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Chapter 19SpCar.1.19

Quantum dies septimus ceteris praeferatur; et quod in eo Dei charitas commendetur.

The Glory of the Six Days of Creation

The author surveys the dignity of each of the six days of creation, from the first day's light to the sixth day's formation of man.

But let's turn our attention now, briefly, to the special dignity of the seventh day.✦ And that is indeed a great day — the day on which, once darkness had been split apart, light shone forth at God's command. That too is a great day, on which the divine voice separated the lower waters from the upper, once the firmament had been set between them.✦✦1 No less precious is the day on which, once the waters had been gathered together by God's word into one place, the dry earth is clothed with plants, adorned with trees, decorated with flowers, and made fruitful with fruit.✦23 Nor is that day less remarkable — the day on which the sky is adorned with lights, by which the succession of days, the changing cycles of seasons, the course of the year, and the orders of the signs are all arranged.✦ And what eminence belongs to that day, on which the water, sending forth the race of diverse living creatures, plunged one part into the deep and sent another part into the air!✦4 Nor is the sixth day lacking in wonder, on which four-footed animals and creeping things are brought forth from the earth, and on which at last man, formed from the mud, is animated by the divine breath.✦✦56

The Seventh Day: God's Rest and the Perfection of All Things

The seventh day surpasses all others because it commemorates not a new creation but God's own rest and the perfection of every creature.

But none of these days seems fit to be compared to the seventh day, on which there was no creation of nature, but rather the rest of God himself and the perfection of all creatures is commended.✦ For so you have it: 'And God completed on the seventh day the work that he had made, and he rested from all the work that he had accomplished' (Gen.✦78

The Eternal Day Without Evening or Morning

The seventh day is not measured by the visible sun; it has no morning or evening, signifying an eternal, unchanging rest rather than a temporal one.

ii). This is a great day, a great rest, a great sabbath. Oh, if only you could understand! Unless I'm mistaken, this day isn't carried out by the course of this visible sun; it isn't begun by its rising, nor ended by its setting. In a word, it has no morning and no evening. Now about the first day — if it should even be called first at all (for Scripture doesn't call it 'first' but 'one'). But how, you ask, is the next day called 'second' if that one isn't first? Consider that perhaps the one day is also called 'second,' and is called 'third' as well, so that with one day repeated six times, the number six may be commended to us. But however that obscurity may stand: 'And there was evening and morning, one day' (Gen.✦

Evening and Morning as Signs of Creaturely Mutability

The repeated formula 'evening and morning' in the six days signifies the mutability of all creatures, while the seventh day's silence on this point reveals God's rest as eternal.

1). And below: "And there was evening and morning, a second day" (ibid.). . The same is said of the remaining days. I believe these words signify the mutability of all creatures — their decline and their growth, their beginning and their end. Of the seventh day, nothing of the kind is said. No evening is ascribed to it, no morning; no end, no beginning. Therefore the day of God's rest is not temporal, but eternal.

God Does Not Labor or Rest as Creatures Do

To imagine God as laboring and then growing weary is to fashion an idol; God creates by his word alone, rests eternally, and creates not from need but from abundant love.

A little while before, you had pictured God to yourself as laboring for a time, as if wearied, and resting for a time. This was not to think of God, but to fashion an idol. You must be careful that, even if you have no idol in the temple of Jerusalem, you do not have one in your heart. He made nothing by laboring; for he spoke, and it was done.✦ He was not wearied, having rested on any single day only; because the day of his rest is eternal. Therefore his rest is his eternity. You had thought of him as like yourself — as if, needing something, he had created something in which he might delight by looking upon it, or in which he might rest by enjoying it. For this reason his rest is not described in any creature, so that you may know he lacks nothing but is sufficient to himself in all things; nor did he create anything to provide for his own need, but to satisfy his own most abundant love. Furthermore, he created so that all things might exist; he sustains them so that they might endure; and he himself leads all things to their proper ends.

God's Eternal Rest Is His Love, Will, and Goodness

God's rest is his own eternity, tranquility, and Sabbath—identical with his tender love, peaceful will, and abundant goodness—and creation flows from this rest not from necessity or weariness.

