From the canon Antonio Francesco Frisi, recommended to us, we have received also this sermon on the dedication of a church, ascribed to Saint Maximus in a very ancient codex of the Milanese basilica of Saint Ambrose, which we place in the class of spurious works; because, according to canon Casola, on the testimony of the same Frisi, it is attributed rather to the venerable Bede than to Maximus, and its style differs from that of Maximus. We have heard from the reading of the Gospel (John 10), dearest brethren, that 'the Encaenia were kept at Jerusalem.' Now Encaenia was the name for the solemnities of the dedication of the temple, which the people of God, from the ancient tradition of the fathers, were accustomed to celebrate every single year.
Following their footsteps, we today, according to the custom of the Christian world, have taken pains to keep the annual day of the dedication of our church solemn with divine praises and vigils. And this festivity we ought to celebrate with the greater devotion, in that we have come to know it to be most pleasing to our Redeemer. And therefore, that on it He Himself deigned to enter the temple, and to make a discourse to the people, and to unfold the mysteries of His divinity: 'The Encaenia,' it says, 'were kept at Jerusalem, and it was winter, and He was walking in the temple, in the porch of Solomon' (ibid.).
If, then, He willed to walk in that place where the flesh and blood of brute animals was offered, how much more will He rejoice to visit our house of prayer, where the sacraments of His very flesh and blood are celebrated? If He did not disdain to walk in the porch in which a king, once mortal and earthly, however most mighty and most wise, was wont to stand for prayer, how much more does He desire to visit and illuminate the inner recesses of our hearts, provided only He shall have perceived them to be the porch of Solomon, that is, provided He shall have perceived them to have His fear, which is the beginning of wisdom.
Nor is it to be thought that only the house in which we assemble for prayer or for the celebration of the ministries is the temple of the Lord, and that we ourselves, who assemble in the name of the Lord, are not much more both called His temple and are so; since the Apostle plainly says: 'For you are the temple of the living God, as God says (2 Corinthians 6): I will dwell in them and walk among them' (Leviticus 26). If, then, we are the temple of God, let us take skillful care and be zealous in good deeds, so that in that same temple of His He Himself may deign more often both to come and to make His dwelling. Let us beware the example of winter, lest, that is, the Lord at His coming find our hearts grown torpid from the ardor of charity, and therefore, turning away, more quickly abandon them.
For what did it concern the evangelist to mention the time of winter, except that by the harshness of the wintry blasts he wished to signify the hardness of the perfidy of the Jews? For to very many of those whom He then found in the temple, that saying which He spoke was fitting: 'And because iniquity has abounded, the charity of many shall grow cold' (Matthew 24). As He subsequently openly declares, saying: 'The Jews therefore surrounded Him, and said: How long do you hold our souls in suspense? If you are the Christ, tell us plainly' (John 10). For they said these things not by seeking the truth of faith, but by laying snares for Him whom they questioned, and by contriving calumny.
For Christ, whom the orthodox faith confesses to be true God and true man, they believed to be only a mere man to come; but did not believe Him to be also God. Remembering, no doubt, that the Lord swore to David concerning His humanity (Psalm 131) that of the fruit of his womb He would sit upon his throne; but forgetting what He sang through the same David concerning His divinity: 'The Lord said to me, You are My Son' (Psalm 2). They believed, therefore, that Christ would be born of the stock of David, and would come as a king more excellent than all others. In which same madness their descendants even to the present do not cease to err, until they receive Antichrist in place of Christ.
