Letters & Polemics (CSEL) 37 part 7/28

It is a great thing, and granted to few, to transcend all things that can be measured, so that measure without measure may be beheld; to transcend all things that can be numbered, so that number without number may be beheld; to transcend all things that can be weighed, so that weight without weight may be beheld. For measure and number and weight are not to be observed and considered only in stones and timber and masses of that kind, and in whatever bodily things, whether earthly or heavenly. There is also a measure of acting, lest the advance be irrevocable and immoderate; and there is a number both of the affections of the soul and of the virtues, whereby the soul is gathered up from the deformity of folly to the form and beauty of wisdom;

and there is a weight of the will and of love, wherein it appears how much each thing is weighed in the seeking, the fleeing, the preferring, and the setting aside. But these measures of souls and minds are themselves held in check by another measure, and are formed by another number, and are drawn by another weight. Now measure without measure is that to which is equalled whatever proceeds from it, and which itself derives from nothing; number without number is that whereby all things are formed, while it itself is not formed; weight without weight is that whereby things are borne so as to rest—things whose rest is pure joy—while it is no longer itself borne toward anything else. But whoever knows the names of measure and number and weight only in a visible way, knows them slavishly.

Therefore let him transcend everything that he thus knows; or, if he cannot yet do so, let him not cling even to those very names, of which he cannot think save in a base manner. For so much the dearer are these things to each person in the higher realms, the less carnal he himself is in the lower. But if anyone is unwilling to transfer those words, which he learned in feeble and most abject things, to those sublime realities upon which he strives to serene his mind by contemplating them, he is not to be pressed to do so. For provided that what ought to be understood is understood, there is no need to be greatly concerned about what it be called. Yet one ought to know of what sort is the likeness of lower things to higher; for not otherwise does reason rightly stretch and strive from here to there.

But now, if anyone says that the measure and number and weight, by which Scripture testifies that God ordered all things, were themselves created, then—if in them He ordered all things—where did He order these same things themselves? If in others, how then are all things in these, when these themselves are in others? Therefore it must not be doubted that those exist outside the things that are ordered, and it is in them that all things are ordered. Or shall we perhaps suppose that it is said thus—'Thou hast ordered all things in measure and number and weight'—as though it were said: 'Thou hast so ordered all things that they should have measure and number and weight'? For even if it were said:

'Thou hast ordered all bodies in colours,' it would not thence follow that the very Wisdom of God, through which all things were made, should be understood to have possessed colours in itself beforehand, in which He might make bodies; but it would be taken thus: 'Thou hast ordered all bodies in colours,' as if it were said: 'Thou hast so ordered all bodies that they should have colours.' As though indeed bodies ordered in colours by the Creator God—that is, so ordered that they should be coloured—could be understood otherwise than that some rational plan of colours to be distributed to the several kinds of bodies was not lacking in the very Wisdom of Him who ordered, even though colour is not there named. For this is what I said: provided the thing itself is granted, there is no need to labour over words.

Let us therefore take it that 'Thou hast ordered all things in measure and number and weight' was said as if it were said: they were so ordered that they should have their own proper measures and their own proper numbers and their own proper weight, which in them, according to the mutability of each one's kind, would be changed—by increases and diminutions, by multitude and fewness, by lightness and heaviness—according to the arrangement of God. Do we, because these things are thus changed, therefore call mutable that very counsel of God in which He ordered them? May He Himself turn away so great a madness! When therefore these things were being so ordered that they should have their measures and numbers and weights, where did He Himself, the Orderer, discern them?

For it was not outside Himself, as we discern bodies with our eyes—bodies which certainly did not yet exist when they were being ordered so that they should come to be. Nor did He discern these things within Himself in the way we discern with the mind the images of bodies that are not present to our eyes, but which we think by imagining out of the things we have seen, or out of what we have seen. In what manner, then, did He discern these things so as thus to order them? In what, if not in that whereby He alone is able?

Yet we mortals and sinners, whose souls are weighed down by corruptible bodies and whose mind, thinking many things, is depressed by an earthly dwelling—although, even if we bore most pure hearts and most simple minds and were already equal to the holy angels, the divine substance would still by no means be known to us as it is to itself—we nevertheless discern this perfection of the number six neither outside our very selves, as we discern bodies with our eyes, nor within our very selves in the way we discern the images of bodies and the pictures of visible things, but in a certain other, far different manner.

