The garden at Milan — tolle, lege

Book 8 opens with Augustine consulting Simplicianus, a priest who was Ambrose's own spiritual father. Augustine tells him his whole history. Simplicianus responds with the story of Victorinus — the great Roman rhetorician and philosopher who translated the Platonists into Latin and who, in his old age, converted publicly to Christianity and made the profession of faith from the raised platform in full sight of the congregation. The story is meant as an encouragement; it shows that even the proudest and most intellectual conversion is possible.

Then Ponticianus arrives — an African Christian who holds a high position at court. He finds Augustine's copy of Paul's epistles and is surprised and pleased. He tells them the story of the desert father Antony: a young Egyptian who heard Matthew 19:21 read in church, gave away his property, and became the model of Christian asceticism. He tells them further about two imperial agents at Trier who had read Antony's life and had renounced their careers on the spot to live as monks. Augustine is shaken. He sees, in these men, something he is not doing. After Ponticianus leaves, he retreats to the garden.

In the garden he paces, unable to stand still. He has been capable of the final step intellectually for some time; the will is what he cannot command. He sits under a fig tree, weeps, and prays — and he records, with characteristic dark humor, that he has been praying for chastity for years with the unstated rider "but not yet." Then, from the next garden — Augustine cannot tell if it is a boy or a girl — a child's voice chants repeatedly: tolle, lege, tolle, lege. Pick up and read. He returns to where he left the codex of Paul's epistles, opens at random, and reads the verse on which his eye falls: Romans 13:13–14. The resistance breaks. He marks the place, closes the book, tells Alypius, who reads the next verse and takes the same step. They go in to Monica.