Ceillier, following Mannus in reviewing the works of Maximus, judges that this sermon should be ascribed to the same Maximus. We are doubtful, both because the discourse seems to bear less resemblance to the manner of Maximus, and because, apart from a single Vatican codex, we have found no manuscript (and indeed we have examined a good many) in which it is attributed to Maximus himself. They rather think this sermon to be a fragment of a little work of Maximus, about which I do not trouble myself. Before the coming of Christ our Savior, many prophets, having received the Holy Spirit, announced things to come; among whom Solomon too is numbered in his place and order according to the times; but between him and the others there is a certain difference.
For this reason the others spoke by the Spirit alone, but Solomon spoke both by the Spirit and by adjoined wisdom. Indeed, this is attested by the utterance which we heard recited from his words; for while he professes his ignorance concerning wisdom and the Spirit, he says: 'There are three things,' he says, 'which I do not understand: the way of a ship in the sea, the path of a serpent upon a rock, and the track of an eagle wheeling in the air; and a fourth which I cannot search out, namely the adulterous woman, who, when once she has been washed, believes that she has not sinned at all' (Prov. 30). These words seem gathered as if by common sense from among the crowd, but in all of them are holy mysteries: three in Christ, and one in the Church.
For that he said he could not find the way of the sea, this is not a word without mystery. For who among the waves marked the way which the ship had been able to pass through? For the ship in its passage cleaves and furrows the waves, so that it is known that it passes, and yet it is not seen where it passed. For it can be seen, but it can make no track. Christ is the ship in which ascend the souls of all believers; and that it may have as its way firmness amid the waves, it is fashioned of wood and fastened with iron -- that is, Christ upon the cross. But that he says the ship is without track, this is because the Word of God, penetrating vehemently through the ear to the inmost parts, His own manhood being gathered, is born among men: the Virgin Mary bears Him.
The ship passes through the sea and leaves no tracks in the waves: Christ came from heaven, is conceived through the ear, is carried in the womb for a fixed time. Such did the Virgin Mary remain after she bore Him, as she was before she conceived the Word through the ear. Rightly does Solomon say that he is ignorant amid the Holy Spirit and wisdom, and judges to be a mystery that which he does not know. Then he professes that he does not see the path of the serpent upon a rock, which is commonly plain to all; because in summertime, when the earth is dissolved into dust, the serpent, having gone forth from its lair, by the impression of its body can mark a path in the crumbled earth; but when it comes to a rock, it does not make upon the stone what it made in the dust.
So too the serpent, the devil, at the very beginnings of the world found the earth corruptible -- Adam and Eve willingly listening to what he spoke. He made a path in their ears; he made one also in the feet by which the way to the tree had been forbidden; he made one also in the hands by which the fruits were handled; he made one in their sides, before the nuptials, not yet permitted, were celebrated. Then the serpent was able to make a track in primeval man as though in dust; he came to the rock, which is Christ (for such had Adam been made as Christ too is from the womb); he saw the likeness covered by a body, but he could not recognize the majesty. He was able also to approach to tempt Him, but Christ neither obeyed nor grew angry; because anger is the work of the devil;
but when the devil's words were despised, the serpent made no track upon the rock. The third thing he testifies that he did not understand. By the eagle is understood Christ, who by his flight descended from the earth. This kind of creature is not nourished unless first the chastity of the mother is proved, so that with open eyes, without flinching, it may gaze upon the whole sun. Rightly, indeed, is this creature compared to the Savior; for when it wishes to seize something, it does not walk the earth with its tracks, but chooses a lofty place: so too Christ, hung high upon the cross, with a thundering crash and a terrible flight, made His assault upon the underworld, and, snatching the saints, returned to the heights.
The fourth thing, which he says concerning the adulterous woman, here the woman is understood as the Church, which formerly, following idols, went a-whoring after alien gods; but when, having come to know the truth, she was once washed in the laver of baptism, laying aside the seats which she had formerly gathered, she dies to the devil and is reborn to God.