I see that there are several codices in which this sermon is ascribed to holy Maximus: namely the three Vatican ones, 1268, 4951, and 6452; the Cassinese 117, page 209 on the reverse; the Laurentian 167, page 157 on the reverse, of the library once belonging to the church of Florence; the Vallicellan XIX; the Lectionary of the Church of Brescia, page 298; and CLIII, page 160, of the library of Saint Mark in Venice. To these may be added the Remigian codex, of which the monks of Saint Maur, in the appendix of the sermons of Saint Augustine, page 180 of the Antwerp edition of 1700, made mention as being doubtful about the author of the sermon. Since, therefore, with the Turin codex asserting this sermon to holy Maximus under number 29 with the title Likewise on Lent, several other codices of the best reliability agree, it is rightly to be attributed to him.
But if anyone should wish to scrutinize the manner of speaking, he will find nothing unbefitting Maximus; nay rather, he will admire his talent in the excellent use of the sacred Scriptures. It exists in the Perugian codex without the author's name. These days of holy Lent, dearest brethren, we ought to receive with all veneration, nor be wearied by the greater number of this season: for the more the days of fasting, the greater is the cause of remedy; the more prolonged the course of abstinence, the more abundant the redemption of salvation; the more austere the care of wounds, the more healthful the medicine of sins.
For God, who is the physician of our souls, appointed a fitting time, one that may suffice both for the just to pray and for sinners to entreat—those asking for rest, these praying for pardon. For fitting is the time of Lent, neither short for entreating nor long for meriting. For by the fasts of forty days any iniquity of the sinner can be entreated away, and any severity of the judge softened. To him perhaps it is a long and tedious time who neither prays concerning his fault nor hopes concerning pardon. For despair knows neither how to confess concerning crime, nor how to hope for indulgence from the judge. Holy, therefore, and salutary is the care of Lent.
For by it the judge is led to mercy, the sinner to penitence, the just to rest. For in these days more than usual both the Divinity shows mercy, and the sinner entreats, and righteousness is merited. For all things lie open—both the heavens for pardoning, and the sinner for confessing, and the tongue for petitioning. Salutary, I say, and mystical is the number forty. For first, when the iniquity of men held possession of the face of the world, in the course of so many days God, pouring rains from heaven, overwhelmed the whole earth with a flood. You see, then, that already at that time a mystery was arranged in figure. For as then, so now, by forty days He shows mercy to purify man.
Although even the flood of that time must be called a mercy, by which iniquity was oppressed and righteousness preserved. For out of mercy it came to pass that the just escaped and the unjust sinned no more. Out of mercy plainly we see that flood to have been, by which, as by a certain baptism, the face of the whole world was renewed: namely, that what had been foul with the wickedness of lost men, unto crimes, might flourish unto grace by the habitation of blessed Noah; and what was then a brothel of iniquity might now become a dwelling of holiness. That flood, I say, was the likeness of this baptism of ours. For then was enacted what is now performed:
that is, that, with the fountains of waters overflowing, vices might be endangered and righteousness alone reign; sins might be plunged into the deep, holiness be borne near to heaven. For then, as I have said, that was being done which is now done in the Church of Christ. For as by the water of Noah, all vices being drowned, the grown-up of sinners was borne away, so by the fountain of baptism the Church is borne near to heaven; and, all the superstitions of idols being cast down, faith reigns on earth, which proceeds from the ark of the Savior. Holy, therefore, and consecrated is the time of Lent, which from the very beginning at once began to discern between the just and the unjust, to separate the good from the evil by a certain judgment.
And this indeed we perceive to happen likewise in this our observance of Lent. For through these forty days the evil are separated from the good—that is, the lustful from the chaste, the intemperate from the fasting man, the pagan from the Christian; separated, I say, is the evil man from the good, that is, the sinner from the just, the devil from the saint, the heretic from the faithful. For all these being left behind, after the likeness of the flood, as it were in the shipwreck of the world, the Church alone, like that ark, is lifted up on high with her virtues. For we too, though sinners, after the imitation of Saint Noah, announce to you that there is to be a destruction of the world; and we say that those only shall escape the peril whom the threefold ark shall have enclosed within itself in the bosom of religion.
For the Church is a threefold ark, because it contains the sacrament of the Trinity. For when Scripture says that it was of two decks and of three decks, it certainly shows that it was distinguished by the threefold grace of the Divinity. We announce, therefore, as did Noah, that there is to be a shipwreck of the world, and we admonish all men to flee to this house. And as Noah received his sons into the ark, so we too desire to receive our sons into this ark. For whoever wishes to dwell in this house with us is our son. But someone says that the voice of the preaching of Saint Noah is by no means described in the Scriptures. Hear, then: Noah, though silent in voice, spoke by his work; though his tongue was silent, he cried out by his building.
For certainly, when he was working a new work, one never at any time discovered by anyone, he was admonishing all men that new tabernacles must be prepared against new perils. He spoke, therefore, by his work, and was saying that evangelical word of the Lord: If you believe not Me, believe My works (John X); and by believing you shall be able to escape the peril, our Lord Jesus Christ granting it, who lives and reigns with the Father and the Holy Spirit forever and ever. Amen.