For although certain likenesses as of little bodies obtrude themselves upon the mind's gaze when the composition or order or division of the number six is being thought, nevertheless a stronger and more powerful reason from above does not assent to them, but inwardly contemplates the force of number; and by that contemplation it says with confidence that what is called 'one' in numbers can be divided into no parts, whereas no bodies can be divided save into innumerable parts; and that heaven and earth, which were fashioned according to the number six, can more easily pass away than it can be brought about that the number six should not be completed by its own parts.

Let the human soul therefore ever give thanks to the Creator, by whom it has been so created that it can behold this which no bird, no beast can behold, though these too see, along with us, both heaven and earth and the luminaries and the sea and the dry land and all things that are in them. Wherefore we cannot say that the number six is perfect because God completed all His works in six days, but rather that God completed His works in six days because the number six is perfect. And 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.

But now, as to what is written—that God rested on the seventh day from all His works which He had made, and that He therefore blessed that same day and sanctified it, because in it He rested from all His works—that we may, as best we can and as far as we shall have been aided by Him, endeavour to attain it by understanding, let us first drive from our minds men's carnal surmises about this. For is it lawful to say or believe that God laboured in working, when He founded those things which are written above, when 'He spoke, and they were made'? Indeed, not even a man labours, if something to be made comes to be as soon as he has spoken.

For although human words, aided by sounds, are so uttered that prolonged speech wearies one, nevertheless, when they are as few as those few we read in what is written—when God said, 'Let there be light,' 'Let there be a firmament,' and the rest down to the end of the works which He consummated on the sixth day—it is the height of absurd delirium to suppose that this was a labour even of a man, much less of God. Or will someone perhaps say that, though by saying that they should come to be, which were straightway made, God did not labour, yet perhaps by thinking what ought to be made, He was as it were freed by that care through the completion of things, and rested; and for that reason willed to bless and sanctify the day on which He was first freed, secure from this intention of mind?

But if to think these things is greatly to be foolish—for with God the capacity no less than the ease of founding things is incomparable and ineffable—what remains for us to understand, save that perhaps He furnished rest in Himself to the rational creature, in which He also created man, after its perfection, through the gift of the Holy Spirit, through whom charity is poured abroad in our hearts, that we might be borne thither by the longing of desire, and, when we have come there, might rest—that is, might seek nothing further? For just as God is rightly said to do whatever we do while He works in us, so God is rightly said to rest when by His gift we rest.

This indeed we rightly understand, because it is both true and requires no great effort to see that God is said to rest in this way—when He causes us to rest—just as He is said to know when He brings it about that we should know. For God does not come to know in time what He did not know before, and yet He says to Abraham, 'Now I know that thou fearest God' (Gen. 22:12); where what else do we take it to mean, save: 'Now I have made thee know'? By these modes of expression, when we speak of things that do not befall God as though they befell Him, we acknowledge that He brings it about that they befall us—those things at least which are praiseworthy, and this only so far as the usage of the Scriptures permits. For we ought not rashly to say any such thing about God which we do not read in His Scripture.

From this mode of speech I judge that saying of the Apostle was uttered: 'Grieve not the Holy Spirit of God, in whom ye have been sealed unto the day of redemption' (Eph. 4:30). For the very substance of the Holy Spirit, whereby He is whatever He is, cannot be grieved, since it possesses an eternal and unchangeable blessedness, and rather is itself the eternal, unchangeable blessedness.

But because He so dwells in the saints as to fill them with charity, whereby men needs must rejoice in time at the advancement of the faithful and at good works, and therefore needs must also be grieved at the fall or the sins of those in whose faith and piety they had rejoiced—which grief is praiseworthy, since it comes from the love that the Holy Spirit infuses—for that reason the Spirit Himself is said to be grieved by those who so act that the saints are grieved at their deeds, for no other reason than because they have the Holy Spirit; by which gift they are so good that the wicked make them sorrowful, and these especially whom they had known or believed to be good. And this grief is assuredly not only not to be blamed, but even to be praised and proclaimed in a special way.

