And God blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it: because in it he had rested from all his work which God created and made.
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Ambrose of Milan
AD 397
He created heaven and earth at the time when the months began, from which time it is fitting that the world took its rise. Then there was the mild temperature of spring, a season suitable for all things. Consequently the year too has the stamp of a world coming to birth…. In order to show that the creation of the world took place in the spring, Scripture says: “This month shall be to you the beginning of months, it is for you the first in the months of the year,” calling the first month the springtime. It was fitting that the beginning of the year be the beginning of generation. .
Heaven, too, will be the fulfillment of that sabbath rest foretold in the command: “Be still and see that I am God.” This, indeed, will be that ultimate sabbath that has no evening and that the Lord foreshadowed in the account of his creation: “And God rested on the seventh day from all his work that he had done. And he blessed the seventh day and sanctified it: because in it he had rested from all his work that God created and made.” And we ourselves will be a “seventh day” when we shall be filled with his blessing and remade by his sanctification. In the stillness of that rest we shall see that he is the God whose divinity we desired for ourselves when we listened to the seducer’s words, “You shall be as gods,” and so fell away from him, the true God who would have given us a divinity by participation that could never be gained by desertion. For where did the doing without God end but in the undoing of man through the anger of God? Only when we are remade by God and perfected by a gr...
Just as the trees, the vegetation, the animals, the birds and even humankind were old, so also were they young. They were old according to the appearance of their limbs and their substances, yet they were young because of the hour and moment of their creation. Likewise, the moon was both old and young. It was young, for it was but a moment old, but was also old, for it was full as it is on the fifteenth day. .
He blessed: The blessing referred to the increase by multiplication; for which reason God said to the creatures which He blessed: "Increase and multiply." Now, this increase is effected through God's Providence over His creatures, securing the generation of like from like.
And sanctified it: It is right that the seventh day should have been sanctified, since the special sanctification of every creature consists in resting in God. For this reason things dedicated to God are said to be sanctified. The seventh day is said to be sanctified not because anything can accrue to God, or be taken from Him, but because something is added to creatures by their multiplying, and by their resting in God.