Maximus of Turin

Christ is more capable of protecting his servants than the devil is capable of stirring up our enemies. For although the same devil gathers for himself hoards and arms them with cruel rage, they are still easily destroyed, because the Savior surrounds his people with his auxiliaries, for the prophet says: “The Angel of the Lord places himself in the midst of those who fear him, and he will rescue them.” If the Angel of the Lord rescues those who fear him from dangers, one who fears the Savior is not able to fear the barbarian, nor is someone who has kept the commandments of Christ able to fear the attack of an enemy. The commandments of Christ are the armor of the Christian, and the fear of God drives the fear of the enemy from us. These are our weapons, with which the Savior has equipped us: prayer, mercy and fasting. For fasting guards us more effectively than a wall, mercy liberates us more easily than pillaging, and prayer can wound from a greater distance than an arrow. For an arrow hits the enemy only when he is close at hand, but prayer wounds the enemy even when he is positioned far away.

Therefore God gave us a pattern of fasting in this deed, so that having a desert, as it were, at the time of fasting we may abstain from feasts, pleasure and women, and so that Eve may not be joined with us so as to subvert us from chaste observance by her alluring persuasion. For he who fasts and is chaste at the time of the 40-day fast seems somehow to dwell in the desert. Clearly, that certain desert is the body of a Christian when it is not filled with food or watered with drinks, but is neglected by the squalor of thirsty starvation. The desert, I say, is our body when the flesh begins to grow weaker by abstinence, when pallor is overcome by thirst, and the unadorned appearance of the whole human being becomes dirty by the contempt of material things. Then Christ the Lord dwells in the desert of our body, when he has discovered our land squalid in hunger and dry by thirst, just as that adage which the prophet David says, “Just like in a deserted land where there are neither roads nor water, so I appeared in your sanctuary.” For we are not able to appear to him in the sanctuary in any other way, unless the land of our body has been made desert from worldly delights and without the roads made by devilish desires and without the water from libidinous allurements. Then the Savior, dwelling in this desert of our body, conquers all the factions of the devil and makes our body his own dwelling, safe and secure from the thoughts of this age, so that we may be constituted in solitude within our very selves, as it were, and see nothing but heaven and earth. That is to say, we think about nothing other than the Lord of the heavenly kingdom and the author of the earthly resurrection.

Then the people of Israel came to the twelve springs after Marah. We read in the prophet, “Bless the Lord from the springs of Israel.” It is the Christ, who is blessed in no other way than the mouths of the apostles and the teaching of the disciples. The apostles ought to be called “springs,” since they abound in the grace of preaching like purest springs and sprinkle the sweet cup of the sacrament from the abundant wisdom of their veins after the bitterness of the law. Nor is it astonishing if the drink of the springs is sweet, in whose midst the food of the palms is also sweeter. But as for the seventy palm trees planted next to the apostolic springs, I would say that they are those seventy disciples who for the sake of mankind’s salvation are directed by the Lord in a degree second only to the apostles. The evangelist Luke in his description of them asserts that they were appointed two by two. Like palm trees, they returned with exultation after healing people and boasted before the Lord that even the demons were subjected to them. Therefore, they are rightly compared to palms since they emerge as victors over the devil, adorned with the prize of the palms.

Therefore, today the Lord was born according to the flesh in such secret silence that his generation was thoroughly ignorant of his birth. For the world did not know that he was born outside the knowledge of his father and that he was conceived outside the order of nature. For Joseph took as his son him whom he did not beget, and Mary gave birth to him whom she did not create in the ordinary manner of sexual intercourse. Thus the Lord was born in such a way that nobody would suspect or believe or perceive what his origin would be. How would they believe that this would happen when they scarcely believe what happened afterwards? As to the fact that the Savior would descend hiddenly and secretly into the virgin, the prophet David had already previously attested to that when he said, “He came down like rain on the fleece.” For what takes place so silently, without a sound, as when rain is poured onto a fleece of wool? It doesn’t strike anybody’s ears with its sound; it doesn’t splash anyone’s body with the wetness of the dew bouncing off the flece, but without disturbing anyone, the fleece draws into itself in its entire body all the rain being poured through its many parts because it does not know any division into one channel, but rather offers many channels owing to its dense softness. It seems to be closed owing to its density, but is in truth absorbent owing to its fineness.

