That the author of this homily too is Maximus, and not Ambrose, the Benedictine monks of the Congregation of St Maur judged, following that same Gennadius of the age. Nor indeed is the testimony of this most weighty writer to be rejected, because in three codices of the twelfth century—namely the Vatican 1270 (page 27) and 6451 (page 18), and the fourth (Plut. XXIII), formerly of the Friars Minor Conventual of Santa Croce, now of the Laurentian library—the name of St Ambrose is read. For manuscripts are at hand to us, and these five distinguished and ancient ones, in which we see written the name of our St Maximus: the St Gall codex, and codex 90 of Santa Croce in Jerusalem (homily 56), and codex 99 of Santa Croce in Jerusalem (homily 59), and the Laurentian codex (Plut. XIV, page 298):
'Likewise on the Cross and on the Resurrection of the Lord'; and the Turin codex: 'Likewise also on the same (Cross) and on the burial of the Lord.' There is added the full agreement of the editors Gymnicus, Galesinius, Cumdius, Raynaudus, Margarinus. But this last differs from the others as to the epigraph. For among them it reads thus: 'On the Cross and Passion of the Lord.' But in Margarinus: 'Second homily on the Cross and burial of the Lord.' I wish, finally, the readers to be warned that in our edition this same homily ends in these words: 'It brought forth all the dead whom it held'; because the rest, which in the earlier editions are read, pertain to the homily 'On the Body of Christ,' as will be shown in its own place. We said yesterday that the Cross of the Lord conferred salvation on the human race;
and it is true. For His passion is our redemption, His death is our life. And He endured all these evils for this reason, that we might feel all good things; therefore He chose that cruelty be exercised upon Himself, that He might lavish mercy upon us; therefore, being good, He willed to be treated thus toward us, that He might first be harshly treated in Himself: for by taking away through the Cross the injuries of the human race, He consumed them all in His own passion, so that thereafter there should be nothing left to harm man. Great therefore is the sacrament of the Cross; and if we understand it, by this sign even the world itself is saved. For when the sea is cleft by sailors, first by them the mast is raised, the sail is spread, so that, the Cross of the Lord being made, the barriers of the waters are broken;
and by this the Lord's saving sign they seek the harbour of safety and escape the peril of death; for a certain figure of the sacrament is the sail hung upon the mast, as though Christ were lifted up upon the Cross; and therefore, confidence coming from the mystery, men make light of the storms of the winds and undertake the vows of their pilgrimage. But just as the Church cannot stand without the Cross, so also the ship is weak without a mast; for straightway the devil disturbs it, and the wind dashes it about; but where the sign of the Cross is raised, straightway both the wickedness of the devil is repelled, and the storm of the winds is laid to rest. But the good farmer too, when he prepares to turn the soil of the earth and to seek out the nourishments of life, attempts to do it only through the sign of the Cross;
for when he sets the ploughshare beneath the plough, fits on the handles, and inserts the stilt, he imitates the figure of the Cross; for the very joining together is a certain likeness of the Lord's passion. The heaven itself too is disposed after the figure of this sign. For when it is divided into four parts—that is, east and west, and south and north—it is contained, as it were, by the four corners of a cross. Indeed, the very gait of man, when he lifts his hands, paints a cross; and therefore we are bidden to pray with hands raised, that even by the gesture of our limbs we may confess the Lord's passion; for then our prayer is heard the more quickly, when the body too imitates the Christ whom the mind speaks.
By this example too holy Moses, when he waged war against Amalek, overcame him not by arms, not by the sword, but by hands lifted up to God; for thus you have it written: 'When Moses lifted up his hands, Israel prevailed, but when he let down his hands, Amalek grew strong' (Exodus 17). By this saving sign therefore the sea is cleft, the earth is tilled, the heaven is governed, men are preserved. By this saving sign, I say, the lower regions too are unlocked; for from the time that the man, the Lord Jesus, who bore that very Cross, was buried in the earth, then, as though the ploughed earth were burst open by Him, it brought forth all the dead whom it held.