Page:Goldenlegendlive00jaco.djvu/108

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94
S. Austin

Christ' And anon all the doubts of darkness were extinct in him.

And in the meantime he began to be so greatly tormented with toothache, that almost, he saith, he was brought to believe the opinion of Cornelius the philosopher, which putteth that the sovereign weal of the soul is in wisdom, and the sovereign weal of the body is in suffering no pain ne sorrow. And his pain was so great and vehement that he had lost his speech; wherefore, as he writeth in the book of his Confessions, he wrote in tables of wax that all men should pray for him that our Lord should assuage his pain, and he himself kneeled down with the other, and suddenly he felt himself whole.

And then he signified by letters to the holy man, S. Ambrose, that he [Ambrose] would send to him word, which of the books of holy writ appertaineth best to read in, for to be made most convenable to the christian faith. And he sent to him answer: 'Isaiah the prophet' ; because that he was seen to be the shower and pronouncer of the gospel and of calling of men. And when Augustin understood not all the beginning, and supposed all the remnant to be not otherwise than it [the beginning] was to read, he deferred to read them till he were more conning in holy writ.

And when the day of Easter came and Austin was thirty years old, he and his son which was named Adeodatus, a child of noble wit and understanding, whom he had gotten in his youth when he was a paynim and a philosopher; with Alipius his friend; by the merits of his mother and by the preaching of S. Ambrose; received baptism of S. Ambrose. And