25. See Ex 20:8.
254 The Literal Meaning of Genesis differently if he had said, "and is now working," where we would not have to take the work as being continuous. But by saying until now, he forces us to understand it in the other sense as meaning, that is, from the time when he had worked at the original establishment of all things. And then there is what is written about his Wisdom: She reachesfrom end to end mightily, and arranges all things sweetly (Wis 8:1), about whom it is also written that her movement is swifter and more nimble than all movements;24 from this it is clear enough to those who look into the matter rightly that she bestows this incomparable and inexpressible and this—if you can grasp it—this motionless movement of hers upon things by disposing them sweetly, so that undoubtedly ifthis is withdrawn, and she abstains from this activity, they will perish forthwith.
And then there is what the apostle said when he was proclaiming God to the Athenians, that in him we live and move and are (Acts 17:28); interpreted straightforwardly, to the extent of the human mind's capacity, it will support this conviction which makes us believe and say that God is ceaselessly at work in these things which he has created. We are not in him, I mean to say, like his substance, in the way it is said that he has life in himself(in 5:26); but evidently, since we are something different from him, we are only in him because he is working at this, and this is his work by which he holds all things together, and by which his Wisdom reaches from end to end mightily and arranges all things sweetly, and it is by this arrangement that "in him we live and move and are." From this the conclusion follows that if he withdraws this work from things, we will neither live nor move nor be.
lt is clear therefore that not for one single day did God cease from the work of controlling the things he had created, in case they should thereupon be deprived of the natural movements by which they are kept alive and active and so remain what they are, each in its own proper nature; they would indeed stop being anything at all, were that movement withdrawn from them of God's Wisdom, by which she arranges all things sweetly. For this reason we take it that God so rested from all his works which he had made that from now on he set up no new kind ofnature any more, not so that he stopped holding together and directing the ones which he had already set in place. Thus both statements are true: that God rested on the seventh day (Gn 2:2), and that he is working until now (Jn 5: 1 7).
On the observance of the sabbath, and the Christian sabbath
1 3, 24. And indeed we can already see his good works; it is only after our good works, however, that we shall see his rest. It was in order to represent and point to this rest that he commanded the Hebrew people to observe one day25—which
24. See Wis 7:24. 25. See Ex 20:8.