Sermon 300
SERMO 300
On the Solemnity of the Martyrs Maccabees
Some Christians existed before Christ.
This day has been made solemn for us by the glory of the Maccabees: whose wondrous sufferings, when they were read aloud, we not only heard, but also saw and beheld. These things happened long ago, before the incarnation, before the passion of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. They existed in that first people, in which the Prophets existed, who foretold these present events. Nor should anyone think that before there was a Christian people, there was no people of God. On the contrary, so to speak, as the truth holds itself, not by the custom of names, but even then that people was Christian. For Christ did not begin to have a people after His passion: but His people were those descended from Abraham, to whom the Lord Himself, giving testimony, said: Abraham desired to see my day; he saw it and was glad. Therefore that people, born from Abraham, served in Egypt, and was liberated by the powerful hand of God's servant Moses from the house of bondage, led through the Red Sea as the waves descended, tested in the wilderness, subjected to the law, was placed in the kingdom. From there, as I said, the Prophets existed, and from there these martyrs flourished. Christ had not yet died, but it was the dying Christ who made them martyrs.
Maccabean martyrs, not by name, but in reality, Christians.
This, therefore, must be first commended to your charity, that when you admire those martyrs, you should not think that they were not Christians. They were Christians: but the name of Christians was later made known, though their deeds preceded the term. But indeed, as it was not necessary for them to confess Christ, they were not forced by the impious and persecuting king to deny Christ, which later martyrs, when compelled, achieved similar glory by refusing to do so. For the later persecutors of the Christian people compelled those whom they persecuted to deny the name of Christ: those who stood most steadfastly in the name of Christ suffered such things as when we read they endured. To these more recent martyrs, by whose thousands the earth was stained red, it was commanded and said by the persecutors, Deny Christ. Since they did not do this, they suffered such things as these endured. But to those it was said, Deny the law of Moses. They did not do it: they suffered for the law of Moses. These for the name of Christ, those for the law of Moses.
The passion of the Maccabees is deservedly celebrated in the Church. The mystery of Christ was veiled in the Old Testament. The key to the Old Testament, the cross.
There exists some Jew, and says to us: How do you count our martyrs as yours? With what imprudence do you celebrate their memory? Read their confessions: see if they confessed Christ. To whom we respond: Truly, because you are one of those who did not believe in Christ, broken from the olive tree, with the wild olive tree succeeding, remaining dry outside; what are you, one of the unfaithful, going to say? They did not openly confess Christ, because the mystery of Christ was still veiled. For the old testament is a veiling of the new testament, and the new testament is a revelation of the old testament. Therefore, see from your faithless Jewish fathers, but brothers to you in evil, see what the apostle Paul says about such people. Until now, as long as Moses is read, a veil is placed over their hearts. The same veil remains in the reading of the old testament, which is not revealed, because it is removed in Christ. When you pass over to, he says, Christ, the veil will be taken away. The veil, he says, remains in the reading of the old testament, which is not revealed, because it is removed in Christ: not the reading of the old testament, but the veil placed there. The reading of the old testament is not removed, but fulfilled by him who said: I have not come to dissolve the law, but to fulfill. Therefore, the veil is removed, so that what was obscure might be understood. This certainly was closed, because the key of the cross had not yet approached.
The prophecies fulfilled by the Passion of Christ and all things of the cross revealed in mystery.
Finally, behold the passion of the Lord, set before your eyes the One hanging on the wood, and like a lion, lying down when He wanted, and dying not by necessity, but by power, to kill death. Observe this very thing: see how He said on the cross: "I thirst." And when the Jews, unaware of what was being done through them, ignorant of what was being fulfilled by their hands, tied a sponge with vinegar to a reed and gave it to Him to drink; He, after receiving the vinegar, said: "It is finished." And bowing His head, He gave up His spirit. Who departs in such a manner as He did when He died? With what truth, with what power, did He who said: "I have the power to lay down my life, and I have the power to take it up again. No one takes it from me; but I lay it down of my own accord, and I take it up again." Recognizes the kingdom of the living, who has worthily thought about the power of the dying. This He also said through the prophet to the Jews themselves: "I slept." As if He were saying: Why do you boast about my death? Why do you glory in vain as if you had conquered me? "I slept." I slept because I wanted to; not because you raged. I fulfilled what I wanted: you remained in wickedness. Therefore, having taken and tasted the vinegar, He said: "It is finished." What is finished? What was written about me. What was written about Him? "They gave me gall for my food, and for my thirst, they gave me vinegar to drink." Therefore, surveying all that had been done in His passion; they had already shaken their heads before the cross, they had already given gall, they had already counted the bones of the one hanging and stretched out, they had already divided the garments, they had already cast lots over the seamless tunic: surveying and as it were counting up all the things which the prophets had foretold about His passion, there remained something, I do not know what, which was lacking: "And in my thirst, they gave me vinegar to drink." So that this small thing that remained might be added, He said: "I thirst." After receiving what was lacking, He responded: "It is finished." Having said this, He bowed His head and gave up His spirit. Then the foundations of the earth were shaken, then the rocks were split open, the secrets of the underworld were revealed, then the tombs returned the dead; and to say what we have spoken about, because it was already time for all that was veiled in the Old Testament to be revealed in the mystery of the cross, the veil of the temple was torn.
