conversion · 387 · Milan
He had come to Milan as a professor of rhetoric to advance his career, went to hear Ambrose because the man was a famous speaker, and stayed because of what he was saying — the allegorical reading of the Old Testament removed the objection that had kept him out. The garden scene, the child's voice chanting take up and read, and the copy of Romans opened at the thirteenth chapter belong to the summer before. He was baptised at the Easter vigil of 387 with his son Adeodatus, who was fifteen and would be dead within two years, and his friend Alypius. His mother was there and had been waiting for it for a very long time. The Confessions are the only source for nearly all of it, and this dataset holds no other.
To be baptised, after nine years as a Manichee, a spell as a sceptic, and a long argument with himself in a garden.
The Confessions, and everything downstream of them.