his name was. Here he in fact tells Moses to tell the people that the God of Abraham, Isaac, and
SERMON 223A 219
12. As Stoic doctrine, a rather crude pantheism, would have it. He does seem to be wandering away from the Trinity and the right way of thinking about it.
13. Examples, these, of a no doubt humbler rural paganism than that of the great city temples. Was he perhaps preaching in a country parish?
14. Animus, as distinct from anima, soul, which he has just mentioned. They are synonyms with a subtle difference.
15. Like Woden (or is it Thor?), the Germanic smith deity, corresponding to the Roman Vulcan and the Greek Hephaestus.
16. Reading, in the first part of the sentence, Nolite volutatibus volvi, instead of. .. voluntatibus ... ; and in the second volutariis... cogitationibus instead of voluntariis... ; two very uncommon words unthinkingly replaced with common ones by a copyist. But "will" and "voluntary thoughts" have nothing to do with his point. His image is one of rolling, going round and round, volvi, as opposed to standing still.
17. If he wasn't confusing his audience, and getting their thoughts going round and round like wheels, he is certainly confusing his translator! How this helps him get from I am who am to the God of Abraham etc., I cannot fathom.
18. Here I leave out a whole clause, in which the text seems rather corrupt; or else Augustine was being quite extraordinarily careless with his grammar. As the distinguished Loeb edition of the classics used to leave passages untranslated which the editor judged indecent, so I leave this one out. And just as that was an infallible inducement to schoolboys to study the text with extra care and attention, so here I hope it will encourage readers to see how they could manage the translation. Here then is the whole sentence:
Ergo cum diceret Deus ad hominem, invisibilis per id quod apparere dignatus est visibilis loqueretur, aeternus temporalia, incommutabilis fragilia, cum diceret. . .
So when God said to a man, the invisible one by that which he deigned to appear visible spoke, the eternal one temporal things, the unchangeable one frail things, when he said . ..
Sheer gobbledygook, and quite beside the point.
19. God had already declared himself as the God of the ancestors before Moses asked him what his name was. Here he in fact tells Moses to tell the people that the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob had sent him.
20. He is already reflecting on the second half of verse 15, which he hasn't yet quoted. And as he—or his version, but I suspect it is himself (after all, he had been up all night, and was getting as dog-tired as his congregation must have been)—had somewhat misquoted the text, he missed the point that the name God was talking about here was "the Lord," YHWH.
21. This is not the usual "Turning to the Lord" prayer, the text of which can be found in Note 22 to Sermon 15A, volume 1 of these sermons. There it is mistakenly asserted that the text is also given at the end of Sermon 34.1 think it will be found at the end of Sermon 63, in volume 3.