Literal Commentary on Genesis 3.24–4.11

But it may rightly be asked why he did not say of the human creature individually, as in the other cases, “And God saw that it was good,” but after man was made and given power both to rule and to eat, he added of all things, “And God saw all the things that he had made, and behold, they were very good.” For it could first have been rendered to man individually, as it had been rendered individually to the other things made before, and then finally said of all the things God made, “Behold, they were very good.” Or perhaps, because all things are completed on the sixth day, it had to be said of all things, “God saw all the things that he had made, and behold, they were very good,” and not individually of the things made on that day? Why then was it said of the cattle and beasts and creeping things of the earth, which belong to the same sixth day? Unless perhaps they deserved to be called good both individually in their kind and generally with the others, while man, made in the image of God, deserved to be called so only with the others. Or was it because he was not yet perfect, because he had not yet been placed in paradise? As if, after he was placed there, what was omitted here were said! What then shall we say? Was it that, because God foreknew that man would sin and would not remain in the perfection of his image, he wished to call him good, not individually but with the others, as if hinting at what was to come? For when the things that have been made remain in what they were made, so far as they have received it, like those that have not sinned or those that cannot sin, they are both good individually and all very good in the whole. For “very” is not added without purpose: because the members of the body too, even if each is beautiful, are nevertheless all much more beautiful in the structure of the whole body. An eye, for instance, is pleasing and praised; yet if we saw it separated from the body we would not call it as beautiful as in that connection of the members, when it is seen set in its place in the whole body. But the things that lose their proper beauty by sinning in no way bring it about that they too, rightly ordered with the whole and the universe, are not good. So man before sin was certainly good in his own kind too; but Scripture left out saying this, so that it might rather say what would foretell something to come. For what was said of him is not false. For whoever is good individually is all the more good with all; but when he is good with all, it does not follow that he is also good individually. So it was measured to say what was both true in the present and signified foreknowledge of the future. For God is the best founder of natures and the most just orderer of sinners, so that even if some things become deformed individually by doing wrong, the universe with them is always beautiful. But let us now treat what follows in the next book.

“And heaven and earth were finished, and all their adornment. And on the sixth day God finished his works which he had made; and on the seventh day God rested from all his works which he had made. And God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it, because on it he rested from all his works which God began to make.” It is indeed arduous and most difficult for the powers of our attention to penetrate with keenness of mind the intention of the writer in these six days. Did those days pass away, so that, with a seventh added, they are now repeated through the cycles of time not in reality but in name? For in the whole of time many days come that are like past ones, but none returns as the same. Did those days, then, pass away, or, while these days that are reckoned by their names and number run by daily in the order of time, do those days remain in the very establishing of things? In that case we would understand the name “day,” not only in those three days before the lights were made but also in the remaining three, as the form of the thing that was created, and its “night” as the privation or failing of it, or whatever better name signifies the loss of some form through a change that declines and tends from form toward formlessness. Such change is present in every creature, either as a possibility even if it is not actually realized, as in the higher heavenly things, or it is carried out through ordered alternations, by the yielding and succession of changeable things, to complete a temporal beauty in the lowest things, as is plain in earthly and mortal things. “Evening,” then, would be in all things as it were the limit of the completed establishing, and “morning” the starting point of one beginning; for every created nature is bounded by its own fixed beginnings and ends. This is difficult to search out. But whether this or that, or some third thing more probable, can be found to say about how night, evening, and morning are to be understood in those days (which will perhaps appear as the discussion proceeds), it is not beside the point that we should consider the perfection of the number six in the inner nature of numbers itself. Contemplating it with the mind, we count, and arrange in number, even the things that lie open to the senses of the body.

