thee, and the power of the Most High shall overshadow thee, and therefore that which shall be born of thee holy shall be called the Son of God (Luke 1). In the nativity of the Saviour, therefore, was fulfilled that divine sentence which says: In the mouth of two or three witnesses shall every word stand. For behold, the Word of God is born by the testimony of the Trinity. For assuredly in the womb of St. Mary, when the Holy Spirit comes upon her, when the Most High overshadows her, when Christ is begotten, the confession of the faith is contained in Him.

For it was fitting that the Mother, who was to bring forth salvation to the peoples, should first confirm in her own inward parts the mystery of the Trinity; and thus we might understand that before the Saviour's rising the sacrament of the faith was confirmed. For Mary bore, as in the sanctuary of her womb, together with the mystery, a priest; for whatever was to profit in the world, all of it came from her womb: God, priest, and victim; God of the resurrection, priest of the oblation. But all this we recognize in Christ. For He is God, in that He returns to the Father; pontiff, in that He offered Himself; victim, in that He was slain for us. Therefore I would say that Mary's womb was not a womb, but a temple; plainly it is a temple, in which dwells whatever is holy in heaven:

except that it is to be esteemed above the heavens, where, as in a more secret tabernacle, the mystery is disposed by the divinity, by what means the ascent to heaven may be made by the many. Plainly above the heavens is Mary's womb to be esteemed, because it sent back to heaven the Son of God more glorious than He had descended from heaven. For from there He came that He might suffer, from here He returned that He might reign; from there humbled He descended into man, from here glorified He ascended to the Father. Plainly the temple of the body is better than the heavens. For Christ dwells there; there He is terrible, here manifest; there invisible, here visible and palpable; there He punishes sins, here He pardons them; there He uses the power of a judge, here He exhorts the brethren with love.

And therefore it is good for us to adore Him when He invites, that we may be able not to fear Him when He judges. Here ends.