Commentaria in Deuteronomium
Cicero, in the Dream of Scipio, says that seven is the knot and fulness of all things: because God is unity, from whom flows the six of creatures, namely angels, elements, mixed bodies, plants, brutes, and man; then at the seventh we return again to the first unity, namely God, and end in it, from whom, by whom and in whom all things are to be directed, as Andreas Masius explains on Josue vi, 13.
Hence Philo, book I Allegories, says that by six mortal things are signified: because six is divisible; but by seven, because it cannot be divided, happiness and immortal things are signified. Hence God completed his work in six days, namely the mortal; on the seventh he rested from it, but began other, more divine formations. But Philo errs in what he adds: “For it is the part of rustic simplicity to think that the world was made in six days, and in a certain time, which is later than the world”; where he takes the six days of the creation of the world not literally but symbolically; which St. Augustine also sometimes did: concerning which I spoke on Genesis i.
More on the perfection of seven let him see who will in Philo, and Macrobius, book I on the Dream of Scipio, chapter vi, and Aulus Gellius, book III, and Andreas Masius above.
… the sabbath, as holy, and separated from the other days, and dedicated to rest and to the recollecting of the work of creation and of other benefits of God, the end of which, to warn thee, I added the word “remember,” Exodus xx, 8.
This sanctification of the sabbath, therefore, which is here directly commanded, was nothing else than abstention from every work, as is plain from verse 14 and Exodus xx, 10; for by keeping the sabbath in this manner, as God had commanded, the Hebrews tacitly professed that God is the creator and giver of all goods. The end of the precept was that they might have leisure to be free for God and divine things, and for recalling the benefits of God; hence in Exodus xx, 11, it is said that God blessed and sanctified the sabbath, namely by this very fact, that he separated the sabbath from the other days, already assigned to his worship.
Note: The solemnity of the sabbath was the highest, beyond all other feasts: hence it was not lawful in it to cook food, as we saw of the manna in Exodus xvi, 29; nor to kindle a fire, as is plain from Exodus xxxv, 3; which, however, it was lawful to do on other feasts. Hence it came about that the name of the sabbath was communicated to all other feasts, and all were called sabbaths, as Leviticus xxiii, 11, 24, 33, nay even the whole week, from its better part and day, was called the sabbath (hence the Pharisee says: “I fast twice in the sabbath,” that is, in the week), and the days were named from the sabbath, as the first of the sabbath, or after the sabbath, was the Lord’s day; the second of the sabbath was Monday, and so on. See St. Jerome, epistle 150 to Hedibia, Question IV. The plural is moreover sometimes used for the singular, and sabbaths and sabbath are the same, as una sabbatorum is the first of the sabbath. See Ribera, book V On the change of the sabbath, on which the world was created by God, into the Lord’s day, on which the world was recreated by Christ rising again, and on the worship of the Lord’s day due from Christians, see St. Thomas in Opusculum VII, where among other things he teaches that the faithful on feasts ought to abstain both from idleness and from servile work; for, as Ecclesiasticus xxxiii says: “Idleness hath taught much evil.” The faithful therefore ought to be occupied on feasts, first, in sacrifices, both internal, such as devotion, prayer, thanksgiving, compunction, acts of faith, hope and charity; and external: hence the Jews on the sabbath doubled the daily sacrifice, Numbers xxviii, 9. Secondly, in spiritual joy. Thirdly, in the mortification of the flesh and of concupiscences, that they may present their bodies a living sacrifice, holy, pleasing to God, Romans xii, 1. Fourthly, in acts of mercy, Hebrews xiii, 16: “And do not forget to do good and to impart: for by such sacrifices God’s favour is obtained”; James i, 27: “Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this: to visit the fatherless and widows in their tribulation, and to keep one’s self unspotted from this world.” Fifthly, in reading and hearing the word of God and other pious things. For the Jews do this even today, Acts xiii: “The voices of the prophets, which are read every sabbath.” For, as Christ says, John viii: “He that is of God heareth the words of God.”
