have divided into two sentences) is rather incoherently written. This illustrates very well what
258 7716Literal Meaning of Genesis gious, thatjust as he rested from all his works, because he himself, not his works, is the good in which he finds bliss, so we too should be spurred on by the hope of resting one day in that same good, not only from our works but also from his, and should desire to reach it after our good works, which we acknowledge to be his in us rather than our very own. In this way he again will be resting after his good works, when he grants us rest in himself after the good works which we have done, thanks to our having been justified by him.31 While it is indeed a great thing for us to have derived our very being from him, it will, you see, be an even greater thing for us to have attained our rest in him, just as the reason he himself is in bliss is not because he made all these things, but because being in no need of them even when made, he found rest in himself rather than in them. So that is why he sanctified the day not of work but of rest, intimating in this way that it was not in his making but in his not needing the things he had made that his bless edness and bliss consisted.
30. So what, then, is such a lowly and easy statement to make, and what such an exalted and arduous truth to reflect upon, as God resting from all his works which he had made? And resting where, if not in himself, because only in himself does he find blessedness and bliss? When, if not always? While among the days during which the finished consummation of the things he established is recounted and the special status of God's rest is distinguished from them, on which if not on the seventh day which follows on the completion and perfecting of them all? It is from perfect things, you see, that he rests, needing not even perfected products to make him more blessed and blissful than he is.
Why the seventh day had a morning but no evening
18,31. And with him indeed his rest has neither morning nor evening, because it does not open with a beginning nor close with an end; but with the perfecting of his works it has a morning and does not have an evening.32 This means that the perfected creation has in fact a kind of start to its turning towards the quiet rest of its creator, while this has no end as a kind of term to its being perfect, like the things that have been made. And thus God' s rest begins, not for God himself, but for the perfect completion of the things he has fashioned, so that what is being perfected by him may begin to rest in him, and therein have its morning—in its own specific nature, you see, it was given its finishing touches as if in the
31. See Rom 8:30. 32. He does not say precisely what has a morning and no evening. The whole sentence (which 1 have divided into two sentences) is rather incoherently written. This illustrates very well what he said at the beginning of section 30 about how arduous it is to reflect on this whole matter. He was dictating as he was thinking the matter out, groping in his mind for what he wished to say, feeling his way toward it.