Maximilian Deza, an Italian, was born in 1610, and joined the Congregation of the Mother of God, in which he soon became famous as a preacher. He seems to have been a man of fervent piety and Apostolic zeal. He had acquired a good knowledge of the Latin classics in his early years, and this he was fond of exhibiting, with some pedantry, in his discourses. But such was the taste of the times, when classic literature and art were deluging Europe, and producing a revulsion in all the laws of taste which had regulated the mediævals. This affectation of classic learning was the bane of Deza’s oratory, and it is constantly obtruding itself on the reader, in a marked and offensive manner, though nowhere perhaps so prominently as in his sermon at the marriage of the Queen of Poland with the Duke of Lorraine, in the Cathedral of Neustadt in Austria, in which sermon, for instance, he enumerates celebrated marriages, as those of Cadmus and Harmonia, Jupiter and Juno, David and Michal, Isaac and Rebecca, and that at Cana—all in one breath.
As soon as his fame was established, he was in request throughout his native land, and we find him preaching at Bonona, Turin, and Milan. In 1664 he preached before the Doge at Genoa; in 1666 he was in Malta. We have sermons of his delivered at Rome in 1672, and at Venice in 1686. There is extant a sermon by Deza on the birth of the Prince of Wales, the so-called “Pretender,” son of James II., and an oration preached at Venice on the occasion of the exhibition of the Blessed Sacrament for obtaining success against the Turks, with whom the Republic was then at war. Maximilian Deza was sent for by Leopold I. to preach before him at Vienna, and there the old man died peacefully in his seventy-seventh year, A.D. 1687.
His sermons were published in Italian, “Prediche dell’ Avvento del P. Massimiliano Deza, Lucchese della Congregatione della Madre di Dio,” by Nicolo Pezzana, Venice, 1709.
There is also a Latin edition, translated by Cassimir Moll, a Benedictine, published by Veith, Vienna, 1726, and dedicated to John Julius de Moll, Archbishop of Salzburg.
The sermons extant form three series; the first consists of sermons from the First Sunday in Advent to the Sunday after Christmas, together with two discourses on the parable of the Prodigal Son, in all nine, forming one volume. The second contains thirty-eight sermons preached during Lent; and the third part, which is immeasurably inferior to the other two, consists of orations on divers saints, such as St. Catharine of Bologna, St. Peter of Alcantara, St. Rosa of Lima, together with sermons on state occasions.
Maximilian Deza just escaped being a really great orator, like Segneri, whom he much resembles in his vehemence, zeal, fine word-painting, and brilliant transitions. There is nothing heavy or dull about his sermons; they are calculated to rivet the attention of an audience, and they appeal earnestly to the conscience. They are not sermons to be read in measured tones from the pulpit, but to be declaimed with flashing eye, modulated voice, and vehement gesture. To modern readers Deza seems to play with an idea in a manner unsuitable to our nineteenth century ideas of pulpit proprieties; but it must be borne in mind that his discourses are long, lasting sometimes two hours, and the mind of the hearer would need rest, it would only be fatigued if kept constantly on the stretch. Viewed thus, it will be seen that Deza handles his matter with great skill; he works one point of his subject to a climax,—you hold your breath even in reading him—and then he gently drops the point, and gives time for relaxation of the attention till he deems it fit to produce another effect, just as in a drama the sensational scenes are separated from each other by the talkee-talkee scenes in the front groove. But these intermediate portions of Deza’s sermons are by no means dull; they are light and pleasant trifles with which he toys, but which lead on insensibly to his point, just as the small beads of a rosary draw the fingers on to the larger ones.
Take his sermon for Ash-Wednesday as an example. He is preaching on the words, “Remember, O man, that thou art dust, and that into dust thou shalt return,” which occur in the Roman Office for the day.
He begins with the lessons drawn from the ashes sprinkled every where; and he bids his hearers look on these ashes, and remember that they shall one day be like them. He then draws with skill a picture of man’s forlorn condition, with the prospect of death before him, and no possibility afforded him of escape. He laughs to scorn the thoughts of immortality connected with name and title; he tells the story of Empedocles seeking an immortal name by jumping into the crater of Ætna; and then he warns his hearers most solemnly to keep death ever before their eyes. Remember, he cries, that you have sucked in with your mother’s milk the seeds of death. Remember that all beasts were created alive, but Adam was created a lifeless frame, till God breathed into his nostrils the breath of life. Remember that from the moment of birth, the moment of death began to creep nearer. Then suddenly pointing to the hour-glass he exclaims, Look! this hour is stealing away in grains of dust, warning you to remember what you too ere long will become. And having worked this out with great solemnity, he suddenly breaks off into a description of glass and its manufacture. He says it is made of sand and ash, it is fused with heat, it is formed by the breath.
Is not that like man? he asks; man made of dust, kindled by the glow of life, vivified by the Divine breath?
Well! you will say that glass is a very brittle affair; it somewhat resembles ice, and is just as fragile; one little fall, and it is shivered into countless fragments; it is made by a puff, it is clouded by a breath, it is broken by a touch.
