In the Roman Breviary a portion of this homily is read on the eighteenth Sunday after Pentecost under the name of St. Peter Chrysologus, to whom the most illustrious Sebastian Pauli, Clerk Regular of the Mother of God, ascribed it in his edition of that same holy archbishop of Ravenna, published at Venice in the year 1750, just as Combefis had done long before in volume VII, page 397, and others besides. These matters seem to me of such weight that I do not dare to assail the commonly received opinion; yet I judge that I am permitted to report the view of ancient writers. For in the Vatican Library we found a manuscript, number 6451, which on page 19 calls St. John of the Golden Mouth, that is Chrysostom, the author of the homily; and in the archive of Monte Cassino a manuscript, on page 253, attributes it to St. Severian the bishop.
But we attest that two other manuscripts of no mean quality agree in assigning it to St. Maximus of Turin, namely Vatican 4222 on page 341, and Laurentian 36, Plut. XVII, page 251, for after the reading of the Gospel they expressly have: A homily of St. Maximus the bishop. Testimonies of this kind can be confirmed by the similarity of style. But even if perhaps our opinion deceives us, we still consider that we have done a welcome service to fair-minded readers, since we append to this homily very many variant readings gathered from the Vatican manuscript 6451. Today's reading has shown that Christ in human deeds performed divine mysteries, and in visible things carried out invisible works. 'He went up,' it says, 'into a little boat, and crossed over, and came into his own city.'
Is he not the very one who, putting the waves of the sea to flight, laid bare its depths, so that the people of Israel might pass through with dry foot amid the astonished waters, and through the hollows of the mountains (Exodus 14)? Is not this he who bent the crests of the sea beneath Peter's feet, that the liquid path might offer solid support to human steps (Matthew 14)? And what is it that he so denies to himself the sea's service, that he crossed the passage of a very small lake for a boatman's fare? 'He went up,' it says, 'into a little boat, and crossed over.' And what wonder is it, brethren? Christ came to take up our infirmities, and to confer upon us his own powers; to seek out what is human, to bestow what is divine; to receive injuries, to render dignities; to bear weariness, to give back health.
For a physician who does not bear infirmities knows not how to cure infirmities, and he who has not been made weak together with the sick cannot confer health upon the sick. Christ therefore, if he had remained in his own powers, would have had nothing in common with men; and unless he had fulfilled the order of the flesh, his assumption of flesh would have been idle in him. He endured these necessities, then, that he might be proved true man by human necessities. 'He went up,' it says, 'into a little boat.' Christ went up into the ship of his Church, ever about to calm the waves of the world, that he might lead those who believe in him to the heavenly homeland by a tranquil voyage, and make citizens of his own city those whom he made sharers of his humanity.
Christ therefore does not need the ship, but the ship needs Christ, because without heavenly steering the ship of the Church cannot reach the heavenly harbor through the ocean of the world amid such and so great peril. These things we have said, brethren, so far as pertains to the spiritual understanding; but now let us pursue the order of the history itself. 'He went up,' it says, 'into a little boat, and crossed over, and came into his own city.' The Creator of things, the Lord of the world, after he confined himself for our sake in our flesh, began to have a human homeland—he, the parent of all parents—that love might invite, charity draw, affection conquer, and human kindness persuade those whom domination had put to flight, whom the boundaries had scattered, whom the force of power had made outcasts.
He came into his own city, and behold, they brought to him a paralytic lying on a bed; and Jesus, it says, seeing their faith, said to the paralytic: 'Be of good cheer, son; thy sins are forgiven thee.' The paralytic hears the pardon and is silent, and returns no thanks, because he was intent on the care of the body rather than of the soul; and he so bewailed the temporal punishments of his relaxed body that he did not weep over the eternal punishments of his soul's relaxation, judging the present life dearer to himself than the life to come. Rightly does Christ not regard the faith of those who brought him, but regards the folly of the one lying there, so that by another's intercession the paralytic's soul might be cured before his body. 'Seeing,' it says, 'their faith.'
You perceive in this passage, brethren, that God does not seek the wishes of the foolish, does not look to the faith of the ignorant, does not search out the senseless desires of the weak, but comes to help through another's faith what he was bestowing by grace alone, since he denied nothing of what belongs to the divine will. And truly, brethren, when does a physician either seek or regard the wishes of the sick, since the sick man always desires and demands what is contrary? Hence it is that now he applies iron, now fire, now bitter draughts, and sets them before the unwilling, so that they may feel the cure of the healthy which they, being sick, could not feel. And if a man disregards insults, despises curses, and of his own will confers life and health upon those wounded by disease,
how much more does Christ the physician, by his divine goodness, draw to salvation even against their will and unwilling those wounded by the diseases of sins and laboring under the frenzy of crimes? Oh, if we were willing, brethren, if we were willing to survey thoroughly every paralysis of our mind, we would discern our soul, stripped of virtues, lying on the couches of the vices; it would become clear to us how Christ daily regards our harmful wishes as well, and draws us to saving remedies and presses us on though unwilling. 'Son,' he says, 'thy sins are forgiven thee.' In saying this, he wished himself to be understood who through the man still lay hidden from human eyes; for by powers and signs he was being compared to the prophets, who also had wrought powers through him.
But to grant pardon to sins—since this is not within man's power and is a singular mark of the Godhead—was pressing that God upon human hearts. The envy of the Pharisee proves this: for when he had said, 'Thy sins are forgiven thee,' the Pharisees answered, 'This man blasphemes; for who can forgive sins but God alone?' O Pharisee, who knowing knowest not, who by confessing deniest, who by testifying assailest: if it is God who forgives sins, why is Christ not God to you, who by the gift of his single act of indulgence is proved to have taken away the sins of the whole world? 'Behold,' it says, 'the Lamb of God; behold him who takes away the sins of the world.' But that you may be able to grasp the greater marks of his divinity, hear that he penetrated the secret of your heart;
see that he reached the hidden recesses of your thoughts; understand that he lays bare the silent counsels of your heart. 'And when Jesus,' it says, 'had seen their thoughts, he said: Why do you think evil in your hearts? For which is easier, to say, Thy sins are forgiven thee, or to say, Arise and walk? But that you may know that the Son of man has power to forgive sins,' he said to the paralytic, 'Arise, take up thy bed, and go into thy house.' And he arose and departed into his house.
The Searcher of souls forestalled the malign counsels of their minds, and displayed the power of his Godhead by the attestation of the work, while he sets in order the members of the dissolved body, tightens the sinews, joins the bones, fills up the vitals, strengthens the limbs, and rouses to running the steps that were already buried in a living corpse. 'Take up thy bed'—that is, carry what carried you; change all its roles, that what was a witness of infirmity may be a proof of health, that the bed of your pain may be a token of your complete cure, that the greatness of the weight may assert the greatness of the strength you have received. 'Go,' he says, 'into thy house': lest, having been cured by the Christian faith, you should now die in the ways of Jewish perfidy.