We find, then, that six is the first perfect number, for the reason that it is completed by its parts; for other numbers too are perfect for other causes and reasons. So we have said that this number six is perfect for the reason that it is completed by its parts, but only by such parts as, when multiplied, can make up the number whose parts they are; for such a part of a number can be said to be a definite fraction of it. Three can be called a part not only of six, of which it is the half, but of all numbers greater than three. For three is the larger part of four and of five; for four can be divided into three and one, and five into three and two. And of seven, eight, nine, and whatever numbers lie beyond, three is a part, not a larger part or a half, but a smaller one. For seven too can be divided into three and four, eight into three and five, and nine into three and six; but of none of these can three be said to be a definite fraction except of nine, of which it is a third, as it is a half of six. So of all these numbers I have mentioned, none is made up of a certain number of threes except six and nine; the first consists of two threes, the second of three.

The number six, then, as I had begun to say, is itself completed when its parts are counted together and added into a sum. For there are other numbers whose parts taken together make a smaller sum, and others whose parts make a larger one; but at fixed ratios of interval fewer numbers are found that are completed by their parts, whose sum neither stops short nor overgrows, but comes exactly to the size of the number whose parts they are. Of these the first is six. For one has no parts among numbers. One among the numbers with which we count is so called because it has no half or any part, but is truly, purely, and simply one. Of two, one is a part, and that the half, and there is no other. Three has two parts: one that can be said to be a definite fraction, namely one, for it is its third; and another, larger, that cannot be called a definite fraction, namely two. So these parts of three cannot be counted among those we are dealing with, that is, those that can be called definite fractions. Four has two such parts: one is its fourth, two its half; but both added together, that is, one and two, make three, not four. So its parts do not complete it, because they stop at a smaller sum. Five has only one such part, namely one itself, which is its fifth; for although two is a smaller part of it and three a larger, neither can be called a definite fraction of it. But six has three such parts: a sixth, a third, and a half. Its sixth is one, its third two, its half three. And these parts added together, that is, one and two and three, together make up and complete the same six.

Next, seven has no such part except its seventh, which is one; eight has three: an eighth, a fourth, a half, that is, one, two, and four. But these, added in the same way, make seven, which stops short, so they do not fill out eight. Nine has two: its ninth, which is one, and its third, which is three; and these together make four, far less than nine. Ten has three such parts: one, its tenth; two, its fifth; five, its half; and these numbers added together come to eight, not to ten. Eleven has only its eleventh, as seven has only its seventh, five only its fifth, three only its third, and two only its half, which in all of them is one. Twelve, however, is not completed by such parts added together but exceeded; for they make a number greater than twelve, reaching sixteen. For it has five of them: its twelfth, sixth, fourth, third, and half. Its twelfth is one, its sixth two, its fourth three, its third four, its half six; and one, two, three, four, and six added into a sum make sixteen.

Not to dwell on it longer: in the infinite series of numbers more numbers are found that either have only one such part, like three and five and others of that kind, or have several such parts so that, when added together and brought to a sum, they either stop short, like eight and nine and very many others, or exceed, like twelve and eighteen and many such. More numbers of either of these kinds are found, then, than of those that are called perfect because they are completed by such parts added together. For after six comes twenty-eight, which likewise consists of such parts; for it has five of them: its twenty-eighth, fourteenth, seventh, fourth, and half, that is, one, two, four, seven, and fourteen, which added together complete the same twenty-eight; for they make twenty-eight. And the further the order of numbers proceeds, the longer, in proportion, are the intervals at which these numbers are found which, when such parts are brought to a sum, come back to themselves and are called perfect. For numbers whose such parts taken together do not fill out the numbers whose parts they are are called imperfect; those whose parts even exceed them are called more than perfect.

So it was in a perfect number of days, that is, six, that God perfected his works which he made. For thus it is written: “And on the sixth day God finished his works which he had made.” And I become more intent on this number when I consider also the order of the works themselves. For as this same number rises step by step through its parts into a triangle (for one, two, three follow one another so that no other can be inserted, and these are each parts of six of which it consists: one the sixth, two the third, three the half), so in one day light was made, and in the two following days the structure of this world: in one the upper part, that is, the firmament, in the other the lower part, that is, sea and land. But he did not fill the upper part with any kinds of bodily food, because he was not going to place there bodies that need such nourishment. The lower part, however, which he was going to adorn with animals suited to it, he first enriched with the food necessary for their need. So in the remaining three days were created those visible things within the world, that is, within this visible universe made of all the elements, which would be moved by their own appropriate motions: first the lights in the firmament, because the firmament had been made first; then living creatures in the lower part, as the order itself required, on one day those of the waters, on another those of the land. Nor is anyone so mad as to dare to say that God could not have made everything in one day if he had wished, or, if he had wished, in two: spiritual creation on one day and bodily creation on another, or heaven with all that belongs to it on one day and earth with all that is in it on another; and altogether when he wished, for as long as he wished, and in whatever way he wished. Who is there who would say that anything could have resisted his will?