You consider it very fragile.—I tell you, on the authority of St. Augustine, that man is far more fragile.
Glass carefully preserved may become an heirloom, but man can never last out more than a generation.
Glass is only shattered by accident, but man is perishable by his nature.
Glass is broken by external force, but man bears about within him the seeds of dissolution.
Glass is snapped by a touch, but man untouched will crumble into his grave.
Glass once broken may be restored, not so man.
Glass though broken does not decay, but man’s flesh becomes corrupt.
Having thus amused and rested his hearers, Deza begins another earnest appeal to them; he explains that the soul of man does not descend to the grave, and he solves a difficulty in the text, Genesis iii. 19, Dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return.
Having done this, it is proper that the congregation should be given a little breathing-time, and so the preacher takes the sentence, Dust thou art, and plays with it, by giving a description of dust agitated by the wind. Oh, into what fantastic shapes does the wind whirl the dust! how the dust-cloud runs along, rushes forward madly, stops and spins awhile, and tosses itself up, up, till it seems verily to fly; it ascends higher and higher, it is carried above the tree-tops, it will reach the clouds of Heaven. Stay!—the wind drops. Where is the dust? It falls, it obscures the landscape, it is scattered every where, it parches the tongue, it blinds the eyes, it clogs the throat; and that which just now dulled the air and obscured the sun, has returned to itself again; dust it was, and nothing more, and unto dust has it returned.
Is not this a picture of man? asks the preacher; man, poor dust carried up and hurried forward by the winds of his vain fancies? Ambition puffs him up on high, only to fling him to earth again; passion drives him forward, and then drops him a helpless atom to his native soil.
Look how high those giddy particles are flung—Thou takest away their breath, they die, and are turned again to their dust.
Yes, toss yourselves in pride, rush on in the storm of passion, eddy up in the struggle of life, spin in the giddiness of pleasure, penetrate every where in the eagerness of curiosity—Thou takest away their breath, they die, and are turned again to their dust.
Deza then examines the words of Solomon, There is a time to be born and a time to die, and he asks why the King did not say there is a time to live. Having answered this question to his own satisfaction, by showing that Solomon spoke of definite moments of time, but that life was not a point of time, but a fleeting succession of moments, he enters on the subject of the shortness of time, and quotes Wisdom v. 10. The life of man, says Solomon, is as a ship that passeth over the waves of the water, and leaves no trace—no trace but the foam-bubbles; and those foam-bubbles are like the life of man, now appearing in the wake of the vessel, and then brushed away by the next wave,—and this wave is like the life of man, sweeping on resistlessly to the rock on which it will be shivered with a roar—a roar like the life of man, loud and fierce for the moment, and then carried off on the wind—the wind like the life of man sinking into a lull and lost.
And so throughout the sermon.
I will now give an analysis of one of Maximilian Deza’s most characteristic and striking discourses, with a translation of a portion of it as a specimen of his style of oratory.
The sermon I have selected is that for the First Sunday in Advent, with which the Feast of St. Andrew coincided. The lessons from each holiday are very happily blended.
Maximilian Deza takes two texts, the first from the twenty-first chapter of St. Luke, Then shall they see the Son of Man coming in a cloud with power and great glory; and the second from the Office for St. Andrew’s Day, “Blessed Andrew prayed, saying, Hail, good Cross! may He receive me by thee, Who by thee redeemed me.”
Introduction.
On this coincidence of holidays two points of consideration are presented to us; the Cross the sign of terror and destruction to the guilty, and the Cross the sign of joy and salvation to the just.
I. The love of the Cross is the characteristic of the elect; whilst the hatred of the Cross is the sign of the reprobate.
α. The Lord knoweth those that are His—by their love of His Cross of suffering. If any man will come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me.
β. But the wicked are called the enemies of the Cross of Christ, whose end is destruction.
The day will come, the great and terrible day of the Lord, when He will call the heavens from above, and the earth, that He may judge His people; when the Cross, the sign of the Son of Man, will appear in the clouds of Heaven.
II. Then God will judge the world with fire, and the Cross alone will be the standard by which all will be tried.
God will judge the world with fire.—How with fire? When a palace is destroyed by the flames, every thing in it is reduced to cinder; the rags of the beggar, the gorgeous robes of the prince, the statue of the king, and the image of the ape. So every man will be tried with fire, and all difference between man and man as now existing will be rendered indistinguishable. King and subject, master and slave, will stand shivering in nakedness beside each other; there is no respect of
persons with God, they will be but as a heap of cinders, which are equally hideous, though some may be the ashes of costly articles, others of vile materials.
One alone distinguishing mark will be left, the love of the Cross, by which to judge them.
III. By the Cross will the saints be recognized, as in Ezekiel ix. the prophet saw in vision the destruction of the last day, when God’s command was, Slay utterly old and young, both maids, and little children, and women: but come not near any man upon whom is the mark Tau.
This Tau, Deza observes, is the Cross, the mark on the brow by which the faithful shall be known. Tau is the last letter of the Hebrew alphabet, and it is the last sign which shall appear in Heaven. The preacher then goes through the list of those slain, old and young, maids, and little children, and women, and shows how that wisdom of grey hairs, or innocency of childhood, or purity of virgins, are of no avail to stand the fire of trial unless the Cross be the source of those graces.