And even if the Lord Jesus were to answer that He was the Christ, they were plotting to hand Him over to the power of the governor to be punished, as though, resisting Augustus, He were usurping to Himself an unlawful empire. But He Himself, taking counsel for our salvation, for the sake of those for whom these things were to be written, so tempered His answer that He might both close the mouths of the calumniators, and that He might come forth to the faithful with open voice as Christ; for they were asking about the man Christ; but He was openly relating the mysteries of His divinity, which is equal to the Father. Let us also, therefore, dearest ones, surround Him; not, like the Jews, by assailing Him with ambushes, but, as His most faithful household, by preparing for Him a peaceful dwelling in ourselves; of whom it may deservedly be said: 'The Most High has sanctified His tabernacle;
God is in the midst of it, it shall not be moved' (Psalm 45). Let us seek Him, not as they did by raving: 'How long do you hold our soul in suspense? If you are the Christ, tell us plainly.' For what is more insane than that they should complain that the Master of truth was holding their soul in suspense, because He did not openly unlock the secrets of His majesty to them, unbelieving and gainsaying as they were? But, as the Scripture (Wisdom 1 and following) admonishes, by thinking of Him in goodness, and seeking Him in simplicity of heart. For 'He is found by those who do not tempt Him; He appears, moreover, to those who have faith in Him.' Let us say to Him as suppliants, that You are Christ, the only-begotten Son of God, coeternal and consubstantial with the Father and the Holy Spirit in divinity;
we have come to know that You were made a partaker of our substance in time. Grant that what for now we venerate with pious faith, we may in the future behold in full vision. For this is the sole salvation and life of our soul: to gaze forever upon Your countenance, to behold Your light; nor is it to be doubted that He hears us when we ask, since we ask for what He Himself has commanded. For how is He to be believed to deny gifts to His servants who piously supplicate, when He did not refuse to open them even to rebels beyond what they were asking? When they asked whether Christ was a man, He Himself did not keep silent that He was not only man, but also God, and the Son of God: for He answered them, saying: 'I speak to you, and you do not believe.'
'The works that I do in My Father's name, these bear witness of Me. But you do not believe, because you are not of My sheep' (John 10). He, therefore, who testifies that He does His works in the Father's name, assuredly intimates that He is to be believed the Son of God. But they are held liable to a twofold guilt; who could be invited to faith neither by the words which He spoke, nor by the deeds by which He confirmed the truth of His words; and deservedly are they said not to be of His sheep, who strove not to follow the good shepherd with the simplicity of sheep, but rather to persecute Him with beastly rage. But since there are some who observe faith in word only, and cloak beastly hearts under the guise of sheep;
the Shepherd Himself subsequently teaches what is the life of His sheep, what is their reward. 'My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me, and I give them eternal life, and they shall not perish forever' (John 10). For whoever desires to escape eternal destruction and to see perpetual life, must needs follow the voice of Christ not only by hearing and believing, but also by living well. But that He says He knows His sheep signifies that He chooses them and predestines them to the heavenly kingdom. Whence Solomon says: 'For the Lord knows the ways that are on the right' (Proverbs 4); on the contrary, the Apostle says of the reprobate: 'But he who is ignorant, shall be ignored' (1 Corinthians 14).
But beautifully, concerning those who would hear His voice and follow Him, He says: 'And I give them eternal life, and they shall not perish forever' (John 10). For the martyrs seemed to the eyes of the foolish to die. They seemed to perish when, overcome by diverse kinds of torments, they let go their mortal life. But they shall not perish forever; they shall not see death forever, who, soon released from the prison of the flesh, obtain the rewards due to their contest. Concerning whom it is still openly added: 'No one shall snatch them out of My hand' (ibid.).
For the impious persecutors were seeking to snatch the pious confessors of Christ out of His hand, when either by torments they were compelling them to deny the faith, so as to render their souls alien to Christ, or, being overcome by the dying, they nevertheless cast their lifeless bodies either into the waters to be dissolved, or into the fire to be burned up; so that, as it were, they might take from Christ the power of raising them up. But no one snatches them out of the hand of Him to whom, as He Himself says elsewhere: 'All things have been delivered to Me by My Father' (Luke 10); for He both helps those who contend that they may conquer, and crowns the victors that they may reign forever; and to those same He will in His own time restore, immortal, the very flesh in which they contended.
By which words He also refutes the temerity of those who were preparing for themselves the snares of death, plainly intimating that they were acting most foolishly with treacheries concerning the destruction of Him who could give immortal life; from whom no one could snatch anything of those whom He foreknows to be His own before the ages. But lest by speaking these things He should seem to seek His own glory, He refers His whole power to the glory of the Father, when He adds: 'My Father, who has given them to Me, is greater than all' (John 10). And 'greater than all' is that which the Father gave to Jesus Christ, the man who is the mediator of God and men; that is, that He should be His only-begotten Son, in nothing dissimilar in nature to His begetter, nor inferior in power, nor later in time.
