We have already said that St. Maximus deserved excellently of the Church, in that he set forth and propagated the purer and holier dogmas of the Christian religion, not only by his voice, but also by his writings. Besides the many things in which his homilies and sermons abound, let the highly commended exposition of the Creed serve as proof, which the holy bishop set forth wisely and elegantly in this homily. Having first enumerated the manuscript codices which give testimony concerning Maximus, we shall set forth the varying inscription of the title. The three Vatican codices, then, bear the name of St. Maximus, namely 1278 page 126, 6452 page 78, the Vatican Palatine 432 page 320, and besides these the Novara codex 27 page 240, and the Brescia codex page
210, the Reichenau codex 14, the Ratisbon codex of St. Emmeram page 42, and finally the Laurentian 1, Plut. 45 page 143. No other manuscript book or codex has come to us which refers this homily under another name. But I see there is a great variety of title among the codices. In the Ratisbon codex it is expressed by these words: 'A homily of St. Maximus on the handing over of the Creed, concerning its exposition.' The same title exists in the Laurentian codex; the Reichenau codex has a shorter one, namely: 'A homily of St. Maximus on the handing over of the Creed'; and the Vatican Palatine and Novara codices present a similar one. The other Vatican codex 6452: 'On the exposition of the Creed: a sermon of St. Maximus the bishop.' But more splendid is the title of the Vatican codex 1278, namely:
'On the Saturday before Palm Sunday, from the handing over of the Creed: a sermon of St. Maximus the bishop on its exposition'; and similar is the inscription of the Brescia codex: 'On the handing over of the Creed: a sermon of blessed Maximus the bishop before Palm Sunday.' Several things are contained in inscriptions of this kind. And indeed, first is designated the time at which the homily was delivered by the holy bishop, namely on the Saturday before Palm Sunday, since, according to the discipline of the Church then in force, the instructed and approved neophytes were to be admitted to the laver of regeneration on Holy Saturday.
Secondly, it is shown that throughout the whole time of probation it was customary to hand over to those to be baptized only the first documents of faith, and that they were admitted to know the more august and more secret mysteries only when they had given proofs of Christian perseverance. Thirdly, there appears the excellent institution of the Church of handing over to the neophytes the rule of faith eight days before the baptism preceding, that they might commit it to memory and profess it before the Church while they were being initiated by baptism. Fourthly, the ecclesiastical canon is recalled of solemnly administering baptism on Holy Saturday, which custom is observed also on the vigil of Pentecost, as St. Leo wrote
to the bishops of Sicily, admonishing them not to confer baptism with the solemn rite at another time, against apostolic tradition. Thus in letter 16, volume 1, page 715 of the Venice edition of 1753. Fifthly, it is observed that it is the office of bishops first to form new believers by doctrine, and thereupon to wash them with the saving waters. The most distinguished Trombelli, excellently deserving of theological studies, teaches that this Creed, which is explained by St. Maximus, is the very one which the Church of that age used in the administration of baptism, and that it agrees with the rule of faith handed down by Augustine in his book 'On Faith and the Creed.' See his dissertation 6 on Baptism, chapter 1. We do not delay in reviewing the editors. In all it is the first 'Concerning Diverse Matters' and is ascribed to the holy Maximus.
Nor do we wish to press the Roman collectors, who published it among the sermons of St. Ambrose, number 20. When among our forefathers, as the book of Judges relates, certain of the Israelite tribes were contending against one another in civil battle, and no distinction could exist among the combatants on account of the similar attire of the one people, that tribe whose cause of fighting was more just, since it rightly presumed victory by God's help, appointed for itself a sure sign in a certain word, so that a sacrament of a more secret word might distinguish those whom the one appearance of arms confounded. Following which example, as I think, the blessed apostles handed down to the Church of God, which they were arming against the warfare of diabolical fury, the mystery of the Creed;
so that, since under the one name of Christ there was to be a diversity of believers, the seal of the Creed might separate the faithful from the treacherous, and one alien from the faith and an enemy of the Church might appear, either as one baptized who did not know it, or as a heretic who had corrupted it. 'Dost thou believe,' it says, 'in God, the Father almighty?' God, the Father almighty, is without doubt to be believed, whose power is so perceived that His quantity and quality are unknown: for we attain that He exists and can act, not by discussing, but by believing. And whom we ought to believe, the authority of our Redeemer teaches us, saying: 'He who believes in me and in him who sent me, has eternal life' (John 5); and elsewhere: 'You believe in God, believe also in me' (John 14).