The Cross is the banner of the King in His army on earth. It is the tree of life in the Paradise of His Church.
α. By the rod of Moses, which opened the sea for the passage of the Israelites, and which brought it back again to overwhelm the Egyptians.
β. By the ark of Noah.
γ. By the blood-marks on the lintel and door-post when the destroying angel passed through Egypt.
V. A contrast is drawn between St. Peter and the penitent thief. The former feared the Cross, and when our Lord spoke of His approaching crucifixion, the Apostle said, Be it far from Thee; and was therefore suffered to fall. But the thief who sought Christ through the Cross found acceptance.
VI. Deza shows that people may now become enemies of the Cross of Christ—
α. By gluttony and drunkenness.
β. By debauchery and frivolity.
γ. By injustice and dishonesty.
δ. By falsehood and calumnies.
ε. By hypocrisy.
He draws a very solemn and awful picture of the dawning of the great day, and the flashing of the sign of the Son of Man upon the enemies of the Cross of Christ, and then—
VII. He comments on the sentences pronounced on the good and on the bad. This is the passage I translate.
Part II.
IX. The love of Christ’s Cross regenerates us, assures us of our sonship, and is an earnest of our inheritance.
At our birth into this world we are placed in divers positions by the will of God and by no appointment of our own. So some are born to be kings, some to be slaves, some to be philosophers, others to be fools.
But at the regeneration it will not be so. Our position then will be regulated by our own selves, for we shall be nearer to, or more remote from, Christ; be princes or subjects according to our love for the Cross of Christ during our earthly existence, according to the closeness of our walk in the bloody footprints of our Master, bearing our crosses after Him, in the season of our probation.
And in conclusion, Deza makes an eloquent and earnest appeal to his hearers to redeem the time because the days are evil.
The following is a translation of the seventh section
of this most striking sermon, which exhibits at the
same time his power and his weakness, his merits and
his defects:
“Behold!” will say the Judge, with threatening voice, to that great throng of accused; “behold! on this Cross I poured forth all the treasures of My love—producing blood for your welfare; to you though was that most precious stream counted but as dung, squandered recklessly for some fleeting vanity. From this My Cross with last and dying voice, with tears breathing nought but piety, I called you to penitence, but as deaf adders you stopped your ears and hardened your hearts to the sweet incantations of love. On this Cross, full of sorrows and of confusion, painfully I suffered death, that I might recover eternal life for your souls; and you, meanwhile, before the countenance of God dying for you, did laugh with the scribes, mock with the Pharisees, sport with the soldiers. This My Cross was a noble pulpit from which I, the Master of humility, of patience, and of charity, taught you the love of your enemies, praying to the Father for My foes and My persecutors. But you! what did you take in, what did you learn? Answer, what? The implacable madness and rage of a Saul, the boastings of a Goliath, the impieties, and crimes, and vengeance of a Cain, a Joab, or an Absalom. And what! were your hopes too rash to calculate on finding safety in that Cross? Ah, wretched ones! Are ye not those to whom the withering roses of this world were more acceptable than My thorns? Are ye not those who sucked in the sweet poison from the cup of Babylon, but rejected the chalice of My passion? Are ye not those who, fleeing the embrace of My Cross, rushed into the arms of lust which polluted you, of the world which betrayed you, of Satan who erects his trophies upon your ruin? These, these were your lovers, these the idols of your heart, these the deities ye idolatrously worshipped—commend yourselves now to them, let them arise and help you. In Me remains no hope for you, no more bowels of mercies,—Depart from Me, ye cursed! This Cross is your condemnation; this gallows-tree is your scourge, this wood will rack and consume you more fiercely than the flames of hell. Depart from Me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire.”
But oh, happy elect! to whom on the contrary the holy Cross has been the bow of peace eternal, the ladder of Heaven, the pledge of glory, the unfading palm of lasting triumph. “Come, ye blessed of My Father!” Oh, sweet words! best-loved invitation! most pleasant reception, long-looked-for glimpse of Paradise so near! “Come, ye blessed of My Father. Ye innocents by your sweat, ye penitents by your tears, ye martyrs by your blood, did water the tree of My Cross; come now, gather the fruits of safety, life, and happy immortality. Come, ye blessed of My Father. Ye who followed My blood-stained traces up the hill of Calvary, even ye shall ascend with Me to the topmost height of the heavenly Sion, where this Cross is exalted to be the trophy of your victories. Come, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. By nature were ye My subjects, but by grace My sons; and as sons of a reigning Father My kingdom shall be your patrimony, and My Cross the sceptre of a deathless realm. My charity bore it, out of love for you; your gratitude bore it, out of love for Me; now has come the season for both Me and you, that to patient love should succeed love beatifying. As long as I am God, that is, for eternity, ye shall also be happy, shall be likewise glorious, triumphant, princes of Heaven with starred diadem on your brows, and monarchs of the universe.”