As we already said in the preface to this collection of the works of St. Maximus, we owe the precious acquisition of this homily to the diligence and zeal of the most learned canon Francesco Antonio Frisi. For he drew it out from two very ancient manuscripts of the imperial basilica of Milan, and most kindly gave us a copy of it, with some variant readings taken from an older codex. A specimen of this discourse under the name of St. Maximus had been given by Tristano Calco in his History of Milan; but now for the first time it comes to light entire, and contributes much toward establishing that St. Maximus flourished in the fifth century.
Many and manifest, dearest brethren, are the examples of divine severity and of piety, by which we can evidently perceive that our God, by an ineffable and just governance, both chastises the contumacy of the proud and is present to the sorrows of His suppliants. For as Creator He chastises the sins of His creatures, as Lord the sins of His own; that as a father He may console the sadness of His children. For we are His creature by the law of nature, we are His servants, because He redeemed us with the price of His blood; we are His sons, because He has bestowed on us the sacraments of a heavenly birth. And so we are His creature that we may reverence, His servants that we may fear, His sons that we may love.
Finally, as almighty Lord He has brought the wrath of a desolation to be lamented upon this Church, and as a most clement father He furnishes the effect of the longed-for restoration. And that He might show that in succeeding times He would restore the face of this city, as it were a body given back after death, He first restored His Church—which is indeed the head of the city—with a renewed construction. He, therefore, who was present at the restoration of the fallen head, will grant, if so we deserve, that the lying-low members of that head may rise up. Or why should it be doubted that God can reform the earthly tabernacles of those to whom, if they believe rightly and live rightly, He promises that He will give most blessed and unsuspected mansions in heaven?
Therefore let us not distrust that God will restore to us what is ours, if we in ourselves restore what is God's. For once, when the Lord deigned to call back to Himself His erring people, He said to it through His prophet, saying: Return to Me, and I will return to you (Mal. 3:7). That is, recall toward Me your faith, and I will restore to you My grace. Render what you owe, and demand what I promise. Hear what I command, and I will do what you ask. Take away the causes of offences, and I will remove the vengeance. Although, dearest ones, in these very tribulations of ours, which nevertheless, by God's moderation, we have borne as far as we could bear, certain over-ignorant interpreters have arisen, saying:
This city has perished, the Church has collapsed, there is now no reason for living. Nay rather, there is a reason for living more justly and more holily; because almighty God, who dispenses all these things with great piety, delivered into the hands of the enemies not the city which is in you, but the dwellings of the city; nor did He command His Church, which is truly the Church, to be consumed by fire, but for our correction He permitted the receptacles of the Church to be burned. For in the peoples is the city, and in the common folk the Church—no wise or faithful man is ignorant of this. Wherefore, dearest ones, it is not beams and timbers, but you, that present a living Church to our God;
you make up the whole city; and therefore, in this very offence of His household, God being propitious deigned so to temper all things, that both our iniquity might not be great, and that to His suppliant servants He might grant a time of salutary conduct. For by the benefit of His piety, after so great and so mournful a destruction, behold, His high priest stands unharmed, the clergy entire, and the common people themselves, though still under daily fear and living in sorrow, yet endure in freedom. Not now, therefore, has the Church been restored, which by God's protection did not perish, but you—who are the Church of God—have received back these walls and roofs. For you are, as the Apostle says, the temple of the living God (2 Cor. 6).
Whence take note, brethren, that although a just retribution ought to have been exacted from us on account of our sins, yet by the kindness of the merciful Judge it was not we ourselves but those things which seemed to be ours that either the plunderer carried off, or that perished, consumed by fire and sword. Thus at times, for our terror, God being provoked yet dealing gently with us, and heaven thundering with dreadful voices, both the sacred buildings and private houses, the flocks of cattle and the various four-footed beasts, the fruitful and the barren trees, the crags and the lofty heights of the mountains are struck by the blows of thunderbolts. And in order that our senses may be turned back to God and our life may be saved, those things are struck by lightning on our behalf which either lack feeling or know not that they live. How gentle is this vengeance, and how it descends from a fatherly tenderness!
