The Cult of Saints in Late Antiquity

Eusebius Gallicanus, Sermon 32 (De Machabaeis)

Summary:

(1.) Today the church celebrates the seven martyrs; martyrs that their mother, with glorious grief, poured out through hateful death into the embrace of divine adoption, bringing seven sons forth into the kingdom of heaven on a single day. The reading has just brought before our eyes (uelut ante oculos nostros lectionis series exposuerit) the various ways in which they were tortured, and through our hearing has impressed terrible things on our senses. Someone may ask how the weakness of young people could withstand such a burden of evils. The reason is that spiritual warfare relies on the strength of the mind, not the body: our flesh can be endangered against our will, but not our spirit; the body can be damaged by the blows of those who attack us, but provided it does not desert the laws given to it (si traditas sibi leges non desererit), the mind remains untouchable. So we should understand that if the mind is not betrayed by the will, impiety can have no place there, as is shown by the struggle of the triumphant youths (ex hoc triumphalium puerorum certamine).

(2.) The seven brothers, in spite of their youth, with the heart of martyrs (martyrum iam corde), despised the terrible tortures that each saw being inflicted on his fellows, and seized upon the occasion of death as a pledge of immortality. What their bodies received, their minds did not feel. The greater the cruelty of the persecutor, the greater the reward given by God for perseverance. The crimes of the impious increase the merits of the just; just as evil people make bad use of the gifts of God, so God makes good use of the actions of evil people.

(3.) What does it mean to use God’s gifts badly? The eye is a gift, to use it badly is to pollute it with lust; the tongue is a gift, to use it badly is to lie, or speak evil of others. So also with external things like gold and silver, which are good but incite all kinds of evils. (4.) God has given human beings reason and free will, and wants them to use these well, but since the will is free, people are able to ignore God’s commandments. They turn the good things of the mind into evil desires and ways of harming others, reaching the point where not only do they not recognise God but hate those who do, and use as much effort as they should in seeking God, to try to tear him out of the breasts of the faithful. (5.) Divine providence makes the good profit from evil experiences, and turns the tricks of impiety into the merits of piety, just as we learn from the wonderful struggle of the happy brothers (sicut etiam ex hoc admirando certamine felicium germanorum euidenter agnoscitur). The devil cast them down through the cruel persecutor, but God raised them up.

(6.) With their minds on future things, the blessed boys (beati pueri) considered the tortures they were subject to as something external to themselves. Their mother, happy through her bereavements (felix orbitatibus suis), saw their deaths as trophies, and by her rejoicing made her sons' merits her own (filiorum merita exsultando sua faciens); she consummated seven martyrdoms in a single breast. The congregation should take notice of her great piety, her present bereavement relieved by future hope. Is it any wonder that she shed no tears?

(7.) Someone may ask how such young people endured such tortures. What cause is there except divine grace, which when it discovers weakness in our intention, immediately provides help (ubi infirmitatis nostrae inuenerit uotum, statim supponit auxilium)? Divine grace and their upbringing at home (doctrina domestica). How much did they owe to their mother, who brought them up by both teaching and example (institutione et conuersatione) to worship God? (8.) Let good parents learn from such a great mother: bring up your children to be heirs of heaven and brothers of the martyrs. Let us achieve the edification not only of our children but of ourselves, so that just as that mother rejoiced in the glorious triumphs of her seven sons, so when we cut ourselves off from vices, fight against passions, avoid the traps of the devil, and trample on the snares of the world, our mother church rejoices (nostra mater laetatur ecclesia) over our victory and consummation.


Text: Glorie 1970.
Summary: David Lambert.

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