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| Chapter LXI
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Chapter LXI.
Again, not understanding the meaning of the words,
“And God ended4594
| 4594 [συνετέλεσεν,
complevit. S.] | on the sixth day
His works which He had made, and ceased4595
on
the seventh day from all His works which He had made: and God
blessed the seventh day, and hallowed it, because on it He had
ceased4596
from all His works
which He had begun to make;”4597
and imagining
the expression, “He ceased on the seventh day,” to
be the same as this, “He rested4598
on
the seventh day,” he makes the remark: “After this,
indeed, he is weary, like a very bad workman, who stands in need of
rest to refresh himself!” For he knows nothing of the day
of the Sabbath and rest of God, which follows the completion of the
world’s creation, and which lasts during the duration of the
world, and in which all those will keep festival with God who have done
all their works in their six days, and who, because they
have omitted none of their duties,4599
will ascend to
the contemplation (of celestial things), and to the assembly of
righteous and blessed beings. In the next place, as if either the
Scriptures made such a statement, or as if we ourselves so spoke of God
as having rested from fatigue, he continues: “It is not in
keeping with the fitness of things4600
that the first
God should feel fatigue, or work with His hands,4601
or give forth commands.” Celsus
says, that “it is not in keeping with the fitness of things that
the first God should feel fatigue. Now we would say that neither
does God the Word feel fatigue, nor any of those beings who belong to a
better and diviner order of things, because the sensation of fatigue is
peculiar to those who are in the body. You can examine whether
this is true of those who possess a body of any kind, or of those who
have an earthly body, or one a little better than this.
But “neither is it consistent with the fitness of things that the
first God should work with His own hands.” If you
understand the words “work with His own hands”
literally, then neither are they applicable to the second
God, nor to any other being partaking of divinity. But suppose
that they are spoken in an improper and figurative sense, so that we
may translate the following expressions, “And the firmament
showeth forth His handywork,”4602
and “the
heavens are the work of Thy hands,”4603
and any other similar phrases, in a figurative manner, so far as
respects the “hands” and “limbs” of Deity,
where is the absurdity in the words, “God thus working with His
own hands?” And as there is no absurdity in God thus
working, so neither is there in His issuing “commands;” so
that what is done at His bidding should be beautiful and praiseworthy,
because it was God who commanded it to be performed.E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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