We transgress, and heaven rages against the cattle; we deserve the flame, and a tree is burned up; we sin so as to be punished, and the rocks undergo the vengeance in our stead. Yet at times indeed some, concerning whom God so discerns, are tried under a shadow as men. First of all, that there may be for transgressors no continual assurance of impunity; and next, that the punishment of a few may correct the multitude of sinners. Who would not marvel at that so great dispensing of heavenly wrath and of grace? Since, when the walls were breached, unarmed peoples fled the armed and raging foes as swiftest horsemen flee the slow wagons laden and weighed down with their burden. And indeed to some of the clergy or of the common folk there was lacking either the possibility of escaping or the will.
The reckoning of their life and death is to be left to the divine judgment. Let us therefore comfort ourselves, brethren, nor sigh so exceedingly that our houses have collapsed, since we see that the restoration of the houses is reserved in their Lords. There is fulfilled, as it appears, even in us that command of the Lord concerning his servant Job, when, as the devil acted against him, he set a limit to the persecution. For he says to him, as it is read: 'All that he has I give into your hands; only touch not himself' (Job 1). And again: 'Behold, I hand him over to you; only keep yourself from his soul.' Having received this command, the enemy, all his substance being at once destroyed and his body ulcerated, held himself back only from the harming of his soul.
See, most beloved, how sparing our frailty the Lord tempered his vengeance against us, so that though cities were laid waste, fields devastated, and substance diminished, yet neither our souls nor our bodies were harmed. But for this reason the body of that great Job bristled, corrupted by the rottenness of worms: because he, a strong man, was being proved for glory, whereas we, as weak ones, were being kept for grace. And therefore let us not doubt that God is able to restore to us and to our descendants the things we have lost, since we see that in the most faithful Job, when the devil had nevertheless been overcome, his wealth was doubled, his children renewed, and the most cruel plague of his body cured with marvellous soundness.
And so fittingly and necessarily this most blessed man, Eusebius the priest of the Most High God, can together with us and on our behalf sing that saying of David to God, declaring: 'O God, I have declared my life to you; you have set my tears in your sight' (Psalm 55). That is: I, O Lord, have confessed to you my sins; you have not denied me your mercy. I have proved the strictness of the one judging; I acknowledge the grace of the one sparing. I have wept over my sorrows and the sadness of your people in exile; but I rejoice that my tears have not been despised by you. For you have turned, O Lord, as the prophet says, my mourning into joy for me (Psalm 29). Being offended you drove me out, and being favourable you led me back.
Nay rather, to speak more truly, you drove me out in favour, lest by rashly remaining in the place I should incur the misery of captivity. 'What I deserved, I have obtained. I therefore render to your eternal glory the thanks that are due, because this your holy house, which by our merits the fury of the barbarian levelled to the ground, you have deigned to restore through me your servant; and the congregation of your dispersed people you have now given back to my very eyes; and in your name we dedicate new things out of the old, and under a certain likeness of resurrection the summit of this temple has been raised up on high to its ancient peak.'
So that people of Israel of old, when Jerusalem had been burned and the temple overthrown, and they had been led captive into the region of Babylon, being after certain times recalled to their homeland, built up their own soil and city and the temple. Preserve therefore now, O Lord, what you have wrought in us. Be gracious, O Lord; spare, O Lord; save your people and bless your inheritance; lest, while you further disregard us, O our God, the nations laughing at the destruction of your flock should say, as they have said, 'Where is their God?' (Psalm 78) But as the vengeance of one indignant with us was not lacking, so may the tenderness of one favourable toward us endure; through our Lord Jesus Christ, who with the Father and the Holy Spirit lives and reigns for ever and ever. Amen.