That this homily was written by Saint Maximus is proved not only by the testimony of Gennadius, but also by the authority of many manuscripts. Among the codices there are counted two Vatican ones, 1177 and 6451 (p. 203), two of Santa Croce in Gerusalemme, 99 (no. 73) and 12 (p. 81), the Milanese F 56 of the metropolitan church library (p. 149), the Regensburg codex of St. Emmeram (p. 39), the codex of Martin, the Cistercian one of Monte Amiata, the Laurentian 47 (Plut. XVII), and the Göttweig codex. The same appears in the Orvieto codex, though with no author designated; while in two breviaries, the Roman and the Esztergom, it is plainly attributed to Saint Maximus. As great as is the agreement of the codices in commending the name of Maximus, so great is the discrepancy among them in the title;
for some inscribe it «On the same feast,» as the Regensburg and Martin codices; the Vatican codex 4951 and the Göttweig one: «On the birthday of a confessor»; another Vatican codex, and the Laurentian: «On the birthday of St. Eusebius,» with which agree two other codices, 99 of Santa Croce in Gerusalemme, which has: «On the birthday of St. Eusebius, bishop of Vercelli»; and the codex of the metropolitan church of Milan: «On the birthday of St. Eusebius.» The Cistercian monks of Monte Amiata, however, divided the homily into eight lessons, with the added inscription: «On the nativity of Abbot Bernard»; and in the codex of Santa Croce in Gerusalemme this other title is affixed: «On the translation of St. Benedict.»
In the breviaries there are the lessons of the second nocturn from the Common of a confessor bishop, which seem to have been adapted for choir use in later times. The editors also present another heading; namely, «The second homily on the same subject as above»; so Gymnicus (p. 236), Galesinius (p. 161), Raynaud (p. 234), Margarin in the Bibliotheca Maxima (vol. VI, p. 38), and Cumdius (vol. IV, p. 1137). Whether the ancient editors of Ambrose's works attributed this homily to him rightly or unjustly, let each one judge for himself. Finally we point this out, that from the Göttweig codex there came to us a fragment of this homily, so disfigured by errors that we thought of omitting it as spurious. But a favourable fortune smiled on our wishes; for while we were consulting the Vatican manuscripts,
codex 4951 supplied that very fragment in an entirely different aspect, seasoned indeed with much elegance and beautiful imagery, as is plain to the readers. To have added anything to the praises of that holy and most blessed father of ours, whose feast we celebrate today, would be to detract from them; since the grace of his virtues is not to be set forth in speeches but proved by deeds; for since Scripture says: «A wise son is the glory of the father» (Prov. 10), how great is the glory of this one, who rejoices in the wisdom and devotion of so many sons? For in Christ Jesus, through the Gospel, he himself begot us (1 Cor. 4).
Whatever therefore of virtue and of grace there can be in this holy people, from him as from a certain most limpid fountain the purity of all the streams has flowed. For because he was strong in the vigour of chastity, because he gloried in the strait rigours of abstinence, because he was endowed with the gentle charms of mildness, he stirred the affection of all his townsmen toward God; because he shone in the administration of the episcopate, he left behind many disciples as successors of his priesthood. Fittingly and rightly on this day, which the passage of our blessed father to paradise renders exultant for us, we have chanted the little verse of the present psalm: «The just shall be in everlasting remembrance» (Ps. 111 [112]). For worthily is he turned into a remembrance of men, who has passed over to the joy of the angels.
The divine word says: «Praise not a man in his life» (Sir. 11); as though it said: praise after his life, magnify after his consummation. For it is more profitable, for a twofold reason, to give praise rather to the memory of men than to their life, that you may extol the merits of holiness chiefly at that time when neither does flattery sway the one who praises, nor does elation tempt the one praised. Praise therefore after the peril; proclaim the man once secure; praise not the felicity of one still sailing, but when he has reached the harbour; praise the valour of a leader, but when he has been led through to his triumph. But what living man could be praised safely and without trembling, who both remembers that he has, from the past, cause for grief, and sees that, for the future, there remains cause for fear?
But those who, placed in this frail little body, ought to claim anything for themselves out of their merits—whom again the assault of demons besets like a multitude of robbers, who along every road stretch out, unseen supplanters of souls, snares to be dreaded by countless deaths? For as we sail across this great and spacious sea, wherein are creeping things without number, animals both small and great—that is, the diverse kinds of enemies—who wrestle with us in a contest matched to the measure of our strength. On the open sea of this world, therefore, we must greatly fear lest the storm of the tempest snatch away our ship, or the waves swallow it, or the cruel pirate carry it off into eternal plunder.
