[63] Accordingly he calls Israel, though younger in age, his “firstborn” son in dignity (Exod. 4:22), making it evident that he who sees God, the original Cause of being, is the recipient of honour, as earliest offspring of the Uncreated One, conceived by Virtue the object of the hatred of mortals, and as he to whom there is a law that a double portion, the right of the first-born, should be given as being the eldest (Deut. 21:17).
[64] For this reason also the seventh day, although in order it is the number born after 6, yet in value takes precedence of every number, in nothing differing from 1. This will be made clear by the law-giver himself, who in his epilogue to the narrative of the creation says: “And God rested on the seventh day from all His works which He had made; and God blessed the seventh day and hallowed it, because in it God rested from all his works which God had begun to make” (Gen. 2:2 f.).
[65] After this he adds: “This is the book of the creation of heaven and earth, when it was created, in the day in which God made the heaven and the earth” (Gen. 2:4). Now these things were created on the first day, so that the seventh day is referred back to 1, the first and starting-point of all. I have written thus fully with the object of showing the more clearly the opinion which Cain deems it necessary to set up as though he were building a city.