It is more, brethren, that we behold with the eyes of faith than what carnal sense can see. 'Dost thou believe,' it says, 'in God, the Father almighty?' In 'God' the unbegotten nature, in 'Father' the truth of the Only-begotten, in 'Almighty' the fullness of power is shown. For He is almighty through unbegotten deity, and Father through omnipotence; nor is it to be inquired how He is Father, because how He is God or almighty cannot be comprehended. 'And in Jesus Christ, His only Son, our Lord.' That He became Christ, who was the Son, is the dispensation of human redemption; that He is Lord, is of the property of His nature;
but He is proclaimed and believed 'only' or 'Only-begotten,' because He was so uniquely begotten that He has no partner in His nativity. You hear 'Son,' not that you should think Him brought forth by any sex, but that you should believe that God proceeded from God in incomprehensible majesty, as He Himself says: 'I came forth from the Father, and came into this world' (John 16). 'Who was born of the Holy Spirit from the Virgin Mary.' You hear 'Holy Spirit,' that you may recognize that birth to be at once marvelous and blameless. For heavenly is that which the Spirit works, inviolate that which the Holy One brings about. For when the necessity of our redemption demanded that the Only-begotten of God become man, He brought this privilege of His own divinity into His nativity, that He should be born of a virgin.
For He who was coming to recall to newness the nature grown old with the sins of men, willed to have a new law of being born. The Only-begotten of God, therefore, became the Son of man, so that He who was the Creator of the world might become also its Redeemer. 'Who was crucified under Pontius Pilate and buried.' Let there be for us no confusion concerning the cross of Christ, because we have victory from His passion: for as the eternal Son of God was born not for Himself, but for us, so the immaculate Lamb of God suffered not for Himself, but for us. And who would not perceive it to be a wondrous mystery, where the very man is proclaimed who is God; and where the same Lord is announced who is asserted to have been crucified?
Nor did that which came to pass — that He was slain — happen to Him unforeseen or unexpected, He who for this reason undertook manhood by a design of His own divinity, that He might be able to be slain for man. And He chose the punishment of the cross, that a more grievous penalty might bring forth a more sublime victory; and that He who suffered for the good of the universe might, as it were, in the sight of the world, be lifted up on high and sink down, so that at the same time those who saw the crucified might behold the marvels of the Crucified. For the sudden darkening of the sun, the trembling of the earth, the splitting of the rocks, the resurrection of the dead, abundantly show the glory of the Sufferer. But of how great a testimony is this, that even the thief crucified alongside prayed that a remembrance of himself might be made in the heavenly kingdom by his companion in punishment?
Hence it is, beloved, that we do not bewail with sighs the mockeries and reproaches which Christ endured, His cross and His death, but celebrate them with continual praises. 'And was buried,' because it was fitting that He who had died should receive burial. The Lord was buried, that the earth too might receive the blessing of His body for the consolation of the buried. He was buried, that He who was truly seen to have died might be believed truly to have returned from the dead. 'On the third day,' it says, 'He rose again from the dead.' If you have believed concerning Christ what is of dishonor, believe what is of glory: if you have believed what is of death, believe what is of life. For as in the passion there is the mystery of piety, so in the resurrection there is the working of power, as He Himself says:
'I have power to lay down my life, and I have power to take it up again' (John 10). How then was life not at His disposal after death, for whom to die was not a condition but a power? Nor indeed is it any great thing if we say: Christ was able to rise, since it was impossible that the Author of life should not return to life; or how could He be detained by the laws of hell, who for this reason died, that death might lose its power? Let us therefore be no longer confounded concerning His sufferings, let us not tremble at His death, for whom there was both the power of rising and the nature of living. But of what madness is it not to believe Him to have risen, at whose command the buried man emerged from the tomb? 'He ascended into heaven.'