By this kind of speech the same Apostle again wonderfully made use, where he says: 'But now, knowing God, or rather being known by God' (Gal. 4:9). For God had not then come to know them—foreknown, that is, before the foundation of the world; but because they had then come to know Him by His gift, not by their own merit or capacity, He chose to speak figuratively, so as to say that they were then known by Him when He granted Himself to be known by them; and to correct the word—as though he had said less rightly what he had said properly—rather than to allow them to arrogate to themselves that they had been able to do that which He had granted them the power to do.

This understanding, then, in what is set down—that God rested from all His works which He made very good, because it is He who makes us rest when we have done good works—may perhaps have sufficed for some. But we, having undertaken the consideration of this sentence of the Scriptures, are urged to inquire in what manner He too could rest, although, by intimating His rest to us, He admonished us to hope that our rest will be in Him. For just as He Himself made heaven and earth and the things that are in them, and consummated all things on the sixth day—nor can it be said that we created anything among them, though it be by His giving that we might create, and that therefore it was said 'God consummated on the sixth day His works which He made,' because He furnished that they should be consummated by us—

so also, as to what is said—'God rested on the seventh day from all His works which He made'—we ought to understand not indeed our rest, which by His granting we are to attain, but primarily His own, whereby He rested on the seventh day, His works being consummated; so that first all the things that are written may be shown to have been done, and then, if there be need, they may also be taught to have signified something further. For it is rightly said that, just as God rested after His good works, so we too shall rest after our good works. But for this very reason it is also rightly demanded that, just as it has been discussed concerning the works of God, which sufficiently appear to be His, so concerning the rest of God there be sufficiently treated that which is shown properly to be His.

Wherefore by a most just reasoning we are compelled to investigate, if we are able, and to declare, in what manner both are true: both that which is here written—that on the seventh day God rested from all His works which He made—and that which He Himself, through whom all things were made, says in the Gospel: 'My Father worketh until now, and I work' (John 5:17). For He answered thus to those who complained that the sabbath was not observed by Him on account of the rest of God commended of old by the authority of this Scripture. And it can indeed be said with probability that the sabbath was enjoined upon the Jews to be observed as a shadow of a thing to come, which would prefigure that spiritual rest which God, by the example of this rest of His own, promised in a hidden signification to the faithful who do good works.

And of this rest the Lord Jesus Christ Himself—who suffered only when He willed—confirmed the mystery even by His burial. For on that very day of the sabbath He rested in the tomb, and He kept that whole day as a certain holy vacation, after He had, on the sixth day—that is, on the Preparation, which they call the sixth of the sabbath—consummated all His works, when the things written of Him were being fulfilled upon the very gibbet of the cross. For He used this very word when He said, 'It is consummated'; and, bowing His head, He gave up the spirit (John 19:30).

What wonder, then, if God, willing in this manner also to foretell this day on which Christ was to rest in the tomb, rested from His works on one day, being thereafter about to work the order of the ages, so that this also might be said truly: 'My Father worketh until now'? It can also be understood that God rested from founding kinds of creatures, because He no longer founded any new kinds thereafter, but from then on until now and beyond works the administration of those same kinds which were then instituted—not that even on the seventh day His power ceased from the governance of heaven and earth and of all the things He had founded, for otherwise they would straightway collapse.

For the power of the Creator, and the might of the Almighty and All-sustaining, is the cause of subsistence to every creature; and if this might should at any time cease from ruling the things that have been created, at once both their form would cease and all nature would fall to ruin. For it is not as with the builder of houses, who, when he has built, departs, and while he ceases and departs his work stands—it is not thus that the world could stand even for the twinkling of an eye, if God should withdraw His governance from it. Accordingly, that also which the Lord says—'My Father worketh until now'—shows a certain continuation of His work, whereby He holds together and administers the whole of creation. For it could be understood otherwise, if He said:

'And now He worketh,' it could be understood otherwise, where it would not be necessary that we should take it as a continuation of His work; but it compels us to understand otherwise when He says 'until now'—namely, from that time in which He worked when He founded all things. And as to what is written of His Wisdom—'She reacheth from end to end mightily, and ordereth all things sweetly' (Wisd. 8:1)—and of which it is likewise written that 'her motion is nimbler and swifter than all motions' (Wisd. 7:24): it appears sufficiently to those who rightly consider that this very incomparable and ineffable motion of hers, and (if it can be understood) her stable motion, she furnishes to things to be sweetly ordered; whereby if it be withdrawn, if she should cease from this operation, they would straightway perish. And that also which the Apostle says, when he preached God to the Athenians:

'In Him we live and move and have our being' (Acts 17:28)—clearly pondered, so far as the human mind avails—supports this sentence, whereby we believe and say that God works unceasingly in the things He has created. For it is not as though we were in Him as His substance, in the manner in which it is said that He 'hath life in Himself' (John 5:26); but assuredly, since we are other than He, for no other reason are we in Him except that He works this, and this is His work, whereby He holds all things together, and whereby His Wisdom 'reacheth from end to end mightily and ordereth all things sweetly'—through which ordering 'in Him we live and move and have our being.' Whence it is gathered that, if He should withdraw this His work from things, we should neither live nor move nor be.

