Page:Anglo-Saxon version of the Hexameron of St. Basil.djvu/46

This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
THE HEXAMERON IN ENGLISH.
21

ward- gave him the name of Adam, and from one of his ribs He formed him a mate, her name was Eve, the mother of us all, and God then blessed them with this blessing, "Increase and be multiplied and fill the earth, and have you dominion over the earth, and over the fishes of the sea, and over the birds that fly, and over all the creatures that are moving upon the earth." God then beheld all His works and they were very good, and the sixth day was so ended.

XII. And God then completed on the seventh day His works which He had wrought with wondrous conception, and He then rested Himself and blessed the day, because He on the seventh day "ceased from His work. He was not weary, although it is so written, nor did He altogether desist from renewing His creatures, but He ceased from the disposition of the profound art, so that He would not afterwards create things unheard of, but renews the same unto the end of this world, as our Saviour hath said in His holy gospel, Pater meus usque modo operatur, et ego operor, that is in English, "My Father worketh yet unto this present day, and I also work." In every year is cattle propagated, and the human race is produced to men, whom God makes as He made the former ones, and He does not create any soul except in children alone, and all the inferior animals have not any soul.

XIII. Some persons have thought (weened) that this world was ever without any beginning, altogether as it now is, heaven and earth, and all creatures, but we in truth say that God Himself created them, and there would not have been any creatures if they had not been created, nor were they made through themselves, but God wrought them.