Which equality the Lord Himself had in divinity with the Father before the world was; He Himself received it in His humanity from the time of the incarnation. 'And no one can snatch out of the hand of My Father.' Above, concerning His sheep, He says: 'No one shall snatch them out of My hand'; and now He adds: 'And no one can snatch out of the hand of My Father'; plainly giving to understand that the hand, that is, the power, of Himself and of the Father is one and undifferentiated; and therefore that He is to be believed to be Christ, who not, like the rest, sanctified by grace in time, but has always existed as the true Son of God. Which He also opens more clearly than light by the following sentence, saying: 'I and the Father are one' (ibid.). 'We are one,' He says.
One is our substance, one is the divinity, one is the eternity, perfect equality, no dissimilarity. By which words assuredly He explained not only the present question of the Jews, whereby they were asking whether He Himself was the Christ; but He also showed how much the perfidy of the heretics, which He foresaw would come, is to be execrated. For Arius alone says: 'Christ is only man, He is not God'; but since He Himself says: 'I and the Father are one,' it manifestly appears that a mere man cannot be substantially one with God the Father. And because Christ is the same as the Father is, the heresy of Photinus, which forbids this to be believed, is to be guarded against. But Arius says:
'Christ was made by God, He was not born of God, and therefore He is to be believed less than the Father.' Contradicting whom, He Himself says: 'I and the Father are one'; for who would not readily see that no creature can naturally exist as one with Him who created all things? And because Christ is naturally one with the Father, the perfidy of Arius, which affirms Him to be a creature, is to be condemned. Further, Sabellius says: 'The Father and the Son are not to be confessed as two persons; but the Father Himself, when He wills, is the Father, when He wills He is the Son; yet the same is one'; which things the Son Himself, in what has been recalled, condemns. For it is established that 'I and the Father' could not be said of one person; and 'we are' does not fit being said of one.
Wherefore, with the error of Sabellius too being cast off along with the rest, we must follow the apostolic faith of blessed Peter, by which, confessing the Lord, he said: 'You are the Christ, the Son of the living God' (Matthew 16). These things concerning the Gospel reading we have run through in explaining, as the Lord granted. But it pleases me still to discourse more fully to your brotherhood concerning the solemnity of the Encaenia, which both the people of Jerusalem then, and we today, celebrate. And this first is to be noted, that the Encaenia which we have learned were kept in the Gospel reading pertain not to the first dedication of the temple, but to the last; which is easily gathered from this, that they are reported to have taken place in winter.
Now the first dedication of that temple was made by Solomon in autumn, the middle one by Zerubbabel and Jeshua the priest in the time of spring, the last by Judas Maccabaeus in the time of winter, when it is specially read to have been ordained that the same dedication should be recalled through all the years in solemn offices. According to which, we have heard, now when the Gospel was read, that it was observed even up to the time of the Lord's incarnation. And this was the cause of the second and third dedication: Solomon indeed completed the work of the temple which he built for the Lord in seven years. But in the eighth year, on the tenth day of the seventh month, which is called by us October, he dedicated it in great glory; which day, indeed, had also before been appointed by the Law as solemn;
so that on it the whole tabernacle should each year be expiated with greater victims. Finally Zechariah, the father of blessed John the Baptist, serving at the altar with those same expiations, upon the coming of an angel is instructed concerning the nativity of the Lord and the joy of human salvation. But this temple, after four hundred and thirty years, the Chaldeans burned, and, the city of Jerusalem being destroyed, they led the people of Israel captive into Babylon; who, after seventy years, under the reign of the Persians, were sent back into their homeland, and the temple was again built over the course of forty-six years: and on the third day of the twelfth month, which we call March, the work was carried through to its end:
over which work, indeed, there then presided the most vigorous leaders of the people, as we have said, Zerubbabel of the royal blood, Jeshua the high priest; but also the prophet Haggai, and Zechariah, aiding them, and, against the plots of the enemies who hindered the work, strengthening the heart of the people. Thereafter, after about three hundred and fifty-six years, the most abominable Antiochus of the Greeks, having taken Jerusalem, profaned that same temple with the filth of idols, carrying off from there and breaking in pieces the golden altar of the Lord, the table of the shewbread, the candlestick of light, and the rest of the golden vessels of the temple which he was able to find; but also setting up in the temple an image of Jupiter, and compelling the people by torments to sacrifice to idols.
