It will perhaps seem strange that this homily, so elegant and wrought with such erudition, has come down to us in only seven codices, of which three agree in Maximus, while the rest differ among themselves. For two Vatican codices, 1270 and 1240, do indeed contain it, but lack the author's name. In a third, the Vatican codex 4951, page 100 on the reverse, there is this title: 'A Sermon of St Faustinus the bishop'; and in the margin, by another hand, is noted: 'Let the author be sought.' It is well known to learned men that the most illustrious Edmund Martène and Ursin Durand, in tome V of the Thesaurus Anecdotorum, Lyons edition of the year 1717, published this homily under the same name of St Faustinus the bishop. They confess that they copied it from a manuscript codex of St ...
... of Illidius of Clermont, they confess they copied it; but they contend that of the two Faustinuses whom they name, neither was the author of this oration, and thereby they plainly demonstrate a false attribution. It exists also in codex II, page 21, of the library formerly of Santa Croce of the Friars Minor, now in the Laurentian, ascribed to St Augustine; which, however, the Benedictine monks of the Congregation of St Maur do not number among the Augustinian sermons. And so, since three codices agreeing in Maximus deserve full credit — namely the Turin one, where it is with the title 'Likewise, a Fifth Sermon on Easter,' the Cassinese 111, page 4, and the Ambrosian — we assert the homily to be St Maximus's. All the editors — Gymnicus, page 140, Galesinius, page 130, Combefis, tome V, page 478, Cumdius, tome ...
... tome I, page 1443, Raynaudus, page 217, Margarinus in the Bibliotheca Maxima, tome VI, page [ii], under the assigned title inscribe this as the first for the feast of Easter, and place it in the number of the same holy bishop's homilies. Although the benefits of our God are great and wonderful, yet they are proved to be neither new nor sudden, but from the beginning of the age were both foretold by oracles and prefigured by mysteries. For the sacred passion of the Lord the responses of the Old Testament sang from the very beginnings of the world's coalescing; and therefore we assert that Christ the Lord was openly foretold and announced to his own people out of their own books and volumes. Without doubt he leans upon strong privileges who asserts his cause from the documents of his adversaries;
it is a splendid victory to ensnare the opposing party in their own little papers as in their own snares, to confute them by the voices of their own testimonies, and to overcome the rival by his own weapons, so that the arguments of thy combatant are proved to fight for thy advantages. And so, in the person of our Lord: when from the rib of Adam, the first man, Eve, the mother of all the living, is brought forth (Genesis 2), from his sacred side and saving wound the Church, the parent of all the faithful, is shown as to be restored. In his figure the just Abel is slain (Genesis 4), and the innocent one is butchered as though by Jewish impiety, that is, by the impiety of a brother. This same Lord, in the last age of the aging world, is offered under the figure of blessed Abraham, the long-lived father:
at which time, while the devout slayer of his own son rises up to the throat of his only-begotten with a new sacrifice, unexpectedly a ram appeared to his eyes, as the divine word speaks: 'And Abraham saw a ram caught among the briars by his horns' (Genesis 22). 'Among the briars,' it says. Let us seek what this novelty may be. 'Among the briars' — that is, in the multitude of the sinners standing round; 'caught by his horns' — that is, hanging by the fixing of the nails upon the horns of the cross; as we read in another place: 'Horns are in his hands' (Habakkuk 3). This because the arms of the gibbet received the venerable hands. But he is counted 'among the thorns,' when the author of innocence and justice was mocked with a crown of thorns.
But we ought to look more deeply into what it is that Isaac is brought forward by his father to be sacrificed, and suddenly a ram is substituted for him, not by a changed but by a doubled offering. Here the twin substance of the Redeemer is shown to be adored. For the Son of God is offered, and the firstborn of the Virgin is immolated. This too the ensigns of the Lord's passion prefigured, in that we read that blessed Elisha, laid in the tomb, when a corpse was cast in by robbers within his sepulchre, raised up the body of the dead man by the touch of his own sacred body (2 Kings 13). Who is here prefigured but our Jesus Christ, who bestows resurrection from death, and buried works life? In the thief recognize the guilty world, in the prophet's powers recognize Christ the Lord.
