What we have elsewhere taught—that whatever is produced by us in this collection is drawn from better sources—will be established even more plainly from what is to be said about this homily. We put forward three Vatican codices; namely 4222, page 86 and following; 4951, page 44; 1267, which three Vallicellian codices follow: A 10, page 4; A 16, page 89; and xx, page 75; and two others of Cassino, 103, page 123, and 106, page 234. In agreement with these are the codices of Lambach, of the Cistercians of Monte Amiata, Augiensis XVI, Lucca 85, Novara 27, Monza E III, Laurentian Plut. XIV page 10, Vercelli 81, and Turin under the number of homily 21, all of which acknowledge Saint Maximus as its parent. Moreover the same editors confirm the testimony: Gymnicus page 50, Galesinius page
101), Combefis, tome II, page 78, Cuidius, tome I, page 507, Raynaud in the cited page 201, and Margarinus in the Bibliotheca Maxima, tome VI, part 40. The chief of the prophets, Isaiah, says (chapter 60), most dear brethren: Be enlightened, be enlightened, O Jerusalem; for thy light is come, and the majesty of the Lord is risen upon thee. But it is manifest that Jerusalem is the city of the faithful. Whence, brethren, we who have begun to enter the gates of the heavenly Jerusalem, illumined by the saving sacraments, in the sight of our God must needs exult with a new joy, because today a new star has revealed a new man to the world. On this very day, indeed, Christ Jesus, coming from the Father, God and man born of a woman, under the appearance of the adoring Chaldeans dedicated the faith of the Gentiles:
who, although He veiled His divinity with the overshadowing of our body, heaven nonetheless proclaimed Him to be God, and earth recognized it. Humble indeed, but marvelous, He came: so that in Him both the truth of the assumed flesh and the ineffable nature of the Deity might equally shine forth. And although earthly cradles received Him being born, yet a heavenly seal testified that He was not earthly. For He lay in the cradle, but He shone in heaven; He wailed among the Jews, and He reigned among the Gentiles; in Bethlehem He was suckled by His mother, and in Chaldea He was adored by the magi. For thus the most blessed evangelist Matthew says: Behold, magi came from the East, saying: Where is He who is born king of the Jews (Matthew 2)?
How fittingly are they said to hasten from the East, who come to worship the eternal Orient, of whom it was said: 'And the Dawn from on high hath visited us, to enlighten those who sit in darkness' (Luke 1). Then the Chaldeans add: 'We have seen his star, and are come to worship him.' 'His star,' they say, 'we have seen.' Rightly 'his': for although all the stars are the creation of that same one, this one nevertheless belonged properly to Christ, since it announced his coming in a special way. The others indeed were made to mark off the times and courses of this world; but this one was bidden to appear so that it might show the Lord of the world himself, and that the time of the heavenly kingdom was at hand. And so the magi say: 'We have seen his star, and are come to worship him.'
Behold, those who do not possess Christ wish to have him and strive to find him. The Jew flees from his own God, the pagan seeks him: what the neighbor does not acknowledge, the stranger understands; the Gentile sees the star and comes; the Jew sees Christ and envies, as it is written: 'He came unto his own, and his own received him not' (John 1). Truly Judea, most hardened and blinded by its own faithlessness, did not see what the star was shining forth, nor could it hear what the angels were proclaiming aloud. And so, when the magi were inquiring and saying, 'Where is he that is born king of the Jews?' — and Herod was troubled, and all Jerusalem with him. The king is troubled, I believe, fearing for his kingdom; not knowing that Christ was not coming to invade his kingdom, but to save it;
and that he who is the life of all men would bring death to none. And when the magi were journeying, the star — as it is read — which they had seen in the East went before them, until it came and stood over where the child was. Did it not seem to say and to cry out: 'This is the boy whose birth I attested from heaven! This is your great king, who comes with heavenly authority to join the kingdom of the earth to his own'? Truly this star was the handmaid of the Lord's nativity, which served the Chaldeans with such attendance that in their search for Christ it not only counseled them from heaven, but also furnished them a guide upon the earth. And so, having worshiped the Lord and offered their gifts, the magi passed Herod by and returned into their own country by another way.
Nor indeed could they return through Herod — that is, by the road of death — who, having worshiped the Son of God, were bringing back to their homeland the gifts of heavenly life. Herod therefore, being mocked and despised by the magi (as the evangelist says [Matt. 2]), was exceedingly wroth, and sent forth and slew all the children who were in Bethlehem, 'from two years old and under,' he says; and further on, the age of the slain is recorded, so that the bitterness of the murderer might be made known. O perverse rage and rash indignation of the raging tyrant! He is angry at the Chaldeans and kills the innocent; and while he is borne to the death of a spotless infant, he destroys throngs of sucklings, so that the manifold guilt of the prostrate multitude might entangle that most wicked king, who was seeking blood not owed to him;
and the madness of the raging man could not perceive that he who was coming to give life to the dead could not, unwilling, be forced into death. And all these things, dearly beloved, the devil was working through Herod, so that by the service of his own will he might either destroy Christ, or by the slaughter of the little ones cast gloom upon Christ's most joyful entrance. But let there be among the faithful no sorrow over the death of the innocents: for Christ, the most just rewarder, made those who suffered for his sake sharers in his own passion; and those for whom he was gladly preparing eternal life, he patiently allowed to be slain.
Therefore, most beloved, let us who come from among the Gentiles — upon whom the saving light shone from heaven in the Lord's star, among whom the Virgin's Child is born, for whom Christ is God even in the cradle — bringing the gifts of our devotion and faith, turn aside from the treachery of Herod; and with body and spirit sanctified, loving our own mercy, let us ever honor the most sacred coming of the Lord: so that, as we rejoice over his enlightenment, so we may be glad over our own reward, with the help of our Lord Jesus Christ.