Brothers, let your holiness keep in mind that I recently preached this, namely that a person should be remolded into a younger age through righteousness, and though wearied by the weakness of old age he should be born again into childhood by the character of innocence in such a way that we may see old people become infants again by the mystery that intervenes, for there is a certain renewal in ceasing to be what you were and to take up what you had previously been. I say, there is renewal, which is also why neophytes receive their name, because in some newness they cast off the spots of oldness and have received the grace of innocence, as the apostle says, “Put off the old person with his deeds and put on the new person, who was created in the image of God.” Thus also holy David says, “Your youth will be renewed like that of an eagle.” He understands that the perishable things of our life can be revived through the grace of baptism and that that which had fallen by the oldness of sins can be renewed by a certain youthfulness. But that you may understand that the prophet is speaking about the grace of baptism, he compared the renewal itself to an eagle, a bird which is said to lead a long life by constantly changing its appearance and to grow young with a new set of wings when the old feathers are dying off, in such a way that it clothes itself with a revived newness of clothing as it puts off its old plumage. Thus we understand that it is not the limbs but rather the feathers of the eagle that feel old age. Therefore, it clothes itself anew, and as feathers sprout up anew, the old mother is turned back into a chick. Then she must be compared to chicks, since she with shining feathers must plan inexperienced flights and restrain her once experienced beatings of her wings as if she were a newborn, idle bird in the nest. For although she knows how to fly from her past practice, she nonetheless has little confidence because of the thinness of her feathers. Therefore, the holy psalmist prophesied this concerning the grace of baptism. Our neophytes, recently baptized, have (like eagles) put off the old skin and taken on the new clothing of holiness and are adorned with the revived grace of immortality as with light feathers, while their old blemishes die off, so that in them the dead sins of old age grow old, but life des not grow old, for like an eagle turned back into a chick, they have been called back to infancy. They know about how to live in this age, but they have the carefree state that comes from the healing of righteousness.

But Christ the Lord does all these things in us. Before he returned to heaven, he promised his disciples and said, “But when I ascend, I will ask my Father and he will send you another Paraclete, who will be with you forever, the Spirit of truth.” Thus, we must believe that Christ went to the Father when we see that the Paraclete came down upon the apostles. We must believe, I say, (as David said about the Savior) that he sat down at the right hand of God, because we discern that the Holy Spirit moves freely among the disciples, just as the Lord promised. Therefore the prophetic psalm says, “The Lord said to my Lord, ‘Sit at my right hand.’ ” In our custom a person is offered a seat when he has accomplished some task and comes as a victor and the favor of a seat of honor is offered to him. Thus, in the same way the man Jesus Christ also conquered the devil by his suffering, harrowed hell by his resurrection, came to heaven as a victor once his work was done, and heard from God the Father, “Sit at my right hand.” Nor is it astonishing if the Father offers the Son the right to sit on one seat with him, since he is by nature of one substance with the Father. But someone may be prompted to ask why the Son is said to sit at his right hand. Although there is no degree of worthiness wherever there is a fullness of divinity, nonetheless, the Son sits at the right hand not so that he may be held higher than the Father, but so that he may not be believed to be inferior. And so the Son sits at the right hand because in the gospel the sheep are stationed at the right hand while the goats are on the left.

The water was cleansed, which was enriched with the warmth of the Lord’s blessing, although it was common and cold. Consequently, what previously had scarcely washed away worldly stains on objects now purifies the spiritual stains on souls. And do not marvel at the fact that we say that water, that is, a bodily substance comes to have the power to purify a soul. It clearly comes to have that power; it penetrates all the recesses of the conscience. For although water itself is delicate and fine, nonetheless by Christ’s blessing it was made even more delicate and entered through the hidden conditions of life into the secret places of the soul with its spiritual dew. For the course of blessings is more delicate than the pathways of water. Thus we also say that the blessing in our Savior’s baptism, which flowed down like a spiritual river, dyed the courses of all eddies and the water-courses of all fonts. When Christ entered the Jordan, the rivers of waters streamed in a marvelous manner, but the floods of blessings also ran. From the one side the eddy of the riverbed was carried along more boisterously; from the other side the most pure font of the Savior was trickling down; and in some bewildering manner the consecration of baptism was going upstream to the source of the Jordan, and the river of blessings was being borne contrary to the direction the waters were flowing. This is why (or so I think) holy David said, “The Jordan turned back.” For in the baptism of Christ the Jordan did not turn back in its own waters but in the sacraments, and it traced its source in the blessing of its nature rather than in its substance. For while the grace of consecration is spread abroad on all fonts through him, it seems that its own course has gone back to the origin of its channels.