Hence in the Fourth Council of Carthage, chapter lxxxiv, those are excommunicated who on a solemn day, the assembly of the Church being passed over, go to spectacles.
The faithful sin therefore who, having heard Mass, give themselves to idleness, and spend the whole day in cards or dice, or in dishonourable dances, drunkenness, revellings and other sins and vanities; which is gravely forbidden in the Third Council of Toledo, chapter xxi. Malachias ii also thunders against them: “Behold I will cast the arm to you, and I will scatter upon your face the dung of your solemnities, and it shall take you away with it.” And Isaias i: “My soul hateth your solemnities: they are become troublesome to me, I am weary of bearing them.”
Moreover, the fruits and rewards of those who keep feasts Isaias describes, chapter lviii, when he says: “If thou turn away thy foot from the sabbath, from doing thy own will in my holy day, and call the sabbath delightful, and the holy of the Lord glorious, then shalt thou be delighted in the Lord”: behold the first fruit, which is a certain sweet pleasure of the spirit in things that pertain to God. “And I will lift thee up above the high places of the earth”: behold the second, that with a great mind thou despise all earthly things, and esteem them, with St. Paul, as dung. “And I will feed thee with the inheritance of Jacob thy father”: behold the third, as if to say: I will fill thee with spiritual goods in the heavenly inheritance. Finally God will add temporal goods also, as he himself promises in Leviticus xxvi, 2 and 4.
But those who violate feasts are punished, first, in the body, namely by diseases and accidents, so that they break their legs or arms in working. Secondly, they suffer losses in goods, are plundered by thieves; their horses, oxen, etc., die; the house is burnt, and they become poor. Thirdly, they are deprived of spiritual goods. For they sin, first, against God the Father, whose power created the world on the Lord’s day; second, against the Son, who on the same day redeemed us; third, against the Holy Ghost, who on the same day was sent to us.
Hear Jeremias, chapter xvii: “But if you will not hearken to me, to sanctify the sabbath day, and not to carry burdens, etc., I will kindle a fire in the gates thereof, and it shall devour the houses of Jerusalem, and shall not be quenched.” Hear Ezechiel, xx: “They violated my sabbaths; and I said that I would pour out my fury upon them in the wilderness, and consume them.” See 2 Esdras xiii, 15. So God punishes with death him who violates the sabbath, Exodus xxxi, 14, and Numbers xv, 35; see also 2 Machabees xv, 4 and following, where Nicanor, despising the sabbath of the Jews, is slain by them. See Gregory of Tours, On the Glory of Confessors, chapter lxxxi, where he relates that one who despised the feast of Blessed Marianus was punished with fire; and chapter xcix, he tells of another, who, working on a feast, was punished by a distortion of neck and face.
14. THOU SHALT DO NO WORK THEREIN,—understand servile work, as is expressed in the like place Leviticus xxiii, 7, and not necessary work: for on the sabbath they could water their beasts, draw them out of pits, etc., as Christ says, Matthew xii, 3 and following; likewise cure the sick, as Christ did. For, as Tertullian says, book IV Against Marcion, chapter xii: “The work of salvation and safety is not the work of man, but of God.” Much less is spiritual work forbidden here, such as is every pious and religious action. For these befit and adorn the sabbath.
The Jews superstitiously kept, and still keep, the sabbath, so as to abstain altogether from every work; hence they persecuted Christ even to death, because he cured the sick on the sabbath. That is a trite story of the Jew in England, who, falling into a pit on the sabbath and refusing to be drawn out, was compelled by a Christian judge to remain in it even on the Lord’s day; for when he said:
I keep the holy sabbath, I will not rise from the dung, the judge answered, as the Annals of England relate: Our sabbath indeed, Solomon, thou shalt celebrate in the same place.
Nay, the Machabees on the sabbath would not fight nor defend themselves; but taught by the slaughter of their own, they afterwards fought on the sabbath.
AND THE STRANGER THAT IS WITHIN THY GATES.—As if to say: A trader, or any other foreigner, even uncircumcised and a Gentile, when he is with thee, let him not violate the public feast of the place, but keep with thee the rest of the sabbath. So Cajetan and others.