This homily too Mabillon, having drawn it from the Codex Sangallensis, published in the Museum Italicum after the two preceding ones, just as it is established that Gallandius did, from volume IX of the Bibliotheca veterum Patrum, page 35. Their title is «Sequentia» («The Continuation»), as it is found in the manuscripts. We have inscribed it «On enemies not to be feared,» since here Saint Maximus exhorts Christians to the doing of the works of virtue, that they may be delivered from their enemies. By no manuscript testimony do we illustrate the Sangallensis manuscript, since all are entirely lacking in this respect; but who can doubt that Maximus is likewise to be judged the author of this discourse? seeing that, scarcely begun, it embraces the sum of the preceding one.
Your charity remembers that we preached this last Sunday, that by good deeds and constant prayers we should unlock for ourselves the gates of righteousness, and that by frequent almsgiving we should fortify ourselves, as it were with a rampart of mercy. For it is a certain impregnable wall to resist the adversary by almsgiving and to do battle by fastings. For although the weapons of the enemy be strong, yet stronger are these weapons of the Saviour; whoever has been clothed with them, though he may seem unarmed to the eyes of men, is nonetheless sufficiently armed, because the sovereign Godhead guards him. It is good therefore, in tribulation, to pray, to fast, to sing psalms, to show mercy.
For with these darts, just as we set forth the example of David against Goliath, Christians are wont to conquer their adversaries, and with these arms to guard the walls of the city. For the holy prophet says: «Unless the Lord guards the city, in vain do they watch who guard it» (Psalm 127). In vain, therefore, does that man watch who thinks that he arms the city, when he himself has not the arms of faith. Plainly in vain does he labor who reckons that he can prepare protection for another, when he himself is destitute of the grace of God. The Lord says in the Gospel: «Physician, heal thyself» (Luke 4). By this example it must be said: first take care, O man, for your own salvation, that you may be able to provide for the salvation of many.
But when I see you weak and infirm, and destitute of the aid of the Godhead, not only do I have no confidence in the guardianship of the city which is prepared by you, but I fear lest your despair should throw the city into confusion. Then, therefore, is the city fortified, when God Himself the more guards it; and God guards it, as it is written, then, when those who dwell in it are all temperate, grave, Christian, and catholic. For it is necessary that God preserve the city in which He may find, concerning His commandments, something to keep. But where there is luxury, treachery, and blasphemy, that city the Lord does not preserve; lest it be not so much the city, as the sins that are in it, that are preserved.
Therefore he who would furnish fortification to a city in the name of the Lord, he it is that truly prepares security for the citizens. For he who attempts to build up a fortification for the city without the grace of God, he seems, after the manner of foxes, to be preparing a lair for himself in a pit. For is not such a man like a fox in that pit, who constantly digs the earth and does not look up to heaven at all? For the Lord says, as we heard in the recent reading: «The foxes have holes, and the birds of the air nests where they may rest; but the Son of man has nowhere to lay his head» (Matthew 8): let us diligently attend to what meaning this saying has. For the Lord did not speak specifically of the animal itself:
but of those men who, being always crafty and cunning, are ever eager to imitate foxes in their behavior; while they fraudulently plunder what belongs to others, they dig out the pit of their own perdition; therefore the head of Christ, which is God, cannot find a dwelling place in those who dwell in pits dug deep. But that heretics in particular are compared to foxes admits of no hesitation. For they are, like foxes, deceitful, importunate, and timid; where they perceive quiet, there they exercise the frenzy of their fickleness; where they find watchfulness, thence they flee away with deceitful fraud. For as the said animal is always false, always uncertain, and can never change the craftiness of its ways, so also every heretic is always false, always uncertain;
and when he seems to speak with you sincerely, he changes his words, but not his ways; he promises moderation in speech, but pours forth frenzy from his heart. The fox deceives with its tail, the heretic ensnares with his tongue; the fox feigns gentleness to the animals, that it may catch them; the heretic promises moderation to men, that he may deceive; the one plays beforehand that it may cut the throat, the other fawns first that he may despoil. And it is characteristic of the fox always to lie in wait for the hen and her chicks, so that, if any one of them should stray too far from its mother, it may be caught for its prey; so also the heretic always lies in wait for mother Church and her sons, so that, if perchance he finds someone too careless, he may entrap him in his frenzy.
But that the Church is rightly compared to a hen, we read in the Gospel, the Lord saying to Jerusalem: «Jerusalem, how often would I have gathered thy sons together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings» (Luke 13)? And rightly is the hen compared to the Church. For just as the Church not only nourishes her own sons, but also receives those who come from elsewhere; so also the hen not only nourishes those which she herself has hatched, but also raises the strangers set beside her. Therefore, brethren, let us arm ourselves throughout this week with fastings, prayers, and vigils, that, with the mercy of God intervening, we may both drive back the ferocity of the barbarians and beat back the snares of the heretics. Here it ends.