Just a few things are widely known about Augustine of Hippo (354–430 a.d.), whose designations are as lofty and sweeping as saint, doctor (= “teacher”) of the Church, and the greatest of the Church Fathers. He refined the doctrine of original sin, the logic that connects mankind’s eternal fate to offenses in the Garden of Eden. He saw sex as a mammoth obstacle to a fully Christian life. (Who hasn’t heard of his youthful prayer, “Give me chastity and continence, but not yet”?) And the crucial resolve came to him in a garden, when he heard a child’s voice from nearby chanting, “Pick it up, read it!” — and picked up and read a command in Paul of Tarsus’s letters to leave the dissolute life behind.
But Robin Lane Fox, perhaps the most helpful living popularizer of ancient history and culture, points out that Augustine may here have made a mistake in interpretation (one of many, as it appears). The Latin words he heard can also mean, “Take away, gather,” or “Pick up, gather.” (I’m stimulated to note another possibility, “choose” instead of “gather”; several kinds of children’s games shared between many cultures would in fact fit a non-“read” translation.)
Comments