Concerning the holy Maccabees, the illustrious Muratori, first of all, published these two sermons written by Saint Maximus, which he read in the Ambrosian codex. The same sermons we found, by our inquiry, ascribed to Saint Maximus in four Cassinese codices: in codex 100, in 142 fol. 75 verso, in 147 fol. 117 verso, and 148; and moreover in two Laurentian codices, IV Plut. XX, and CIX XIV, of the library formerly of the metropolitan church of Florence. Another sermon on the Maccabees, attributed to Saint Leo, the Ballerini reported in the appendix of the sermons of Saint Leo. What first, most beloved, shall I set myself to proclaim concerning the Maccabee brothers, whose birthday is today?
Whither shall I turn myself in a discourse of their praises, whose distinguished merits it is neither possible for me to unfold, nor probable for me to follow? For as one faith shone forth in them all, so a manifold fortitude was made bright in each one. Truly venerable, and to be celebrated by the mouth of all, are these brothers, among whom confession is in words, and triumph is in courage. These, then, when by royal fear and the bitterness of torments they were compelled to eat of unlawful things and to partake of what was forbidden, all succeeded one another with one will of dying, because for all there was after death one hope of living.
With what beautiful judgment and praiseworthy constancy do they shudder to touch swine's flesh, which then by heavenly prohibition was held unclean, whose devotion was preparing itself for the coming of the immaculate Lamb! The most valiant young men, therefore, are seized, and are driven by various torments of their limbs to unlawful and forbidden things. Yet they persist manfully, nor do they yield to the tyrannical fury; so that, by the marvelous dispensation of almighty God, those whom the generation of the flesh had produced as temporal and mortal brothers, suffering might make eternal brethren.
Who indeed would not receive with all admiration the fact that, for the authority of the divine law, boys display wisdom, adolescents fear not torments, young men despise both the royal gifts and the allurements of life itself? The persecutor, therefore, as a craftsman, begins with the eldest in birth, that by the punishment of the elders he might bend the minds of those who followed to his precepts. But what the impious man contrives for fear, profits the brothers for an example. Each one of them understands that he both can and ought to conquer those things which by the vigor of a brotherly mind and by fraternal religion had been trodden underfoot. But what shall the mediocrity of our discourse pursue especially concerning their venerable mother
to whom, from so many griefs of bereavement, joys of her vows are born, who exulted in the torments of so many deaths as she had pledges to rejoice in? Blessed Felicity acted as a twofold mother in a certain manner; for those whom she had brought forth by the law of the body to the present life, she brought forth by the fortitude of the spirit for the everlasting ages. Who among mortals would not marvel, brethren, whose affection would not tremble, that the mother trembled with all her inward parts, lest any of her sons in so magnificent a conflict should either fear, or should not merit to be slain?
And amid those funerals of her slaughtered little ones, in the maternal breast there was not only no groan of sadness, but beyond the affection of womanly tenderness the marvelous mother exulted in their victory, whom she knew she had nourished no less with faith than with milk. The order of birth, therefore, passes into the order of passion, so that by the most just rule of martyrdom they might be sent across to heaven by the same path by which the world had received them. O new affection of piety! The sons are tortured, and the mother exults, and thus she believed herself to be proved a true mother in the sight of the Lord, if amid such deadly torments of her numerous offspring she stood by with unbent breast and dry eyes.
Nay rather, she rejoices with herself, because she recognizes the alacrity of her own mind in her pledges, and because it fell to her to send ahead her sons by such a death, that hell might claim nothing of them for itself. But after all these astonishing things, the woman, dying by the same confession as her sons, securely follows those whom she had so devoutly sent ahead. And it was most just in the sight of the Lord that the mother of so many martyrs should not pass from this world without the consecration of martyrdom. Nor need it be inquired, brethren, by what punishment in particular she closed her most glorious day; since all the torments which we have heard of her sons tormented the mother's inward parts, and she alone felt more keenly whatever each one endured.