I say that in this mystical number the children of Israel came to Marah, where they were not able to draw water because of its bitterness—for the spring had water but no sweetness; it was delightful in appearance, but not sound for tasting—but when Moses threw in a piece of wood they drank the water made sweet in its smoothness, for the mystery of the cross took away the harshness which the noxious water carried. I think that this occurred to provide a type. I think that the bitter water of Marah is the law of the Old Testament, which was a harsh law until it was moderated by the cross of the Lord. It ordered, “An eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth,” and offered no consolation of mercy with these harsh commands. But indeed where it was tempered with the wood of the gospel’s suffering, at once it changed its bitterness into sweetness and offered its sweetened self for all to drink, just as the prophet says, “how sweet are your eloquent sayings to my throat, more than honey and honeycomb to my mouth.” Sweet indeed are those eloquent things which they command: “If someone strikes you on the jaw, offer him also the other; if someone takes your tunic, give him also your cloak.” Therefore, this is that bitterness which was changed into sweetness, that is, the austerity of the law was tempered by the grace of the gospel. The letter of the law is bitter apart from the mystery of the cross. The apostle speaks of this: “The letter kills.” But where the sacraments of the passion are joined to it, every bitterness is spiritually suppressed. And the apostle says concerning it, “But the Spirit makes alive.”

Therefore, who would not blush, if they had any humanity, to close the day without a number of psalms, when the birds themselves prance about in the sweetness of a psalter as their way of giving thanks? Who would not blush to fail to make his glory resound with the sweetness of verses, when the birds proclaim his praise with the song they sing? Therefore, brother, imitate the tiny birds by rendering thanks to the Maker morning and evening. And if you are more pious, imitate the nightingale; because the day alone does not suffice for speaking praises—it passes through the watches of the night in its all-night song! Therefore, you too overcome the day with your praises and add to your work the courses of the night, and comfort with a series of psalms the sleepless industry of the work you have undertaken! And because I have mentioned these birds which keep watch at night, I do not want you to imitate the owl; although it keeps watch at night, it is nonetheless lazy or blind during the day; with its big eyes it is content with the dark shadows and abhors the splendor of the sun. In a marvelous manner, it finds light in the darkness, but is blinded by the light. That animal is an example of the heretics and heathen. They embrace the shadows of the devil, abhor the light of the Savior, and with the big eyes of their arguments they discern empty matters but do not look towards eternal things. The Lord says about them: “They have eyes and yet do not see; they walk in darkness.” Their eyes are keen when it comes to superstition, but are dim when it comes to divine matters; although they think that they fly away by their subtle discourses, nonetheless like true owls they are thrown into confusion by the splendor of the light.

There was, therefore, a great and excellent faith in that thief. Clearly it is great and admirable faith which believed that the crucified Christ was being glorified more than punished. For this is the shape that all salvation takes—that the Savior should be recognized as the Lord of majesty when he is seen to be crucified and subject to humiliation. Hence the apostle says, “If they had known, they would never have crucified the Lord of majesty.” This, I say, is an excellent faith, to believe that Christ on the cross is God and not a wrongdoer. Therefore that thief was justified while the Jews insulted the Savior on the gibbet and said to him as if he were a criminal, “Free yourself if you are able.” But [the thief], certain of Christ’s divinity and sure of his good will, asks instead to be freed himself. There was a great faith in that thief, I say, and one which was comparable to that of the holy apostles; indeed, it preceded theirs. For he who preceded with respect to devotion preceded with respect to the prize, for the thief came to paradise before the apostles did. Peter follows the Lord, and this man accompanies him. But the Lord gives him a reward according to faith and merit, for, as we read, all the disciples were afraid during the Savior’s suffering, and all left him just when he was betrayed. It happened as it was written: “I shall strike the shepherd, and the sheep of the flock will be scattered.”