because "Seeing God," more or less, is the meaning of the name Jacob goes on in the next verse or
288 SAINT AUGUSTINE - SERMONS
6. See Job 3:5; 12:22; Ps 23:4; 88:6. 7. See Acts 2:14; 4:4. 8. Is Augustine suggesting a kind of original Jewish sin, inherited from the founding ancestor—a tendency to unbelief? It rather looks like it. If so, he has a forerunner in Hosea, who is not at all proud of the nation's ancestor; see Hos 12:3-9.
9. In the slang sense of the expression; but it really conveys better than any other English word the play on Jacob's name—and an element in his character. The way he treated Esau shows he was a heel!
10. See Sermon 122, note 7, where I suggest that Augustine's memory was playing him tricks, because "Seeing God," more or less, is the meaning of the name Jacob goes on in the next verse or two to give the place: Peniel. The curious thing is that in a sermon preached on Jacob, Sermon 5, section 6, he quotes the text in full, where the "official" interpretation of the name Israel is given. So the transferring of the meaning of Peniel to Israel seems more like a bad habit he got into in his old age, rather than just a slip of memory. But someone with a smattering of Hebrew might have suggested to him that Israel is "Ish-ra-el": "Man-see-God."
11. Errat in te nomen, manet in te crimen.
12. More undoubtedly in the Latin than in the English: Ubi femoris latitudo, procul dubio generis multitude.