The three following homilies were published by the Benedictine monks of the Congregation of St. Maur among the Ambrosian sermons, Paris, in the year 1690, as numbers 19, 20, and 21. From their notices we gather chiefly two things: one, that they greatly doubted whether they should be attributed to St. Ambrose; the other, that they said all had flowed from the same source. For they exhibit a uniform style and the same argument, which is proposed in the first homily and is embellished with a fuller exposition in the two remaining ones, and so they are bound together among themselves that the second homily refers to the first, and the third to the second. But by what testimonies shall we prove St. Maximus to be the author? We confess indeed that we have found only three codices which assign this first homily to
our bishop, namely codex 99 of the Holy Cross in Jerusalem, homily 17, 'On holy Lent'; the Laurentian codex X, shelf XIV, page 244; and the Turin codex with the title: 'Likewise on Lent, sermon XX.' Among so many and so great Vatican codices, this homily occurs to us only in codex 1268, page 36, on the reverse, to which the copyist, doubting, inscribed: 'On the same fast, as is thought, of Ambrose.' And he had good reason to doubt, since the codices that contain this and the two following homilies are exceedingly rare; so much so that not even the Benedictine monk editors themselves make mention of any manuscript codex. To the testimonies cited in favour of Maximus there accede weighty conjectures, one of which is the similarity of style with the preceding;
the second, the studious linking together among the homilies themselves, which is proper to Maximus, as Remigius Ceillier observed; the third, that several codices confirm the last of these homilies. These three homilies are published by us as they stand in the works of St. Ambrose, Paris edition of the year 1569. We have frequently set forth the account of holy Lent, of which we today celebrate the beginning, and we have often taught why we fast for so many days. For we have said that the Lord Jesus Christ consecrated this same number of the fast, and, taking no food for continuous days and nights, made one body of the fast, that is, although the order of the day was interrupted by the coming of night, yet the order of the fast was not interrupted.
Whence there were with Him many courses of times, but only one day of abstinence, showing us that we ought so to fast this whole number; that, since we cannot embrace all of Lent in one solid and single fast, we should at least celebrate it by daily fasts without intermission: so that if anyone omit even one day by breaking his abstinence, he has violated all of Lent, and for the food of a little time has lost the fruit of a great labour. But someone will say: We have received the account of Lent several times, and we have often heard that it was consecrated by the Lord: but why the same Lent should have forty-two days we are eager to hear. We read in the Old Testament (Deut.):
when holy Moses was rescuing the children of Israel from the yoke of the Egyptian captivity, that he might bring them into the land of promise, he came to the said land in forty-two days' journeys, and obtained by so great a number of times the things promised, even as we rejoice to enjoy the things promised to us by the Saviour. By the same number, I say, Moses came through the stations to rest, by which we too hasten through fasts to heaven. For our fasts are, as it were, certain stations, through which, making the journey spiritually, we walk by virtues of the soul, and by daily advancement we are made nearer to the land promised to us, so that he arrives more quickly who has fasted more devoutly.
The swift feet of the soul are faith and fasting: which quickly ascend from lowly to higher things, quickly step from earthly to heavenly things. Of these feet the Apostle says: How beautiful are the feet of those who preach good tidings (Rom. X). These feet the Lord commanded to be washed, as the Apostle says of the widow: If she has washed the feet of the saints (1 Tim. V). For worthy of honour are the feet of those who preach peace; which, spiritual and gleaming, walk over the hearts of men by doctrine. By the number of forty-two days also the people of Israel came to the streams of the Jordan; and by the same round of days the Christian people come to the streams of baptism. And as the prophet says: The Jordan was turned back (Ps. CXIII);
there, as the Israelite entered the water of the river, the wave fled away above; here, as the Christian descends into the font, the sins of his crimes flee. And, a marvel, there the river, turned backward, returns to its own origin: here the man, called back for the future, is restored to the infancy of his origin. There the wave seeks again its own spring, from which it had gone forth: here innocence recognises its own man, from whom it had departed. There the channel is emptied of its waves, here hearts are emptied of their crimes; so that there the muddy water does not wet the servants of God, here a foul conscience does not defile the household of God. For the Jordan is a certain font of washing, through which whoever has passed, leaving his defilements behind, enters the paradise of promise.
In this forty-and-two-fold number, then, the people of Israel, leaving Egypt, crossed over the streams of the Red Sea, and we too, in this very number, leaving the Egypt of the world, pass over the pools of burning Gehenna. For them the water is made solid, for us the fire grows cool; and contrary to the use of nature, by heat the sea is dried up, by the font of baptism Gehenna is made mild. In this mystical number, I say, the children of Israel, coming to Marah, when because of its bitterness they could not draw the water (for the spring had water, but it had no sweetness; it was delightful to the sight, but it was not pure to the taste), when wood had been cast into it by Moses, drank sweetly of its sweetness;
the sacrament of the wood took away the bitterness that the noxious water bore. And this I think was done as a figure. For the bitter water at Marah I think to be the law of the Old Testament, which law, before it was tempered by the cross of the Lord, was harsh. For it commanded an eye to be given for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, and, as it were austere, offered no refreshment of mercy. But when it was tempered by the wood of the Gospel's passion, immediately, changing its bitterness into sweetness, it showed itself sweet to all for drinking, as the prophet says: How sweet are Thy words to my throat: above honey and the honeycomb to my mouth (Ps. CXVIII)! For sweet are the words which command: If anyone strikes thee on the cheek, offer him the other also;
if anyone takes away thy tunic, leave him thy cloak also (Matt. V; Luke VI). This, therefore, is that bitterness which has been changed into sweetness, that is, the austerity of the law has been tempered by the grace of the Gospel. For bitter is the letter of the law without the mystery of the cross, of which the Apostle says: The letter kills (2 Cor. III). But when the sacraments of the passion are joined to it, all its bitterness is spiritually seasoned; and of it the Apostle says: But the spirit gives life (ibid.).