Since Gennadius testifies that the holy bishop of Turin, Maximus, discoursed concerning almsgiving, as we said in the preceding admonition, and since there are several codices in which this homily too bears his name, it is indeed most likely that no other than Maximus is the author of this one also. Codices of this kind are: St. Gall, number 78; codex 99 of Holy Cross in Jerusalem, number 21; the Laurentian X, Plut. XIV—in which the homily is inscribed 'On almsgiving and on the Samaritan woman'—and above all the old Ambrosian, with the title 'On the same subject.' In Gymnicus, page 287; Galesinius, page 177; Raynaudus, page 144; and Margarinus, Bibliotheca Maxima, volume VI, page 46, it is inscribed 'The second homily on the same subject as above.'
Your love retains that, a few days ago, when we were making a sermon to you concerning almsgiving, we first wished to seek the origin of mercies; and having found the fount of those virtues, we showed that the water of Christ washed away the filth of the Samaritan woman better than the water of Samaria cleansed it; and that mercy wiped away sins more cleanly than the well. More cleanly does mercy wipe away stains than the well, because the water of the well only washes the skin of the body, but the goodness of mercy purifies the inward parts of the soul. We also demonstrated this, that to this evangelical woman that prophetic harlot corresponds, who, after she has washed herself with living water, being possessed by forgetfulness of her depravity, exults in the splendour of purity;
for the prophet would not utter such a sentence concerning a harlot of this world, whose pollution is not only not washed away by water, but she herself even pollutes what she touches, the Apostle saying: 'But he who joins himself to a harlot is one body.' But if by her touch she makes one body, and transfuses into the member cleaving to her the members of her own disgrace, how can she purify, when she herself pollutes? Who therefore this harlot is, who this Samaritan woman is, whose filth of adultery the fount of Christ has wiped away, let us more carefully inquire.
I think this woman is the Church gathered from the nations, who—when, after five thousand years had passed, she lay subject in the sixth millennium to the fornications of idols—cleansed all her disgrace by the coming fount of Christ, and wiped away by faith in the Saviour the stains which she had contracted by adulterous sacrileges, and, leaving behind, like an empty pitcher, her former ancestral course, announced to the whole world the coming of the Lord. This, I say, is that harlot who, after she has been washed, says she has done nothing depraved;
for after the Church has been cleansed by the splendour of baptism, she does not remember her diabolical impiety, but exults in the religion of truth, and being made a virgin out of a harlot she does not recall former things, but glories in her integrity. The prophet therefore says: 'As water extinguishes fire, so almsgiving extinguishes sin.' Often indeed we see this happen, that water poured out quenches the burnings of flames: but on the contrary at times we see that immense balls of fire consume the streams of waters, and, as though nourished by food received from the waters, grow more vehemently strong with revived heats; so that the water seems not to have extinguished the burning, but to have increased it.
What then is that water which consumes flames, and is not itself consumed? It is, I think, that which, flowing forth in the laver from the fount of Christ, is not consumed by sinners, but consumes the burnings of Gehenna. Which, while it is poured out through baptism both in men, extinguishes the ardour of hell, plainly lives in men, as the Lord says: 'But the water that I will give him shall become in him a fount of water springing up' (John 4), and so forth. In a wonderful manner, therefore, the water of Christ by one and the same operation both gives life and extinguishes; for it gives life to souls, and extinguishes transgressions; the former it restores by the refreshment of its laver, the latter it consumes by the wave of its flood;
And what pertains to the greater grace of baptism is that in the realms above a mystery is celebrated, while in the realms below Gehenna is quenched: here the waters flow, and there the fire grows cool; here a man is plunged into the font, and there he is set free from the abyss. Nor is it any wonder if in the sacrament of baptism the underworld is opened, since at that very time heaven too is unbarred; for these elements are laid open so that liberty and grace may meet at the laver of Christ. For liberty is granted to those who are to rise again, grace to those who are to reign. The one are drawn out of punishment, the other are taken up into glory; the one, who were slaves of sin, become free unto righteousness; the other, who were held fast by the straits of this world, come into the delights of paradise.
In the baptism of Christ, therefore, the heavens are opened and the depths of the underworld are opened too: the one that the Holy Spirit may come, the other that the mercy of the Saviour may draw near; that life may be brought down from heaven and death be destroyed in the abyss. Thus, then, almsgiving extinguishes sins, just as the water of baptism quenches the fire of Gehenna: therefore almsgiving is in a certain sense another laver for souls, so that if anyone perchance should sin after baptism through human frailty, there remains for him a means to be cleansed again by almsgiving, as the Lord says: Give alms, and behold, all things are clean unto you (Luke 11). Yet, saving the faith, I would say that almsgiving is more indulgent than the laver. For the laver is given once, and once it promises pardon;
but almsgiving—as often as you perform it, so often do you earn pardon. These, then, are the two fountains of mercies, which both bestow life and forgive sins; whoever keeps both shall be enriched with the honour of the heavenly kingdom, but whoever, having defiled the living fount, betakes himself to the streams of mercy, he too shall obtain mercy.