Such glory was fitting, brethren, for the man who was born of a virgin; nor was it impossible for Him to ascend into heaven, for whom it was possible to triumph over hell. And it was necessary that He who had come from the kingdom to death should, after death, return to the kingdom. In this, beloved, there was a saving and, to human minds, incomprehensible communion between heaven and earth: and as the earth rejoiced that it had received the Son of God, so heaven rejoiced that it had received the Son of man, as was sung by the prophet: 'Let the heavens rejoice and let the earth exult' (Ps. 96). For as it is manifest that the earth exults over God, so there is no doubt that heaven rejoices over man. 'He sits at the right hand of the Father.' That Christ sits, is the hand of the victor:
that He sits at the Father's right hand is the privilege of the Divinity and the fellowship of undivided love. And well is He proclaimed to sit at the Father's right hand, in whom the devil, who is wholly sinister, found nothing of his own will. 'Thence He shall come to judge the living and the dead.' It is necessary, brethren, that He should try the race of men who created it, and that He Himself should judge who redeemed it: and it is just that the almighty Lord should discern by a judge's examination His mortals, whom He formed by the power of His divinity and saved by the Father's mercy. For what can be more equitable with God than that of those whose life in the world was diverse, the merits should be distinguished after this world?
But the living and the dead are said to be judged, that it may be believed that the care of all men is with God. 'And in the Holy Spirit.' This is, beloved, the inviolable rule of truth, that of those whose name is one, the confession should not be diverse, and that those who in heaven are with themselves one should not be separated by us on earth. For as nothing of the creatures can be equaled to the Divinity, so the nature of the Divinity excludes all division and inequality. For according to the truth of the Gospel, as the Son went forth from the Father, so also the Spirit proceeds from the Father; and as the Only-begotten is the Son of God, so too the Holy Spirit is of God;
And just as the Father has mercy on whom He wills, and the Son reveals the Father to whom He wills, so too the Spirit is said both to breathe where He wills, and to distribute the gifts of heavenly graces as He wills. How then is the Spirit not to be believed one with the Father and the Son, seeing that it likewise belongs to Him to be able to do what He wills? 'The holy Church.' Truly the Church must be confessed to be holy, through which sanctification has been granted to mortals, and, as the number of the believers grows, a holier world exults in the praises of God in the tongues of almost all peoples. Holy is the Church, which, cleansed by the sacrament of baptism from the contagion of sins, sends the dwellers of earth onward to heaven. 'The remission of sins.'
Above all, brethren, the remission of sins must be believed, for this is the one remedy that absolves the human race from the sentence of everlasting death. For this cause the Only-begotten of the Most High deigned to take flesh and to embrace the cross, so that He might make you innocent by His pardon, you who could not blot out your crimes nor undo your sins. Therefore the immaculate Lamb was slain, that by His blood the stain of the human race might be wiped away. See, brethren, the depth of the mystery; see the height of the sacrament: where death restored life, and the filth of sinners was washed clean by the blood of the innocent One. But this remission does not foster you toward sin; rather it warns you now to fear to sin, you who understand that without pardon you could not have been saved.
For the goodness of God, by the gift of His indulgence, does not arm us for guilt, but washes us for glory. 'The resurrection of the flesh.' This is the end of our religion; this is the sum of what we believe. And indeed, who that believes in God could doubt concerning the resurrection, since it is manifest that this alone was the cause of Christ's being born? For what other reason, or what other benefit was there, that the Everlasting One should deign to assume flesh, unless He were to endow the flesh with an everlastingness that would be its glory? What glory would there be that the Son of God should not flee the cross, should seek out death, should endure burial, unless He were bestowing life upon mortals through the resurrection He accomplished? And that this can come to pass, the Divinity makes faith assured, for whom whatever He wills subsists as within His power.
Finally, that we may take up undoubted examples of rising again, this very world, losing and recovering the fair aspect of its beauty, both dies and rises again. We surely receive a proof of the future resurrection when the grain entrusted to the furrows returns in its own stalk, and the groves, stripped by the frost, come to life again with renewed foliage; all things too that the earth brings forth are given back multiplied, whether from seed or from root. But what hardness of heart is it not to believe that man is reshaped, when the very things that were made are restored? This, beloved, is the Creed, whose truth makes each believer a Christian; this is the Creed, which both sanctifies the living and leads the dead back to life.