In that persecution many of the people were slaughtered for keeping the divine law; among them that mother of seven sons, rightly renowned, most noble, who together with her offspring merited the crown of martyrdom for the Lord. But Judas Maccabaeus, being of the priestly line, gathered an army of the righteous, took up arms against the generals of Antiochus, drove them out of Judaea, and put an end to that most savage persecution; and cleansing the temple of the images of idols, and making new altars again and the rest of the vessels and ornaments and setting them back in the temple, he dedicated them, together with the temple, which he purified and renewed on the twenty-fifth day of the ninth month, which among us is called December, and it is beyond all doubt that it belongs to winter.
He established a decree, as we said before, that every year the day of the Encaenia, that is, of the renewal and dedication of the temple, should be celebrated with festal devotion. All these things, as the Apostle teaches (1 Cor. 10), were done in a figure of us and were written for our sakes, and therefore must be examined by us more carefully in their spiritual meaning. For Solomon the king, whose name is interpreted 'peaceable,' typologically signifies our very Redeemer, of whom Isaiah (chap. 9) says: 'His empire shall be multiplied, and of His peace there shall be no end.' The temple which he built is His catholic Church, which He gathers from all who believe throughout the world, as from living stones, into one framework of His faith and love.
That the temple was built in seven years signifies that throughout the whole span of this present age, which unfolds in seven days, the building of the holy Church never ceases to grow. But that the temple was dedicated in the eighth year, and that most celebrated and greatest solemnity was displayed by King Solomon with the sons of Israel when the time of dedication was fulfilled, this mystically intimates that when the number of the elect has been perfected at the end of the world, the festivity of long-desired immortality will follow; and when the miracle of the universal resurrection has been accomplished, all who belong to the kingdom of the peaceable King, that is, the true Solomon, will soon enter with Him into the eternal joys of the heavenly homeland.
For because our Lord willed to be raised from death on the eighth day, that is, after the seventh day of the sabbath, rightly the number eight designates also the coming festival of our resurrection. That the temple, burned by enemies, was again restored by the Lord's mercy, and that, defiled by idolatries, it was once more cleansed by the aid of heavenly piety, intimates the various fortunes of the holy Church; which is now pressed by the persecution of the unbelieving, now, set freer from persecutions, serves the Lord in tranquil bondage. Now in certain of her members she is endangered by the snares of the ancient enemy, yet those whom he seemed for a moment to have destroyed she receives back, already chastened through penance.
But that the temple was built a second time in forty-six years looks especially to the signification of the Lord's body, which He assumed from the Virgin. Of it He Himself said to the Jews: 'Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up' (John 2). For His body, dissolved by the Passion, He Himself raised again to life on the third day. For those skilled in such matters report that the body of a human being is formed in the distinction of its members on the forty-sixth day after the beginning of conception; and therefore it was not done by chance, but ordered by divine providence, that the temple should be built in that number of years in which number of days the Lord's body, which was prefigured by the temple, had to be brought to perfection in the virginal womb.
But that the Encaenia was ordained to be celebrated every year admonishes us assuredly to keep always in mind the memory of the Lord's Resurrection, which we believe has already come to pass, and of our own, which we hope is to come; and so to conduct ourselves that we may deserve to rise again not unto judgment, but, as the Lord promised to those who have done good, unto life. Nor should it be passed over without examination that when Solomon dedicated the temple, when he had finished his prayers, fire came down from heaven and devoured the holocausts and the victims. For the holocausts and victims of the true Solomon are we ourselves; the holocausts and victims of the supreme King are all His elect; of whom the Apostle Peter says:
'Because Christ also died once for our sins, the just for the unjust, that He might offer us to God; being put to death indeed in the flesh, but quickened in the spirit' (1 Pet. 3). And the heavenly fire is that fervor with which the citizens of the supernal homeland rejoice to burn forever, both in their mutual blessedness and in the beheld brightness of their Creator. Hence it is that certain hosts of the heavenly powers, which, from their singular nearness to their Creator, burn with incomparable love, are called by the special name Seraphim, that is, 'the burning' or 'the enkindling.'
