Teaching Christianity
reflection on them; or for that matter by that barbarian slave, a Christian, about whom we have recently been informed by the most serious and trustworthy men.[2] No human being had taught him how to read, but he prayed that the secret of it might be fully revealed to him, and after three days of prayer he obtained his request, so that he was able to read out loud from a volume that was handed him, to the amazement of those who were present.
5. Or if anyone should think this is untrue, I am not going to quarrel about it. After all, I am clearly dealing with Christians, who rejoice over their knowing the holy scriptures without human guidance; and if that is the case, it is a genuine good they are rejoicing over, one quite out of the ordinary. So let them grant me that each one of us, from earliest childhood, has had to learn our own language by constantly hearing it spoken, and has acquired a knowledge of any other language, whether Hebrew or Greek, or any of the rest, either in the same way by hearing it spoken, or from a human teacher. So now then, if you agree, let us advise all our brothers and sisters not to teach their small children these things, because after all it was in a single instant of time, with the coming of the Holy Spirit, that the apostles were filled and spoke in the tongues of all nations;[3] or else none of us who have not experienced such things should consider ourselves to be Christians, or to have received the Holy Spirit.
But no, on the contrary, let us not be too proud to learn what has to be learned with the help of other people, and let those of us by whom others are taught pass on what we have received without pride and without jealousy.[4] We must never tempt the one we have come to believe,[5] or we may be deceived by the cunning and crooked wiles of the enemy into refusing to go to church in order to hear and learn from the gospel, or to read the Bible, or to listen to anybody reading it out and preaching it; and into expecting to be