Against these manifold evils of the age, then, let us resist with chastened and chaste deeds. But let us securely magnify the merits of our blessed father, now placed in safety, who, manfully holding the rudder of faith, has now moored the anchor of hope in a tranquil roadstead, and has placed his ship—full of heavenly riches and eternal wares—on the longed-for shore; who against all adversaries held indefatigably the shield of the fear of God for so long, until he came to the victory. For what was the whole course of his life but a single conflict with a watchful foe?
To how many here, blind and wandering from the way of truth, and now hanging from a lofty crag over the abyss, did he restore lost sight, and repair the gaze whereby Christ might be seen? To how many, deaf of ear and condemned to the stopping-up of unbelief, did he pour in a precious hearing to receive the voice of the heavenly commandments, that they might answer the God who called them to mercy through obedience? How many, inwardly wounded, did he heal by the skill of angelic speech and by prayers from their infirmity? How many, through long neglect dissolved by the taint of sin and steeped as it were in the contagion of leprosy, did he cleanse—by expiating them with chastisements and exhortations, God working within him?
The souls of how many—living in the body yet already dead, overwhelmed and buried under the mass of their transgressions—did he raise up, calling them, as it were, to the light of amendment, God summoning them; and, as an admirable imitator of his Lord, may he put to death for God, by a life-giving death, souls already dead to sin. Then, on the other hand, he would close what he had opened with wholesome effect; lest anything foreign and desirable should appear to them, lest the outer fault should transmit a stain to the inner man, lest darkness should enter to the heart through the ways of the eyes; lest in each one that prophetic threatening should be fulfilled: «Death,» he says, «has entered through your windows» (Jer. 9); for the offices of the ears and of the eyes are proved to be the windows of souls;
for when, by works, hearing is given to those who speak evil and unjust things, who slander damnably, and who counsel things contrary to God, death enters through our windows, the horror of death-bringing night bursts in through those very windows through which the Sun of justice ought to have entered: when these windows of sin are opened, the door of salvation and of life, and the gates of paradise, are closed. These windows that blessed man barred with the many bolts of the divine fear.
From the hearts of how many, whom base iniquity and impiety possessed, did he drive out theatrical dissipation, cast down wrath, and extinguish envy; and, as it were from an old house whose barbarian guests had been thrown into disorder, by recalling thither faith, chastity, justice, and mercy, he brought in peaceful inhabitants, through whom Christ, the head of these good things, might enter into the dwelling of the mind; and, applying the medicines of penance, He recalls the four-days-dead and stinking man, rousing him by the sound of rebukes, and, once amendment was accepted, He restored to a temporal resurrection of life those snatched from the very jaws of death.
Doing these things, therefore, and many more of this kind, which a poor little discourse cannot set forth in order and expound as is fitting, your own affection will tell them to you better; for he was, with the utmost eagerness of persistence, a cultivator and guardian of souls, cutting away lusts, restraining angers, uprooting malices. And this man was all the more necessary in these times, in which so great an iniquity, being daily taken up while justice fails, grows strong in vigour.
And indeed he, established in this pilgrimage in body alone, dwelt by thought and longing in that eternal fatherland, and, reckoning like a good man, ever, as it were stretching out his hand toward the hundredfold, transferred from the left to the right, and laid up his labours in heaven; for although his works are seen here, the merits of his works have passed over thither. Let us, so far as we can, tread in his footsteps, whereby, hastening through that exceedingly narrow way to the broad places of heaven, he showed us the path by which we might follow.
For to this end did the Lord set him here on our earth, that by his example we might be shaped to do well, and that, looking to him as to a mirror, we might compose the faces of our souls, and, like good children, cultivate in ourselves the likeness of a father. Just as some great head of a household, wishing most splendidly to paint his house, seeks out all sorts of forms and images, which he may set before the gaze of a diligent painter as a proof of his art, that he may eagerly seize the work of another and, with a now-skilled hand, transfer to the face of the walls the dignity of living persons;
so that true head of the household, God, in order to paint His house—that is, to adorn our souls in His Church—seems to have brought forth and displayed to the inner eyes of our soul, as certain patterns of living to be painted, as it were, the deeds and merits of this man. According to these, therefore, let each one of us lay upon the countenances of our souls the virtues of this man as precious colours. Let one snatch to himself from him the grace of compunction, another the cleanness of chastity, that one the strength of abstinence, this one of modesty; that one an ardent faith in the things of God, this one the gentleness of patience.
And in this way, having in this man's manner of life an example of right living, let us adorn our house with diverse virtues—that is, let us paint the whole Church of God; and, seeing us either fearing the eternal judgment or meditating on future blessedness, this our patron may be able to take up that Gospel voice of Christ: «Father, I ask that where I am, they also may be with Me» (John 17); that, when we are one day to migrate from this world, he may receive us as his own into his abode and bosom, like Abraham, and on that day, as a joyful shepherd, may recognize his sheep unharmed—by His help who lives and reigns, God, throughout all ages of ages. Amen.