Other martyrs in the Gospel revealed Christ, the Maccabees confessed Him veiled in the law.
Thus Christ began to be preached very openly after the resurrection. What had been foretold by prophecy began to be manifestly fulfilled in him; the martyrs began to confess him very steadfastly. The martyrs confessed him openly, whom the Maccabees then confessed secretly: these died for Christ in the revealed Gospel; those died for the name of Christ in the veiled law. Christ has both, Christ aided both as they fought, Christ crowned both. Christ has both in his ministry, just as a most powerful one advancing with a company of attendants, some preceding, others following. Therefore, consider him presiding in the vehicle of the flesh: and those who precede, they follow; and those who follow, they are devoted. For that you may know, and openly know that those dying for the law of Moses, died for Christ; hear Christ himself, O Jew, hear; and let your heart at last be opened, let the veil be lifted from your eyes. If you believed Moses, you would believe me. Hear this, accept this, if you can. If the veil has been taken from me, see. If you believed, he says: Moses, you would believe me: for he wrote about me. If Moses wrote about Christ; he who truly died for the law of Moses, laid down his life for Christ. He says, he wrote about me. The tongues of the confessing served him, the pen of those writing truly served him. How can you understand the pen of Moses, you who fastened vinegar on the pen? Would that you someday drink his wine, to whom you still serve vinegar by blaspheming.
The celebration established for the Maccabees is deserved. A basilica in their memory was erected in Antioch. Let mothers learn to love their children from the mother of the Maccabees.
The Maccabees, therefore, are martyrs of Christ. For this reason, it is neither incongruous nor inappropriate, but indeed most fitting, that their day and their festival are celebrated by Christians. What such thing do the Jews know to celebrate? It is proclaimed that there is a basilica of the holy Maccabees in Antioch: in that very city which is named after the king, the persecutor himself. For they endured King Antiochus, the impious persecutor, and the memory of their martyrdom is celebrated in Antioch; so that the name of the persecutor and the memory of the crowned may resound together. This basilica is held by Christians, built by Christians. Therefore, we have to celebrate their memory, we hold it: among us, the sufferings of the Maccabees have been imitated by thousands of holy martyrs around the world. Therefore, let no one doubt, my brethren, to imitate the Maccabees; lest when one imitates the Maccabees, he thinks he is not imitating Christians. Let the affection of imitation truly burn in our hearts. Let men learn to die for the truth. Let women learn from the great patience and ineffable virtue of that mother, who knew how to keep her sons. She knew how to have them, whom she was not afraid to lose. Each of these suffered individually in himself, she suffered by seeing all of them. Made a mother of seven martyrs, she was seven times a martyr: not separated from her sons by witnessing, and added to her sons by dying. She saw them all, she loved them all. She bore in her eyes what she bore in her flesh all of them; and not only was she not terrified, but she also exhorted them.
He encourages the remaining son to martyrdom.
Antiochus the persecutor counted her as the mother above all other mothers. "Persuade your son," he said, "so that he might not perish." And she replied, "Indeed, I will persuade my son for life by encouraging him towards death; you want to persuade him to death by sparing him." Yet what kind of conversation, how pious, how maternal, so suspended between spiritual and carnal! "Son, have mercy on me. Son," she said, "have mercy on me, who carried you in my womb for nine months, to whom I gave milk for three years, and brought you up to this age; have mercy on me." Everyone awaited her next words: "Agree with Antiochus, do not abandon your mother." But she said, "Agree with God, do not abandon your brothers. If you seem to abandon me, then you do not abandon me. There I will have you where I no longer fear losing you again. There Christ will keep you for me, where Antiochus cannot take you." He feared God, he heard his mother, he answered the king, he clung to his brothers, he drew his mother along.