When I was going through the Florentine codices of the Laurentian Library, I not only came upon several which would confirm me more strongly in that opinion which holds Maximus to have been the author of the preceding sermon, but I also achieved this: that in three of them I discovered a sermon hitherto unpublished, which I now for the first time bring forth into the light of men. Of these three codices, the first is the one that formerly belonged to the library of the cathedral chapter of the metropolitan of Florence, no. 172, p. 71; the second is in Plut. I no. XIV, p. 80; the third in Plut. XXXV, XVII, p. 219. It also befell me not long after that I found this very sermon in the Cassinese codex 305, p. 116.
And that this should be ascribed to Maximus will be granted by anyone who plainly sees the similarity of style corresponding to the authority of the codices. The time admonishes us, brethren, to expound the little chapter of the Gospel which was lately read, in which the Lord says to Peter, while still standing in his little ship: Fear not, from now on you shall be catching men. For from this concluding phrase we can understand the mystery of the whole reading. For what was the reason that, when the disciples marveled at the little ships filled with the catch of fish, the Saviour did not promise to Peter what he was learning, but pledged what he was wholly ignorant of? That is, that in the very little ship in which he was, in place of the quivering fish he would bestow an abundance of men to be given life:
since indeed in a little ship men are not wont to be given life, but to be carried; not to be revived by the vessel, but to tremble at the step. See then whether this little ship is not a little ship which is given to Peter to be sunk, but is the Church, which is entrusted to Christ to be steered. For it is that ship which is accustomed to those lifted up out of the world's whirlwinds, as out of the waves, not to kill them but to give them life. For as a stitched skiff wounds and holds fast the little fish it has lifted from the depths, so also the ship of the Church gives animation to the men freed from the whirlwind; when it takes them up, it animates them within itself, I say, the Church, and, as it were, gives life to those half-dead. For to give life is what this word means: for nothing is given life except what a little before was without life.
Therefore Peter is said to be about to give life to men, as it were wounded by the world's whirlwinds and choked by the waves of the age, so that he who marveled at the little ship filled with the number of quivering fish might marvel yet more at the Church laden with a multitude of living men. The whole course of the reading, then, contains a mystical meaning. For also in the earlier place, where the Lord, sitting in the little ship, says to Peter: Put out into the deep and let down your nets for a catch (Luke 5), it surely befits him not so much to cast the instruments of fishing into the depths as to let down the words of preaching into the height. This height Paul too pierced with the javelin of his mouth, saying: O the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God! (Rom. 11), and the rest.
He does not, I say, teach him to enclose little fish with a line, but to gather men together. For faith works this upon the land which the net works among the waves. For as the net does not suffer those it contains to wander, so also faith does not permit those it gathers to go astray; and as there it leads the captives to the ship in a kind of bosom, so also here it brings down those gathered to rest in a kind of embrace. But that you may understand that the Lord was speaking of a spiritual fishing, he says to Peter: Master, toiling through the whole night we have taken nothing, but at your word I will let down the net (Luke 5); as if to say: since through the whole night, while we watched in vain, our fishing profits nothing, I will now fish not with an instrument, but with grace;
not by the skill of art, but by the earnestness of devotion. At your word, he says, I will let down the net. We read that the Word is the Lord and Saviour, as the Evangelist says: In the beginning was the Word (John 1), and the rest. Therefore when Peter lets down the nets at the word, he assuredly lets down eloquent words in Christ; and when he unfolds the interwoven and arranged line at the command of the teacher, he spreads out words more distinct and fitting in the name of the Saviour, by which he might save not living creatures but souls. Through the whole night, toiling, we have taken nothing. Truly Peter had toiled through the night, who, suffering darkness beforehand, without Christ could not see what he might catch.
But when the light of the Saviour shone upon him, the darkness being dispersed, he began also to discern in the deep by faith what he did not see with his eyes. Peter suffered the night, until the day, which is Christ, should stand by him. Wherefore the apostle Paul says: The night is far spent, the day is at hand (Rom. 13), Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns for ever and ever. Amen.