There is a great consensus of the manuscripts and printed editions in recognizing Maximus as the author of this sermon. We shall give the chief place to the Turin codex, in which this very heading is set upon it: 'Likewise also, on Easter, Sermon 1.' Two Cassinese codices, 104 and 111, and the Ambrosian, agree, with this inscription prefixed: 'Monday of Easter. A sermon of blessed Maximus the bishop.' The Cistercian codex of Monte Amiata confirms the same with the title: 'On the Sunday in the octave of Easter,' and it begins from these words: 'Let us rejoice, dearest brethren, in the day of Christ's resurrection,' etc. To these we add codex II of Holy Cross of the Friars Minor in the Laurentian, the Vallicellian 19, the Ratisbon of St. Emmeram, and two Vatican codices, 1270 and 6451. All the editors likewise agree with Alcuin, page...
...197 they agree, namely Cuméus in vol. II p. 1445, Combefis in vol. V p. 475, Gymnicus, Galesinius in Homily 3 for Easter, and Muratori in vol. IV of the Anecdota. We have followed Galesinius's reading. We ought to exult, brethren, with continual gladness on this day which the Lord has made, and to give thanks with perpetual glory at His festival. Nor because night has come between the solemnity has it cut short our joys; nor because night has divided the evening hours has the light of the resurrection abandoned our eternal vows. For to us yesterday and today are one day, that very day, because, as the blessed Apostle says of the Savior: 'Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today' (Heb. 13:8).
Therefore, if Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today, He Himself is ever to us one and the same day, because in Him we live, in Him we are moved (Acts 17:28), in Him we do not die: we do not die, I say, because just as no darkness of sin has assailed the light of Christ, so too no antiquity of time consumes those who live in Him. Let us rejoice, then, in the day of Christ's resurrection; for our joy is the common joy of all. Common indeed; for when He rose, we all rose again. For He revived unto the salvation of all, who was delivered up to suffering for the sins of all. The Savior, therefore, rose again from the dead. A new and wondrous thing, but this assertion has the truth.
For, to say nothing of the oracles of the prophets, the ministries of the angels, the opened inner chambers of the tomb, the Lord Himself after the resurrection speaking with the disciples, conversing, eating, and Thomas too touching with his finger the wounds of the nails (John 20): to pass over all these things, nevertheless the impiety of the Jews confirms our faith. For their over-cautious credulity suffices for our believing. For the more diligently they guarded the tomb, the more evidently it is established that He rose; the more guards they set, the more witnesses they left behind. For divine providence arranged this, that to the resurrection not only the angels, not only the disciples, but—what is greater—even the enemies bore testimony.
The more willingly, then, do we accept it because they observed Him more diligently; for we believe that under so many guards He could sooner come forth than perish, and rightly proceed from the tomb by the Lord's power than be spirited away by the fraud of the disciples. For with such great care did their impiety block up the sepulcher, that no human hand could prevail to destroy it, unless the power of the resurrection alone opened it. In short, the holy evangelist says (Matt. 28) that, when the angel descended, the earth was shaken with a great trembling, and the foundations of the tomb were moved, and the guards who had come to watch the dead man, struck with terror, were made as dead. As dead, I say: a fitting judgment indeed, if, when the just rises, the sinner dies;
when the innocent one revives, his enemy is slain; for on this account they could not even behold the Lord as He came forth, because terror had oppressed their guilty minds, since they were unable to endure the brightness of the glowing resurrection. With greater care, then, did the Pharisees guard the Lord dead than they had persecuted Him living; since a graver cause pressed them: for they understood it had been easier for Him to be despised among the living than that He could be scorned returning from the dead; and that whereas He could then, while preaching, easily be killed, now, rising again, He could no longer be killed, the Apostle saying: 'Rising again, He now dies no more; death shall no longer have dominion over Him' (Rom. 6:9).
