Augustine of Hippo, on 1Thess 2:7

“Whereas we might have been burdensome to you, as the apostles of Christ: but we became little ones in the midst of you, as if a nurse should cherish her children:”

“See Paul ascending: "I know a man in Christ who fourteen years ago (whether in the body or out of the body I do not know, God knows) was caught up to the third heaven and heard unutterable words which it is not granted to man to speak." You heard him ascending; hear him descending: "I could not speak to you as spiritual men but only as carnal, as to little ones in Christ. I gave you milk to drink, not solid food." