Confident in the authority of three codices, we safely supply the author of this very sermon, whom the copyist of the Vatican codex 6451, page 21, did not know. These are: the Ambrosian, from which Muratorius drew and published it in volume IV of the Anecdota, sermon 6; the Turin one with the inscription 'Likewise also on the Pasch, Sermon XI'; and the Cassinese 105, page 13. Before Muratorius's edition, Cunidus had published the same in volume I of the Library of the Fathers, page 164. 'Most justly, brethren, does the world exult today with general joy, since, Christ having returned from the dead, there has arisen for all mortals everywhere the hope of rising again. And it is necessary that, the Lord of creatures triumphing, the creation enlightened through him should rejoice.'
The heaven rejoices, therefore, because it sees the earth, long sordid with sins, purged by the blood of its Lord; the multitude of the heavenly host rejoices, because by the conflict of their King the whole army of the enemy prince has been defeated. The sun too rejoices, because it now dispels with gladder rays and unending congratulation those mournful shadows which it had endured while the Lord was dying. Amid these things, most beloved, it especially befits us to exult, for whose cause the Only-begotten of God and himself God put on human flesh, in order that through the flesh of man he might come to the cross, through the cross undergo death, and through death despoil hell. Are we not to be glad, for whom, by the sacrament of the new mystery, sins are taken away, heaven is given, paradise is restored?
In fine, to the thief then hanging on the cross, when neither his own nor Christ's punishment disturbed his faith, the Lord himself said: 'Amen I say to thee: today thou shalt be with me in paradise'; for the thief was saying, 'Remember me, Lord, when thou comest into thy kingdom' (Luke 23). How marvellous is this faith, brethren, that the thief, who did not deserve to keep his present life, should amid his own torments take up the hope of perpetuity, and believe it could be granted him by the Crucified! And how justly did the faithful thief receive the gift of so great a promise, who then confessed the kingdom of Christ when even the apostles were troubled!
And so the merit of a single confession absolved all the thief's former crimes, and whatever he had transgressed in a long lifetime, he blotted out with a very brief word. Nor did the blood of his own brigandage condemn him before God, because he believed Christ's blood to be a kingdom, not a punishment. Which deed, most beloved, has without doubt profited the whole human race. For who should despair of God's grace, the thief being absolved, provided only that the belief of the thief follow upon the prayers of the suppliants? We have also another magnificent example of the Lord's mercy, whereby, laying aside all dread of deadly despair, we may trust in the ineffable indulgence of our Redeemer.
For when Christ, condemned by the impious, hung on the cross, and Jewish fury mocked the Crucified, the merciful advocate, amid his very wounds, prayed to the omnipotent Father for his slayers, saying: 'Father, forgive them: they know not what they do' (ibid.); and though the judgment of the living and the dead was in his hand, he nevertheless besought pardon for those who were perishing—but for this reason, as I think, that he might indubitably show both that he himself remitted so wicked a crime, and that they were not to be condemned by his Father whom he himself spared, provided only that, their perfidy repudiated, they should come together to the name of Christ. For who indeed would doubt of the effect of the petition, where the Good asks a remedy for the wretched from the Good? 'They know not,' he says, 'what they do.'
The Jews indeed knew that they were shedding the blood of an innocent man, but they did not know that the sins of all were being blotted out by that blood. They knew that they were punishing Christ with the most bitter torment of the cross, but they did not know that the Son of God was triumphing through the cross. They knew that he was going to die; but that he would return from the dead they did not know. Whence it was excellently said by the Lord: 'They know not what they do.' The Jews indeed did not know how great a ministry of piety their impiety was.
But the Lord, conscious of his own power, having pity on human errors, most fully knowing what and how great joys those sufferings would follow, mercifully absolved even amid his torments the crime of those who crucified him, and willed his own death to be the life of his slayers, and willed his condemnation to become the redemption of those who put him to death. Returning from the lower regions, he sought out his apostles in such a way as to show that both the power of divinity and the truth of flesh were in him. And therefore, most dear brethren, let us rejoice as Christ rises from the dead, and let us believe that he recalled his own flesh from the lower regions, that we may be able to merit the desirable fellowship both of apostolic grace and of the Lord's resurrection.