It is therefore clear that God did not cease, not even for a single day, from the work of governing the things He created, lest they should at that very moment lose their natural motions, whereby they are driven and quickened so that they may at all be natures and abide, each according to its own kind, in that which they are, and should altogether cease to be anything at all, if there were withdrawn from them that motion of the Wisdom of God whereby He 'ordereth all things sweetly.' Wherefore we so understand that God rested from all His works which He made, that He should now found no further any new nature, not that He should cease to hold together and govern those things which He had founded. Whence both that is true—that God rested on the seventh day—and that—that He 'worketh until now.'

And His works indeed we see to be good, but His rest, after our good works, we shall see. For the sake of signifying which rest He commanded the Hebrew people to observe one day; which they observed so carnally that, on that day, seeing our Lord and Saviour working, they charged Him with it; so that He most rightly answered them concerning the Father's work, together with whom He too was working equally—not only the administration of the whole creation, but also our very salvation. But now, in the time of grace revealed, that observance of the sabbath, which was prefigured by the vacation of a single day, has been taken away from the observance of the faithful.

For in that grace he now observes a perpetual sabbath who, in hope of future rest, works whatever good he works, and in his very good works does not glory as though possessing a good which he had not received; for thus, receiving and understanding the sacrament of baptism as it were the sabbath day—that is, of the Lord's ceasing—in burial, he rests from his former works, so that now, walking in newness of life, he may acknowledge that God works in him, who at once both works and rests: both furnishing to the creature a fitting governance and having with Himself eternal tranquillity.

Finally, He Himself was neither wearied when He created, nor refreshed when He ceased; but He willed, through His Scripture, to exhort us to a desire of rest, by intimating to us that He sanctified that day on which He rested from all His works. For nowhere in all the six days, in which all things were created, do we read that He sanctified anything. Nor before those six days, where it is written, 'In the beginning God made heaven and earth,' is it added, 'and He sanctified'; but that day, on which He rested from all His works which He made, He willed to sanctify—as though even with Him, who labours in no work of His, rest avails more than operation.

This indeed the Gospel intimates to us in men, where our Saviour calls Mary's the better part, because, sitting at His feet, she rested in His word, than Martha's—although, on account of the service by which she ministered to Him, she was occupied about many things and, granted, was doing a good work (Luke 10:39-42). But how this may be, or be understood, in God, is difficult to say, even if it can in some small degree be reached by thought—namely, why God should have sanctified the day of His rest, He who sanctified none of the day of His work, not even the sixth itself, on which He both made man and perfected all things. And first, what the very resting of God may be, whose keen edge of the human mind can attain to it? Yet, unless it were something, this Scripture would by no means have set it down at all.

I will indeed say what I think, first premising these two things as beyond doubt: that God was not, as after labour or after a longed-for end of His business, delighted with a certain temporal rest; and that these writings, which by their merit stand pre-eminent by so great an authority, did not vainly and falsely say that God rested on the seventh day from all His works which He made, and for that cause sanctified that same day.

Doubtless, then, because it is a vice and a weakness of the soul so to be delighted with its own works that it rests rather in them than in itself from them—since without doubt there is something better in the soul, whereby those works were done, than the works themselves which were done—God is intimated to us through this Scripture, in which He is said to have rested from all His works which He made, delighted with no work of His as though He had needed to make it, or as though He would be less, had He not made it, or more blessed, when He had made it. For because whatever is from Him is so from Him that it owes to Him what it is, while He Himself owes to none

—that which is from Him owes it that it is; while that He is blessed He owes to Himself—He, in loving Himself, set Himself before the things which He made, sanctifying neither the day on which He began to make those things, nor that on which He completed them, lest His joy should seem to have been augmented by making or by having made them, but rather that day on which He rested from them in Himself. And He Himself indeed never lacked this rest, but He showed it to us through the seventh day. Signifying hereby also that His rest is not attained save by the perfect, since, to intimate it, He appointed no day save that which followed the perfection of all things. For He who is ever at rest then rested for us, when He showed that He had rested.