When therefore the dedication of the temple was completed, fire descending from heaven devours the victims offered to the Lord, because when the time of our resurrection is fulfilled, when the faithful servants of their Lord shall have entered into the joy of their Lord, burning with that true love with which the angelic powers are now inflamed, their minds too shall be absorbed at the sight of the beauty of their Redeemer. And that not a few of the elect are, even now, fully absorbed in this vision of love in the supernal city, there is no doubt.
But then indeed this will be fulfilled far more perfectly, when, having received back their immortal flesh, and having received into the same blessedness their fellow-servants and all their brethren whom we now behold still contending on earth, they will no longer have any object to which to direct the gaze of their thought outward even for a little; having God within them, in whose everlasting vision they rejoice; having also their neighbors, in whose everlasting felicity they eternally rejoice together, where that first and greatest commandment of the Lord will be perfectly fulfilled. Toward whose perfection in this life the righteous each gird themselves with their own strength: 'Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with thy whole heart, and with thy whole soul, and with thy whole mind; and thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself' (Matt. 22).
For the nearer they behold the present countenance of God, the more ardently they devote themselves wholly to love; the more they recognize that all their neighbors are elect and beloved of God, the more they perceive their hearts filled with sincere love no less than their own, so much the more do they delight to love them no less than themselves. But this also is to be noted, that having set forth the dedication and the festivity that followed, Scripture thus concluded: 'And Solomon dismissed the peoples, who, blessing the king, set out for their tents rejoicing and with glad heart over all the good things which the Lord had done for David His servant and for Israel His people' (2 Chron. 7). For the Lord, when the gift of resurrection has been accomplished, will send His elect into the eternal tents rejoicing;
not indeed removing them any further from His presence, but sending them, away from the peril of judgment—which we know, on the Apostle's teaching, is to take place in the air—into the habitation of the heavenly homeland, whence each may receive according to his merits the promised seat of the kingdom. For that the peoples are here said to have set out for their tents is assuredly that which the Lord says in the Gospel: 'Many are the mansions in My Father's house' (John 14). And it is well said, that 'blessing the king, they set out for their tents'; for this is indeed the sole most tranquil and most happy activity of the supernal citizens, to speak hymns of thanksgiving to their Creator. Hence too it is written: 'Blessed are they that dwell in Thy house; they shall praise Thee for ever and ever' (Ps. 83).
Hence the same prophet completed the last seven psalms in praises of the divine sweetness. Moreover, the eighth from the end of the Psalter, concerning the victory over Goliath by which he laid low the giant, he completed by blessing God. Wherein he plainly indicates that all who here overcome the contests of the malignant enemy, there in true rest sing the praise of their Redeemer and helper. 'Blessing the king,' he says, 'they set out for their tents rejoicing and with glad heart, over all the good things which the Lord had done for David His servant and for Israel His people.' The righteous, rejoicing indeed over the good things which they receive from the Lord, enter the tents of the heavenly mansions;
because, however grievous and long the labors of this age may have been, everything that is ended in eternal blessedness surely seems brief and light. Wherefore it behooves us, dearly beloved, that in the building of the house of God each one of us should press on with all his might—by exhorting, entreating, rebuking, and himself sweating over pious deeds—as much as he is able, lest, if the heavenly King should now behold anyone slothful in the work of His temple, He make him at the time of the future dedication a stranger to His great solemnity.
Let us strive with the mutual aid of charity, that Jesus Christ our Lord may lead us all—with glad heart and untiring in the works which He Himself commanded—into the everlasting vision of Himself; who lives and reigns with God the Father in the unity of the Holy Spirit throughout all ages of ages. Amen.