Michael Glowasky: Augustine on Exodus 3:14-15 in the Enarrationes in Psalmos

It is widely recognized that Exodus 3:14-15 had a profound influence on Augustine’s view of the divine nature and of divine revelation. Indeed, Augustine discusses this passage no fewer than 49 times in his written corpus, fourteen of which are found in his Enarrationes in Psalmos alone. Scholars have been quick to note the importance of God’s self-disclosure as I AM in verse 14 for Augustine’s conception of the divine as esse, in particular. However, far less attention has been paid to the place of verse 15 in Augustine’s thought, despite his claim that this verse reveals the “other name” (aliud nomen) by which God is known: the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. In this paper, I discuss four key passages from his Enarrationes in Psalmos—two from the psalms of ascent and two from what have come to be known as the redemptive-historical psalms—where Augustine directly addresses the relationship between the two divine names God reveals to Moses in Exodus 3:14-15. By attending specifically to the rhetorical elements of these four passages, I suggest that there is greater tension between Augustine’s conception of God’s temporal revelation and his understanding of the divine as esse than is normally assumed. In fact, in these four passages, Augustine presents temporality and materiality as ongoing necessities for the knowledge of God, despite what he appears to suggest elsewhere.