He does this not from any necessity, but solely by His own most sweet will. In the end, He reaches from one end to the other with power, by His most present and most omnipotent majesty; but He arranges all things gently, at rest always and resting in His own most placid love.9 That is His unchanging, eternal rest — His eternal, unchanging tranquility; His eternal, unchanging Sabbath. That alone is the reason He created what was to be created, rules what is to be ruled, governs what is to be governed, moves what is to be moved, advances what is to be advanced, and perfects what is to be perfected. And so, most fittingly, where His rest is commemorated, there the perfection of all things is made known. For His love is His will itself; it is also His goodness itself: and this whole reality is something other than His being.10 For this is for Him — to rest always in His own most tender love, in His own most peaceful will, in His own most abundant goodness — which always is, to be.11 For this reason, just as by days succeeding one another, and by their own turns varying as it were between morning and evening — in which all created things are recounted — the mutability of creation is signified; so in this day, this day to which nothing comes, nothing passes away, nothing follows, which is neither narrowed by a beginning nor concluded by an end, His very eternity is rightly commended: in which His rest is most fittingly described, lest He be thought to have created something out of need or weariness.✦12

The Sixfold and Sevenfold Numbers

A brief transitional question about the significance of the sixfold and sevenfold numerical patterns, inviting the reader to seek further understanding.

But why is it sixfold there, and sevenfold here? And from this, take whatever example we can find.

Read the original Latin

Sed jam septimi diei praerogativam paucis advertamus. Et quidem magnus dies ille, in quo, decussis tenebris, lux Deo jubente resplenduit: magnus et ille, quo aquas inferiores et superiores, interjecto firmamento vox divina discrevit. Pretiosus nihilominus ille quo, aquis Dei verbo in unum coagregatis, terra arida vestitur herbis, venustatur arboribus, decoratur floribus, fructibus fecundatur. Nec ille inferior, in quo coelum luminibus adornatur, quibus dierum successus temporum vices, anni cursus, signorum ordines disponuntur. Illius quoque quae eminentia, quo aqua diversorum animantium genus emittens, partem suis mersit gurgitibus, partem transmisit in aera! Nec vacat admiratione dies sextus, quo quadrupedia et serpentia producuntur e terra, quo demum homo formatus e limo, divino flatu animatur. At nullus horum diei septimo videtur comparandus, in quo nulla quidem naturae creatio, sed ipsius Dei requies omniumque creaturarum commendatur perfectio. Sic enim habes: Complevitque Deus die septimo opus suum, quod fecerat, et requievit ab universo opere quod patrarat (Gen.

ii). Magnus hic dies, magna requies, magnum sabbatum. O si intelligas! Ni fallor, dies iste non hujus visibilis solis cursu peragitur, non ejus inchoatur exortu, nec terminatur occasu; denique non habet mane, non vespere. Porro de die primo, si tamen primus dicendus est; non enim cum scriptura primum appellat, sed unum. Sed quomodo, inquis, sequens dicitur secundus, si non iste primus? Vide ne forte secundo dicatur dies unus, dicatur et tertio; ut uno die sexies repetito, senarius nobis numerus commendetur. Verum quoquo modo se habeat ista obscuritas: factum est, inquit, vespere et mane dies unus (Gen.

1). Et infra: Factum est vespere et mane dies secundus (ibid.) . Id ipsum et de reliquis. Puto his verbis omnium creaturarum mutabilitatem esse signatam, defectum et profectum, initium et finem. De die septimo nihil tale. Non ei ascribitur vespere, non mane; non finis, non initium. Ergo dies requietionis Dei non temporalis, sed aeternus.