Therefore, when we read that he perfected all things in six days, and, considering the number six, find that it is perfect, and that the order of creatures runs in such a way that a graded distinction appears even among the parts by which this number is perfected, let there also come to mind what is said to him in another place of the Scriptures: “You have arranged all things in measure and number and weight.” And let the soul that is able, calling God to its aid, with him granting and breathing in strength, consider whether these three, measure, number, and weight, in which it is written that God arranged all things, existed somewhere before the whole of nature was created, or were themselves also created; and, if they existed before, where they were. For before creation there was nothing except the Creator. So they were in him. But how? For we read that the things that were created are also in him. Were the former in him as being himself, and the latter as being in him by whom they are ruled and governed? And how were the former himself? For God is not measure, or number, or weight, or all of these. Is it that, in the sense in which we know measure in the things we measure, number in the things we count, and weight in the things we weigh, God is not these; but in the sense in which measure fixes a limit for every thing, number supplies every thing with its form, and weight draws every thing to rest and stability, he is these, primarily, truly, and uniquely, he who bounds all things, forms all things, and orders all things? And is nothing else meant, so far as it could be said by a human heart and tongue, by “You have arranged all things in measure and number and weight,” than “You have arranged all things in yourself”? It is a great thing, granted to few, to go beyond all things that can be measured, so as to see measure without measure; to go beyond all things that can be counted, so as to see number without number; to go beyond all things that can be weighed, so as to see weight without weight.

For measure, number, and weight can be noticed and thought of not only in stones and wood and masses of that kind, and in bodies of any size, earthly or heavenly. There is also a measure in acting, so that it may not be an unchecked and immoderate advance; there is a number both of the affections of the mind and of the virtues, by which the mind is gathered from the deformity of folly to the form and beauty of wisdom; and there is a weight of the will and of love, in which it appears how much each thing is weighed in desiring, fleeing, preferring, and putting after. But this measure of souls and minds is restrained by another measure, this number is formed by another number, and this weight is carried along by another weight. But there is a measure without measure, to which what comes from it is made equal, and which is not itself from anywhere; there is a number without number, by which all things are formed, and which is not itself formed; there is a weight without weight, to which those things are brought back to rest whose rest is pure joy, and which is no longer itself brought back to anything else.

But whoever knows the names of measure, number, and weight only in a visible way knows them in a servile way. Let him therefore go beyond everything he knows in that way; or, if he cannot yet, let him not cling to the names themselves, of which he cannot think except in a base way. For the more these things are dear to each person in higher things, the less he himself is flesh in lower things. But if someone does not wish to transfer the words he learned in weak and most lowly things to those sublime things, in contemplating which he tries to make his mind serene, he is not to be pressed to do it. For so long as what is to be understood is understood, there need be no great concern about what it is called. Yet one ought to know what kind of likeness the lower things bear to the higher; for in no other way does reason rightly reach and strive from here to there.

Now if anyone says that the measure, number, and weight in which Scripture testifies that God arranged all things were created: if he arranged all things in them, where did he arrange these themselves? If in others, how then did he arrange all things in these, when these were in others? So there is no doubt that those things in which all things were arranged are outside the things that were arranged.

