聖莫爾修會的本篤會修士們，在他們為聖大額我略論福音的講道集所作的序言中（第四十號，一七六九年威尼斯版，第五卷第一三五頁），推崇君士坦丁大殿的拉特朗抄本。我們為編纂馬克西姆斯文集，也查閱了這些相同的抄本，並未白費工夫。因為在標記為 L A 的抄本第一五二頁，在同一位聖主教若干已出版的講道之前，我們發現了這篇尚未付印的講道。其題名如下：「聖主教馬克西姆斯的講道由此開始。論眾多殉道者的誕辰。當這日是聖潔殉道者之日，除了他們的榮耀之外，還有甚麼更叫人喜悅呢？願殉道者的主幫助我們，因祂就是我們的主。」
The Benedictine monks of the congregation of St. Maur commend the Lateran codices of the Constantinian basilica in their preface to the homilies of St. Gregory the Great on the Gospels, no. 40, Venice edition of the year 1769, vol. V, p. 135. We too, for our collection of Maximus, consulted these same codices, and did not spend our labour in vain. For in the codex marked L A, p. 152, before certain sermons of the same holy bishop already published, we found this one not yet printed. Its title is as follows: 'Here begin the sermons of St. Maximus the bishop. On the birthday of very many martyrs. When it is the day of the holy martyrs, from what should we rather take delight than from their glory? May the Lord of the martyrs help us, for He is our Lord.'
We heard the voice of the martyrs a little while ago, when the blessed apostle preached and said: 'Who shall separate us from the charity of Christ?' This is the voice of the martyrs. 'Tribulation? distress? persecution? or famine? or nakedness? or peril? or the sword? As it is written: For thy sake we are put to death all the day long; we are counted as sheep for the slaughter. But in all these things we overcome through him that loved us' (Rom. 8). This is the voice of the martyrs: to overcome all things, and to presume nothing of themselves. To love Him who glories in His own, that he who glories may glory in the Lord. They too knew what we sang a little while ago: 'Be glad in the Lord, and rejoice, O ye righteous' (Ps. 31). Be glad and rejoice in the Lord.
If the righteous rejoice in the Lord, the unrighteous indeed know not how to rejoice save in the world. But these are the very first battle-lines to be overcome: first the delights must be conquered, and afterwards the sorrows. How can he overcome the world when it rages, who cannot put to flight the world when it fawns? This world fawns by promising honours, riches, pleasures. This world threatens by holding out pains, poverty, humiliations. He who does not despise what it promises, how can he overcome what it threatens? Riches have their own delight; who does not know it? But justice has more of what delights.
But let riches give delight together with justice, until such a point of temptation befalls that two things come at once—the temptation of riches and of justice—so that you cannot hold both equally. But if you put your hand to acts of justice, let riches perish. But if you put your hand to riches, of necessity you lose justice. Now choose, now fight. Now let us see whether it was not without cause that you sang: 'Be glad in the Lord, and rejoice, O ye righteous.' Now let us see whether it was not without cause that you sang: 'Who shall separate us from the charity of Christ?' (Rom. 8). And indeed he passed over all the things by which the world fawns. Why? Because he was proclaiming the contests of the martyrs.
Those contests, in which they overcame persecutions, hunger, thirst, poverty, ignominy, and at the last the fear of death, the final enemy. But see, brethren, the whole is the work of Christ's art, the Apostle admonishing us to prefer the charity of Christ to the world. How great straits do those suffer who wish to seize the goods of others! 'Persecution?' he says—even that does not break the greedy man; he is terrified by his own avarice. The greedy man seizes, and fears punishment, and is in a fever over his plunder; for many suffer hunger while they acquire and make their gains, whom we bid to fast, yet they excuse themselves on account of their stomach. Let them be free all day long to count up their gold coins, and let them sleep fasting. 'Nakedness?' Why should I speak of nakedness? Daily do merchants escape naked from shipwreck, and sail again into peril.
Whence do men daily put themselves in peril, if not for the sake of acquiring riches? Nor does the sword deter them. Fraud is a capital crime; and yet an inheritance is diminished by it. If then temporal covetousness merits this, why should not the inheritance of Christ merit as much? The greedy man might say in his heart, though perhaps he would not say it with his tongue: 'Who shall separate us from thy covetousness? Tribulation, or distress, or persecution?' The greedy too can say to their gold: 'For thy sake we are slain all the day long.' Excellently, then, do the holy martyrs say in the psalm: 'Judge me, O God, and distinguish my cause from the nation that is not holy; from the unjust man' (Ps. 42). 'Distinguish,' he says, 'my tribulation'; the greedy too are troubled. 'Distinguish my distresses'; the greedy too suffer distress.
'Distinguish my persecutions'; the greedy too suffer them. 'Distinguish my hunger'; the greedy too go hungry for the sake of acquiring gold. 'Distinguish my death'; the greedy too die for the sake of gold. What is 'distinguish my cause'? 'For thy sake we are put to death all the day long'; they, not for thy sake. A like punishment, but a distinct cause. Where, then, the cause is distinct, there is surely victory. If, therefore, dearly beloved, we love the solemnity of the martyrs, let us love in them not the sufferings, but the causes of the sufferings. For if we loved the sufferings, we shall find many who suffer worse things in evil causes. But let us attend to the causes. Behold the cross of Christ: there was Christ, there were also the robbers. A like punishment, but an unlike cause. One robber believed, the other blasphemed.
The Lord, as from a tribunal, judged between the two: him who blasphemed He assigned to hell, the other He set with Himself in paradise. Why this? Because, though the punishment was equal, the cause was unequal. Choose, therefore, the cause of the martyrs, if you wish to attain to the palm of the martyrs. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, to whom is glory unto the ages of ages. Amen.