Furthermore, most notably throughout the holy Scriptures, even in the labours and hardships of the prophet Jonah, the passion and resurrection of Christ are foresignified. This Jonah — which we do not suppose to be unknown to your faith — is described as having borne the type of the Lord; for the Lord himself says: 'For as Jonah was in the belly of the whale three days and three nights, so shall the Son of man be in the heart of the earth three days and three nights' (Matthew 12). This Jonah, I say, is sent by the Lord's command to preach to the Ninevites the offence of heaven; but foreknowing that the sad prophecy would be made void by the people's conversion, he, a fugitive, boards a ship that was making for Tarshish.
but when the sailors were troubled and a tempest had arisen, he is given by lot to the waves, and, plunged in, is received by the jaws of the whale-fish; but, the fish belching forth the deposit unharmed, on the third day he is poured back upon the land. See the Lord even in the Old Testament appearing marvellously in the form of a servant. See how in ages past he showed himself as one to come under the humility of a servile form. Jonah is destined to the great city of the Ninevites to preach the wrath of the Lord, to say, 'Forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown'; and Christ is sent to the city of the world, to announce the day of salvation and the appointed time of judgment. Jonah seeks out the ship, Christ the Church. Jonah is tossed by the waves, Christ is exercised by the whirlwinds of the world.
Unless Jonah is thrown down, the peril of the ship is not stilled; so also the Church is not freed unless it be saved by Christ's death. The sailors, about to cast Jonah out, yet fear and say: 'Lord, lay not upon us innocent blood' (Jonah 1). Does not the sailors' cry seem to you to be Pilate's confession, who hands over Christ and yet washes his hands and says: 'I am clean from the blood of this just man' (Matthew 27)? How fittingly does the faith of the Gentiles proclaim the Gentile person! Jonah therefore says in his prayer: 'Take, then, O Lord, my life, for death is better for me than life.' Let our Lord Jesus Christ say this more truly, that death is better for me than life;
that is, living I could not save the one people of the Jews; let me die, and let the whole world be saved by one death. The whale-fish received Jonah when plunged in, but it did not chance to devour him; and the beast, dying, preserved him whom the malice of men had destroyed; with full innards it suffers hunger, and marvels that nothing is permitted it over the prey it had swallowed. Who is this that can be taken up within greedy jaws, and cannot be consumed? He is food, but there is no corruption; he is handed over to the depth of perdition, and is preserved by the service of death itself. Who is this that safely enters the vastest bosoms of the perilous, and, shut up beneath an immense depth,
and amid deadly things is fed with vital air, and, sent down into an alien nature of things, into an exile of life, sojourns with life; and, surviving death, announces the coming salvation of the world — which is our Lord Jesus Christ here, whom savage death, that inexplicable beast, seized as food for itself, and trembled at its own captive prey. It trembled, I say; for though it knew a crucified man, yet it could not hold as condemned him whom it did not remember to be guilty; for it is not the penalty that makes the guilt, but the cause. As though it had devoured its accustomed food, the man lost at the beginning of the world; but, choked, it recognized the great dignity of that food; and therefore the divine word records: 'And the Lord commanded the fish, and it vomited out Jonah upon the dry land' (Jonah 2).
He commanded therefore the beast, he commanded death that is always hungry, he commanded the abysses and hell, that they should restore the Saviour to the world. And 'it vomited out' — this we ought to understand thus: that from the very depths of death life returned victorious, and that ulcerated perdition rendered him back from the inmost recesses of hell. And so we see in the prophet's afflictions most openly prefigured both death and resurrection. Wherefore what thou seest fulfilled in the servant, hesitate not to believe in the Lord. Since these things are so, consider, O man, how much thou art worth; and weigh how much thou owest; consider how much thou art worth, that at last thou mayest cease to be vile to thyself; that for this cause thou mayest disdain to lie under blush-worthy vices:
while thou measurest thy nobility by the dignity of thy Creator and Restorer. He has grounds by which he may confound himself, why with conquered heart he should submit to unworthy masters — he to whom eternal glory is promised, and that by a twofold privilege: thou who once seemedst honoured by sharing in the divine image, art made also precious by the nobility of the exchange. Whence, that thou mayest be strong against thy enemy, question thy state: because the Lord has bestowed on thee a free faculty to war down in thy members the prince of the world, and to overcome spiritual wickednesses; and so think it not impossible that thou shouldst obtain to be translated into angelic beatitudes, since in this age thou hast conquered angelic powers.
Let not life, therefore, make thee degenerate and despised — thee whom either thy fashioning is proved to have brought forth illustrious, or grace [has ennobled]; but let the courses of Christ's honeyed things bear thee up confidently to things above; for they who see themselves redeemed by a heavenly price, let them not doubt that they are prepared for heavenly things.