This too must be attended to: that it was fitting that the rest of God, whereby He is blessed of Himself, should be intimated to us, that we might understand how He is said also to rest in us—which is not said save when He grants rest both in Himself and to us. The rest of God, therefore, to those who rightly understand, is that whereby He needs the good of none; and therefore it is sure both for us in Him, because we too are made blessed by the good which He is, not He by the good which we are. For we too are some good from Him, who made all things very good, among which He made us also. Moreover, there is no other good thing besides Himself which He Himself did not make; and through this He needs no other good besides Himself, He who does not need the good which He made.

This is His rest from all His works which He made. But of what goods, without laudable need, would He be in want, had He made none? For even so it could be said that, needing no goods, He rested in Himself not from things made, but by making nothing at all. But if He could not make good things, there would be no power; and if He could and yet did not make them, there would be great grudging. Because, therefore, He is almighty and good, He made all things very good; but because He is perfectly blessed by Himself, the Good, He rested from all the things He made in Himself—by that rest, namely, from which He never departed. But if it were said that He rested from making, nothing else would be understood than that He did not make;

whereas, unless it were said that He rested from the things made, that He needs not the things He made, it would be less commended. On what day, then, ought this to have been commended, save the seventh? Whoever understands the perfection of the number six, of which we spoke above, recognizes that it was fittingly applied to the perfection of the creation. For if the creature was to be perfected by the number six, as it was perfected, and that rest of God was to be commended to us, whereby it might be shown that He is not made blessed even by perfected creatures, without doubt the day to be sanctified in this commendation was that which follows the sixth—whereby we might be raised up to long after this rest, so that we too may rest in Him.

For the likeness is not a pious one, if we should wish to be like God in such a way that we too rest from our works in ourselves, just as He rested in Himself from His works. For we ought rather to rest in a certain unchangeable good, which He is to us, who made us.

This, then, will be our highest rest, in no way proud but truly devout: that, just as He Himself rested from all His works, because His works are not His good, but He Himself is His own good whereby He is blessed, so we too may hope to rest from all works—not only our own, but even His—in Him alone, and may desire this after our good works; for those good works which we recognize in ourselves we know to be His rather than ours, so that even in this way He may rest after His own good works, when, after the good works which we, being justified by Him, shall have done, He grants us rest in Himself.

For it is a great thing for us to have come to be from Him, but it will be a greater thing to have found rest in Him; even as He Himself is not blessed because He made these things, but because, having no need even of the things He made, He rested in Himself rather than in them. Hence it was not the day of work but the day of rest that He sanctified, because He declared Himself blessed not by doing these things, but by having no need of the things He had made. What, then, is at once so lowly and easy to utter, and yet so lofty and hard to conceive, as God resting from all His works which He made? And where does He rest, save in Himself, since He is blessed by none other than Himself? And when, save always?

But in the days in which the completion of the things He founded is narrated, and the order of God's rest is distinguished from them, when does He rest, save on the seventh day, which follows their perfection? For He rests from things perfected, He who has no need even of perfected things whereby He might be more blessed. And whereas for Him indeed His rest has neither morning nor evening, because it is neither opened by a beginning nor closed by an end, yet in relation to His perfected works it has a morning and has not an evening; for the perfected creature has a certain beginning of its turning toward the rest of its Creator, but that rest has no end as though a boundary of its perfection, as is the case with the things that have been made.

And through this, God's rest is inaugurated not with reference to God Himself, but with reference to the perfection of the things founded by Him, so that in Him may begin to rest that which is being perfected by Him, and may have in Him its morning—for in its own kind it was ended as though by an evening—yet in God it can no longer have an evening, because there will be nothing more perfect than that perfection. For in those days in which all things were being created, we understood the evening as the ending of the creature founded, and the morning as the beginning of another to be founded. And through this, the evening of the fifth day is the ending of the creature founded on the fifth day, while the morning, which came to be after that evening, is the beginning of the creature to be founded on the sixth day; and when this had been founded, the evening came to be as though its ending.