Tu paulo ante Deum finxeras temporaliter laborantem, quasi fatigatum temporaliter quiescentem. Hoc non erat Deum cogitare, sed idolum fabricare. Cavendum tibi est ne, non habens idolum in templo Jerosolymitano, habeas illud in corde tuo. Non aliquid laborans fecit; quia dixit, et factum est. Non fatigatus uno aliquo tantum die requievit; quia dies requietionis ejus aeternus est. Ergo requies ejus, aeternitas ejus. Putaveras eum tibi similem, ideo quasi indigentem aliquid creasse, quo oblectaretur aspiciendo, vel in quo requiesceret fruendo: idcirco non in aliqua creatura requies ejus describitur, ut scias nullius indigentem, sed sibi in omnibus sufficientem; nec creasse aliquid, ut suae consuleret egestati, sed ut satisfaceret suae plenissimae charitati. Porro creavit ut essent omnia; sustentat, ut maneant, quae manent omnia; ipse ad debitos fines perducit universa.

Nec id agit ulla necessitate, sed sola sua suavissima voluntate. Denique attingit a fine usque ad finem fortiter, praesentissima et omnipotentissima majestate; sed disponit omnia suaviter, quietus semper et quiescens in sua placidissima charitate. Ipsa incommutabilis et aeterna requies ejus, aeterna et incommutabilis tranquillitas ejus; aeternum et incommutabile Sabbatum ejus. Ipsa sola causa cur creavit creanda, regit regenda, administrat administranda, movet movenda, promovet promovenda, perficit perficienda. Ideo aptissime, ubi ejus requies commemoratur, ibi omnium rerum perfectio demonstratur. Charitas enim ejus, ipsa est voluntas ejus; ipsa est et bonitas ejus: et hoc totum aliud quam esse ejus. Hoc est enim ei in sua dulcissima charitate, in sua placidissima voluntate, in sua abundantissima bonitate, semper quiescere, quod semper est esse. Quocirca, sicut diebus sibi succedentibus, et quasi vices suas mane ac vespere variantibus, in quibus creata narrantur omnia, creaturae mutabilitas designatur; sic die hoc, die cui nihil advenit, nihil praeterit, nihil succedit, qui nec initio angustatur, nec fine concluditur, ipsa ejus aeternitas non immerito commendatur: in qua ejus requies aptissime describitur, ne indigens aut laborans aliquid creasse putetur.

Sed cur ibi senarius numerus, hic septenarius? Et hinc accipe, quale possumus, documentum.

