This sermon is ascribed to Saint Maximus by Muratorius in volume IV of the Anecdota, no. 21; and from the similarity of the manner of writing it can plainly be recognized that the same holy bishop was its author. Concerning the votive solemnity of feast-days, what remains is wont to be sweeter, and the remnants left over from a great banquet are accustomed to taste more pleasant. Whence we too, celebrating the Lord's Nativity, ought more gladly to take up those things which have been most amply reserved for us from the provision. For we cannot fear any distaste for the remnants, because the feasts of the Savior are always whole, always undiminished, and are not lessened by any contamination. But when you have taken something from them, they are again renewed, flourishing in their own heavenly grace.
Great, therefore, is that food, where you take as much as you wish, and yet all that you have taken remains whole. For the divine Scripture is of such vigor that, when you have said very much about it, there yet remains more that may be said, so that the more deeply the discourse of the one preaching extends itself into the depths, the more the holy mind finds a height for its disputing. Whence the Apostle says: 'O the depth of the riches, and of the knowledge, and of the wisdom of God! How incomprehensible are His judgments, and unsearchable His ways!' (Rom. 11) We ought not, therefore, to fear lest after so great a banquet we should suffer distaste and hunger. We have indeed expended the whole for the sake of devotion; but by grace the whole has remained; and—lest it seem strange what I have said—when all has been spent, all has remained.
Remember the evangelical Scripture which was lately read, and you will find that more is carried away from the Lord's table than is brought to it. For five loaves were brought in, and twelve baskets of fragments were carried back. Those, therefore, who gather up the remnants find more than what he brought who furnished the food for the banquet. In short, when five thousand men had been satisfied, the twelve apostles scarcely bore away twelve baskets of that which one boy had brought in his hand before anything had been spent. Thus the bread is multiplied in the hand of the Lord while it is broken, it grows while it is diminished, it increases while it is distributed; and by a more profitable outlay the creature of food feeds and profits the peoples; that grows in the mouths of the eaters which seemed less in the hands of the ministers. Finally, Saint
Andrew says: 'There is one boy here who has five loaves and two fishes' (Luke 9), and the rest. In a marvelous manner, therefore, by the blessing of Christ the Lord the solid nature of the bread flows, abounds, and overflows, and by a certain watering of its vigor it becomes for the eaters no longer a fount of waters, but of foods. We read in the prophets that the same Lord brought forth drink for the thirsty from the hard rock. Behold, now for the hungry He has produced, from dry bread, a flowing of fullness. There He dissolved the stone into streams; here He multiplied food into plenty. All these things, therefore, are, as I have said, to be compared figuratively with the evangelical Scriptures, which refresh Christian peoples with a few little verses and never at any time fail;
which by their blessing feed hungry souls, and when they have satisfied them, abound the more. For who, when he has been refreshed by the evangelical commandments, being as it were enriched by these commandments, would not render thanksgiving—having, that is, a treasure by which he himself may always be satisfied, and may be able to fill the mouth of another who hungers?