“I heard the voice as of a boy or girl, I know not which, coming from a neighbouring…”
I heard the voice as of a boy or girl, I know not which, coming from a neighbouring house, chanting, and oft repeating, "Take up and read; take up and read."
Augustine of Hippo · Confessions · NPNF1 I, Confessions, Book VIII, chapter xii, 29
The garden at Milan in 386. He takes the child’s chant as a command, opens Paul at random, reads Romans xiii. 13, and stops being a catechumen.
How this is known
These words were matched, word for word, against this project’s own copy of the volume cited.
The project holds the volume this row cites, NPNF series 1 vol. 1, and the build matches these words against its bytes at every rebuild. Schaff tells the same episode in his own prolegomena at l. 501 as "Take, read!", which is a different rendering in the same file; this is the one in Pilkington’s text.
Read in Pilkington, NPNF series 1 vol. 1 (1886) · J. G. Pilkington, M.A.
Also by
- Augustine of Hippo every saying recorded of this person, and their page