Scripture echoes

  1. ↩Gen.2.2-Gen.2.3 — And God finished on the seventh day His work that He had done, and He rested on the seventh day from all His work that He had done. Gen.2.3 — And God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it, because on it He rested from all His work which God created to do.
  2. ↩Gen.1.3-Gen.1.4 — And God said, "Let there be light," and there was light. Gen.1.4 — And God saw the light, that it was good; and God separated the light from the darkness.
  3. ↩Gen.1.6-Gen.1.8 — And God said, "Let there be an expanse in the midst of the waters, and let it separate waters from waters." Gen.1.7 — And God made the expanse, and separated the waters that were under the expanse from the waters that were above the expanse. And it was so. Gen.1.8 — And God called the expanse "sky." And there was evening, and there was morning — a second day.
  4. ↩Gen.1.9-Gen.1.13 — And God said, "Let the waters under the heavens be gathered to one place, and let the dry land appear." And it was so. Gen.1.10 — And God called the dry land Earth, and the gathering of the waters He called Seas. And God saw that it was good. Gen.1.11 — And God said, "Let the earth sprout vegetation—plants yielding seed, fruit trees bearing fruit according to their kinds, whose seed is in them, upon the earth." And it was so. Gen.1.12 — And the earth brought forth vegetation—plants yielding seed according to their kinds, and trees bearing fruit with seed in them according to their kinds. And God saw that it was good. Gen.1.13 — And there was evening, and there was morning—the third day.
  5. ↩Gen.1.14-Gen.1.19 — And God said, "Let there be lights in the expanse of the heavens to separate the day from the night, and let them be for signs and for seasons and for days and years." Gen.1.15 — and let them be lights in the expanse of the heavens to give light upon the earth — and it was so. Gen.1.16 — And God made the two great lights—the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night—and the stars. Gen.1.17 — And God set them in the expanse of the heavens to give light upon the earth, Gen.1.18 — and to rule over the day and over the night, and to separate the light from the darkness. And God saw that it was good. Gen.1.19 — And there was evening, and there was morning—the fourth day.
  6. ↩Gen.1.20-Gen.1.23 — And God said, "Let the waters swarm with swarms of living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth across the expanse of the heavens." Gen.1.21 — And God created the great sea creatures and every living thing that moves, with which the waters swarmed, according to their kinds, and every winged bird according to its kind. And God saw that it was good. Gen.1.22 — And God blessed them, saying, "Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the waters in the seas, and let the birds multiply on the earth." Gen.1.23 — And there was evening, and there was morning — the fifth day.
  7. ↩Gen.1.24-Gen.1.27 — And God said, "Let the earth bring forth living creatures according to their kinds: livestock, creeping things, and wild animals of the earth, each according to its kind." And it was so. Gen.1.25 — And God made the living creatures of the earth according to their kinds, and the livestock according to their kinds, and everything that creeps on the ground according to its kind. And God saw that it was good. Gen.1.26 — Then God said, "Let us make man in our image, according to our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth." Gen.1.27 — So God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.
  8. ↩Gen.2.7 — Then the LORD God formed the man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being.
  9. ↩Gen.2.2-Gen.2.3 — And God finished on the seventh day His work that He had done, and He rested on the seventh day from all His work that He had done. Gen.2.3 — And God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it, because on it He rested from all His work which God created to do.
  10. ↩Gen.2.2 — And God finished on the seventh day His work that He had done, and He rested on the seventh day from all His work that He had done.
  11. ↩Gen.1.5 — And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And there was evening, and there was morning: the first day.
  12. ↩Ps.33.9;Ps.34.9 — For he spoke, and it came to be; he commanded, and it stood firm. Ps.34.9 — Taste and see that the LORD is good; blessed is the one who takes refuge in him.
  13. ↩Gen.2.2 — And God finished on the seventh day His work that He had done, and He rested on the seventh day from all His work that He had done.

Notes

  1. 1 ↩decussis: glossed as 'crossed, parted'; rendered 'split apart' to convey the sense of division or separation of darkness.
  2. 2 ↩coagregatis: uncertain lemma (possibly congrego/coagulo); rendered 'gathered together' following the sense of the creation narrative.
  3. 3 ↩venustatur: uncertain lemma; rendered 'adorned' to parallel decoratur.
  4. 4 ↩aera: form uncertain; rendered 'air' following the sense of creatures sent into the atmosphere.
  5. 5 ↩quadrupedia: lemma uncertain; rendered 'four-footed animals' following the sense.
  6. 6 ↩serpentia: substantivized; rendered 'creeping things.'
  7. 7 ↩patrarat: unusual form, possibly a variant of patraverat ('had accomplished'); rendered following the sense.
  8. 8 ↩The biblical quotation is cut off mid-reference (Gen. with no verse number). The passage corresponds to Gen. 2:2 (Vulgate). Final verse resolution deferred to tx-08 Moses resolution.
  9. 9 ↩The phrase 'reaches from end to end with power' and 'arranges all things gently' closely echoes Wisdom 8:1 (Vulgate: 'Attingit ergo a fine usque ad finem fortiter, et disponit omnia suaviter'). This is a candidate allusion pending Moses resolution.
  10. 10 ↩The phrase 'hoc totum aliud quam esse ejus' is rendered as 'this whole reality is something other than His being' to preserve the distinction the author draws between God's love/will/goodness and God's being (esse). The theological nuance — that love, will, and goodness are not identical with the divine essence but are distinguished in their expression — is preserved here, though the passage is dense.
  11. 11 ↩The final clause 'quod semper est esse' plays on the identity of rest and being in God: to rest is to be. Rendered as 'which always is, to be' to preserve the paradox that God's rest is not inactivity but the fullness of His eternal existence.
  12. 12 ↩The contrast between the six days of creation (with their succession, mutability, morning and evening) and the eternal seventh day (without change or succession) is central to the argument. The seventh day signifies God's own unchanging eternity, not a day of divine fatigue.

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