They guarded Him, therefore, carefully in the sepulcher, especially because He had said He would rise on the third day; they guarded Him carefully in the sepulcher, because it was necessary for them now to fear Him not as a teacher but as a judge—a judge, I say, not only of themselves, but also of their own cruel sentence, by which they consigned their sons and descendants to their crimes, saying: 'His blood be upon us and upon our children' (Matt. 27:25). Cruel are the Jews under such a sentence, which by its own outrage not only condemns the children present but even slays those not yet born. For how many do they summon by this voice to the consciousness of the crime, whom no knowledge of the crime bound! Cruel, I say, is their impiety, which arraigns its descendants into guilt before it brings them into the light:
so that it should befall those yet to be to sin before they lived. Bloody parents indeed, who became parricides before they were parents; and who first took as accomplices in their crimes those whom they knew not whether they could ever have as sharers of their blood. It is no wonder, then, if they were so cruel toward the Savior, they who proved so cruel toward their own descendants. Not without reason does holy David bid us exult and be glad without exception on this day, on which day the joys of the whole world are celebrated. For all must be glad, because it profits all; all must exult, because it is salvific for all, and therefore no flattering nor feigned gladness must be applied.
For whoever rejoices in Christ's resurrection, let him rather rejoice because in Christ he himself has risen: for in Him our portion, our condition, both endured death and lived again. And although the dissolution of our poor body still awaits us, we then began already to live the eternal life in Christ; whence, although the occasion of an untimely death may hasten our frailty, yet in the Savior we have learned to rise again before we perish: for the man that was to be rose again in Christ before he obtained life in the world.
For the Lord bestowed the grace of resurrection not only upon that generation in whose time He rose, but He also provided this for the peoples that would follow after, that we should be secure concerning resurrection before we were anxious concerning death, and that we should live with God in the heavens before we conversed with men on earth. For in the Savior we all rose again, we all lived again, we all migrated to the heavenly places; for in that Man Christ there is a portion of the flesh and blood of each one of us: where, then, my portion reigns, I believe that I reign; where my blood holds dominion, I feel that I hold dominion; where my flesh is glorified, I know that I am glorious.
For even the sinner need not despair of this fellowship of grace, because although our sins prohibit us, our substance requires us; although our own offenses shut us out, the communion of nature does not repel us; for on account of the goodness of the Godhead, the Savior owes us a special affection, namely because, just as our God is in Him, so too our blood is in Him. The Godhead, therefore, owes me the showing of mercy, and this kinship ought to display its bond; for the Lord is not so harsh as to forget man, and not to remember Him whom He Himself bears; so that Him whom He took up for my sake, He should not seek me out for the sake of Him whom He took up;
the Lord is not, I say, so harsh as not to love His own flesh, His own members, His own inward parts. The holy Apostle says: 'No one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, as Christ does the Church' (Eph. 5:29). Let us therefore despair of nothing concerning pardon, brethren, and fear nothing concerning hatred. We have the prerogative of our blood; for in Christ our flesh loves us, for we are His members and His flesh, as the same blessed Apostle says: 'This now is bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh: this is a great mystery; but I speak in Christ and in the Church' (Gen. 2:23; Eph. 5:32).
Let us exult, then, brethren, as the Scripture says, let us plainly exult in this day of the Lord, because when we give thanks for the Lord's wishes, we the more attend to our own wishes. For what does the prophet say? 'This is the day which the Lord has made' (Ps. 118:24). A good day indeed, which brought light to all, yet not the light of this world, but of the eternal resurrection; for that light did not bring in the gloom of night, but cut away the darkness of death. A good day, I say, and this one better than that on which the world first shone forth; for that one was created for men unto labor, this one was made unto rest; that one merited death, this one escaped the dread of death; that one is common to good and evil, this one is proper to the just; on that day...
the light is buried in darkness, but the splendor of this day illumines even the graves; and lastly, the dead do not see the light of that day, but the light of this day has shone forth even upon the departed, as the prophet says: 'Those who sat in the region of the shadow of death, a light is risen unto them' (cf. Isa. 9:2; Matt. 4:16). Let us rejoice, then, in this day, which both shines round about the living, and makes alive the dead, and illumines those to come, as the blessed Evangelist says: 'There was the true light, which enlightens every man coming into this world' (John 1:9).