of his sermons, usually in the context of the ten commandments; the commandment about
256 The Literal Meaning of Genesis sanctified the day of his rest, though he had not sanctified any day of his work, not even the sixth on which he both made the man and completed and perfected all the works together. And first of all what human mind is sharp enough to grasp what God's actual resting might consist in? But yet, unless it really did consist in something, scripture would certainly not have put this down here. Let me say plainly what my position is, with the preliminary assertion of these two indubi table truths: that God did not delight in some kind of temporal period ofrest after hard toil and the much desired end of his business; and that it was not falsely or vainly that these scriptures, so deservedly surpassing all others in their authority, said that God rested on the seventh day from all the works which he had made, and for that reason sanctified this same day.
An answer proposed to the question just raised
15, 26. Now it is a vice and weakness of the soul to take delight in its works in such a way that it finds rest in them rather than in itself from them, though there can be no doubt that something in the soul by which they have been made29 is better than the actual things that have been made. So it is evident then that God is being presented to us as a model by this scripture, which says that he rested from all his works which he had made, not taking delight in any of them in such a way as to suggest that he really needed to make it, and would either be somehow diminished ifhe had not made it, or be more blessed when he had. Anything, you see, that comes from him does so in such a way that it owes its being what it is to him, while he himself owes his being blessed to nothing that comes from him. For this reason he showed that in loving himself he preferred himself to the things he had made, by sanctifying, not the day on which he began to make them, nor the one on which he completed and perfected them, in case his joy should seem to have been increased by them whether in the making or the completion of them but the day on which he rested from them in himself.
And he himself, indeed, has never been without this rest, but he pointed it out to us through the seventh day; and by not deputing any day to represent his rest but the one which followed upon the completing and perfecting of all things, he also signified that this rest of his can only be attained by those who have been made perfect. ln this way the one who is always quietly at rest actually took his rest in our eyes at the time when he showed us that he took it.30
29. The idea of them in the soul's intellect, the intention and decision to make them in its will. 30. Augustine discusses the meaning of the sabbath and God's resting on the seventh day in several of his sermons, usually in the context of the ten commandments; the commandment about keeping the sabbath holy was for him and his contemporaries the third, not the fourth commandment, and so he delights in associating it with the Holy Spirit, the Sanctifier. See Sermons 8,17 and 9,6 (111,1 in this series); 33,3 (111,2): and 270.5 (111,7). 1n none of these, however, does he voice the interesting idea of Jesus keeping the sabbath rest as he lay in the tomb, after "finishing his work" on the cross.