I kept saying these things and weeping with the bitterest sorrow of my
heart. And, behold, I heard from a nearby house the voice of someone—whether
boy or girl I know not—chanting, as it were, and repeating over and over: ‘Take
it, read it! Take it, read it!’ And immediately, with a transformed
countenance, I started to think with greatest concentration whether it was the
usual thing for children to chant words such as this in any kind of game, and
it did not occcur to me that I had ever heard anything like it. Having stemmed
the flow of my tears, I got up, taking it to mean that nothing else was
divinely commanded me than that I should open a book and read the first passage
that I should find. For I had heard about Anthony that he had been admonished
from a reading of the Gospel on which he had come by chance, as if what was
being read was said for him: ‘Go, sell what thou hast, and give to the poor,
and thou shalt have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me,’ and by such a
revelation he was at once converted to Thee.
And so I went hurriedly back to the place where Alypius was sitting. I
had placed there the copy of the Apostle, when I had got up from the place.
Snatching it up, I opened it and read in silence the first passage on which my
eyes fell: ‘Not in revelry and drunkenness, not in debauchery and wantonness,
not in strife and jealousy; but put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and as for the
flesh, take no thought for its lusts.’ No further did I desire to read, nor
was there need. Indeed, immediately with the termination of this sentence, all
the darknesses of doubt were dispersed, as if by a light of peace flooding into
my heart. (Augustine of Hippo, Confessions [trans. Vernon J. Bourke;
The Fathers of the Church 21; Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America
Press, 1953], 224-25)
Dicebam haec, et flebam, amarissima contritione cordis mei. et ecce
audio vocem de vicina domo cum cantu dicentis, et crebro repetentis, quasi
pueri an puellae, nescio: “tolle lege, tolle lege.” statimque mutato vultu
intentissimus cogitare coepi, utrumnam solerent pueri in aliquo genere ludendi
cantitare tale aliquid, nec occurrebat omnino audisse me uspiam: repressoque
impetu lacrimarum surrexi, nihil aliud interpretans divinitus mihi iuberi, nisi
ut aperirem codicem et legerem quod primum caput invenissem. audieram enim de
Antonio, quod ex evangelica lectione, cui forte supervenerat, admonitus fuerit,
tamquam sibi diceretur quod legebatur: vade, vende omnia, quae habes, da
pauperibus et habebis thesaurum in caelis; et veni, sequere me: et tali oraculo
confestim ad te esse conversum. itaque concitus redii in eum locum, ubi sedebat
Alypius: ibi enim posueram codicem apostoli, cum inde surrexeram. arripui,
aperui et legi in silentio capitulum, quo primum coniecti sunt oculi mei: non
in comissationibus et ebrietatibus, non in cubilibus et inpudicitiis, non in
contentione et aemulatione, sed induite dominum Iesum Christum, et carnis
providentiam ne feceritis in concupiscentiis. nec ultra volui legere, nec opus
erat. statim quippe cum fine huiusce sententiae, quasi luce securitatis
infusa cordi meo, omnes dubitationis tenebrae diffugerunt. (Augustine of
Hippo, St. Augustine's Confessions: Latin Text, ed. T. E. Page and W. H.
D. Rouse, 2 vols. [The Loeb Classical Library; New York: The Macmillan Co.,
1912], 1:462-64)
