“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.

Schaff tells the same episode in his own prolegomena as “Take, read!”, a different rendering printed in the same volume; 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