Or shall we perhaps think that “You have arranged all things in measure and number and weight” was said as if it said, “You arranged all things so that they had measure and number and weight”? For if it were said, “You arranged all bodies in colors,” it would not follow that the Wisdom of God itself, through which all things were made, should be understood to have had colors in itself first, in which it might make bodies; rather it would be taken thus: “You arranged all bodies in colors,” as if it said, “You arranged all bodies so that they had colors.” As though bodies arranged in colors by God the Creator, that is, arranged so that they were colored, could be understood in any other way than that some reason of the colors to be distributed to each kind of body was not lacking in the very Wisdom of the one who arranged them, even if it is not called color there. This is what I said: when the thing is granted, there is no need to labor over words.

Let us suppose, then, that “You have arranged all things in measure and number and weight” was said as if it said that they were arranged so as to have their own proper measures and proper numbers and proper weight, which change in them according to the changeableness of each one's kind, by increase and diminution, by multitude and fewness, by lightness and heaviness, according to God's arrangement. Do we then say that, as these things change, so the very counsel of God in which he arranged them is changeable? May he himself avert such madness!

When, then, these things were being arranged so as to have their measures, numbers, and weights, where did he who arranged them see them? Not outside himself, as we see bodies with our eyes, for they did not yet exist when they were being arranged so as to come into being. Nor did he see them within himself in the way we see with the mind the images of bodies that are not present to our eyes, when we think by imagination of the things we have seen or of things drawn from what we have seen. In what way, then, did he see them so as to arrange them? In what way except that in which he alone can?

Yet we, mortals and sinners, whose souls are weighed down by corruptible bodies and whose sense, which thinks many things, is pressed down by its earthly dwelling (although, even if we bore the purest hearts and the simplest minds and were already equal to the holy angels, the divine substance would certainly not be known to us as it is known to itself),

nevertheless do not see this perfection of the number six outside ourselves, as we see bodies with our eyes, nor within ourselves in the way we see the images of bodies and the likenesses of visible things, but in another, far different way. For although certain likenesses, as it were, of little bodies present themselves to the mind's gaze when the composition, order, or division of the number six is thought of, yet a stronger and more powerful reason from above does not assent to them, and contemplates the power of number more inwardly. Through this contemplation it says confidently that what is called one among numbers cannot be divided into any parts, while no body can be divided except into innumerable parts; and that heaven and earth, which were built according to the number six, would pass away more easily than it could be brought about that six is not completed by its parts. So let the human mind always give thanks to the Creator, by whom it was so created that it can see this, which none of the birds and none of the beasts can see, though they see with us the heaven and the earth and the lights and the sea and the dry land and all that is in them.

Therefore we cannot say that the number six is perfect because God perfected all his works in six days, but that God perfected his works in six days because the number six is perfect. So even if these works did not exist, that number would be perfect; but unless it were perfect, these works would not have been made perfect according to it.

Now as for what is written, that God rested on the seventh day from all his works which he made, and therefore blessed and sanctified that day, because on it he rested from all his works: in order that we may try to reach it with our understanding, as far as we can and as far as we are helped by him, let us first drive the carnal suspicions of men about it from our minds. Is it right to say or believe that God labored in working when he established the things written above, since he spoke and they came to be? Not even a man labors if something that is to be done comes to be as soon as he has spoken. For although human words, carried by sounds, are uttered in such a way that long speech tires, yet when they are as few as the few we read in what is written when God said, “Let there be light,” “Let there be a firmament,” and so on to the end of the works which he finished on the sixth day, it is the raving of utter absurdity to think this a labor even for a man, much less for God. Or will someone perhaps say that God did not labor in saying that the things should come to be which at once were made, but perhaps in thinking what ought to be made; and that, freed as it were from this care by the completion of things, he rested, and for that reason wished to bless and sanctify the day on which he was first free of this effort of mind? But if to think such things is to be very foolish (for with God both the power and the ease of establishing things are incomparable and ineffable), what remains for us to understand, except perhaps that he granted to the rational creature, in which he also created man, rest in himself after its perfection, through the gift of the Holy Spirit, through whom love is poured out in our hearts, so that we may be borne there by the appetite of desire, and when we arrive there we may rest, that is, seek nothing further? For as God is rightly said to do whatever we do with him working in us, so God is rightly said to rest when by his gift we rest.

This indeed we understand rightly, since it is true and needs no great effort of attention for us to see that God is said to rest when he makes us rest, as he is said to know when he brings it about that we know. For God does not know in time what he did not know before, and yet he says to Abraham, “Now I know that you fear God”; where what else do we take it to mean than “Now I have made you know”? By these modes of speech, when we speak of things that do not happen to God as if they happened to him, we recognize that he makes them happen to us, but only things that are praiseworthy, and these only so far as the usage of the Scriptures permits. For we ought not rashly to say anything of God of this kind that we do not read in his Scripture.

From this mode of speaking, I think, the apostle said, “Do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, in whom you were sealed for the day of redemption.” For the very substance of the Holy Spirit, by which he is whatever he is, cannot be grieved, since it has eternal and unchangeable blessedness, or rather is itself eternal, unchangeable blessedness. But because he so dwells in the saints that he fills them with love, by which men necessarily rejoice in time at the progress and good works of the faithful, and therefore necessarily also grieve at the fall or sins of those in whose faith and piety they used to rejoice (and this grief is praiseworthy, since it comes from the love that the Holy Spirit pours in), the Spirit himself is said to be grieved by those who act in such a way that the saints are grieved at their deeds, for no other reason than that they have the Holy Spirit. By this gift they are so good that the wicked sadden them, above all those whom they knew or believed to have been good. This grief is certainly not only not to be blamed but especially to be praised and proclaimed.

The same apostle again used this kind of speech admirably when he says, “But now that you know God, or rather are known by God.” For God did not know them only then, since they were foreknown before the foundation of the world; but because they had then come to know him by his gift, not by their own merit or ability, he preferred to speak figuratively, saying that they were then known by him when he granted himself to be known by them, and to correct his word as though he had said less rightly what he had said properly, rather than allow them to claim for themselves that they had been able to do what he had given them the ability to do.

This understanding, then, of the statement that God rested from all his works which he made very good, namely that he makes us rest when we have done good works, may perhaps satisfy some. But we, having undertaken the study of this statement of the Scriptures, are pressed to ask in what way he himself could rest, even though by making his rest known to us he has prompted us to hope that our rest will be in him. For he himself made heaven and earth and the things that are in them, and finished all things on the sixth day, and it cannot be said that we created anything among them by his gift enabling us to create, so that it was said, “God finished on the sixth day his works which he made,” because he granted that they should be finished by us. In the same way, in what is said, “God rested on the seventh day from all his works which he made,” we ought to understand first not our rest, which by his granting we shall attain, but his own, by which he rested on the seventh day when his works were finished. Thus it is first shown that all that is written was done, and then, if need be, it is taught that it also signified something. It is indeed rightly said that, as God rested after his good works, so we shall rest after our good works; but for that very reason it is also rightly required that, as the works of God, which plainly appear to be his, have been discussed, so his rest, which is shown to be properly his own, be adequately discussed.

For this reason we are compelled by the most just reasoning to search out, if we can, and to state how both are true: what is written here, that on the seventh day God rested from all his works which he made, and what he himself, through whom all things were made, says in the Gospel: “My Father is working until now, and I am working.” He gave this answer to those who complained that he did not keep the Sabbath, which had been commended of old by the authority of this Scripture because of God's rest. And it can indeed plausibly be said that the keeping of the Sabbath was commanded to the Jews as a shadow of what was to come, which would figure the spiritual rest that God, by the example of this rest of his, promised by a hidden signification to the faithful who do good works. The Lord Jesus Christ, who suffered only when he willed, confirmed the mystery of this rest even by his burial. For on the very day of the Sabbath he rested in the tomb and had that whole day as a kind of holy leisure, after he had finished all his works on the sixth day, that is, the day of preparation, which they call the sixth day of the week, when the things written of him were fulfilled on the very gibbet of the cross. For he used this very word when he said, “It is finished,” and, bowing his head, he gave up his spirit. What wonder, then, if God, wishing in this way also to foretell this day on which Christ was to rest in the tomb, rested from his works on one day, being thereafter to work out the order of the ages, so that this too might be called true: “My Father is working until now”?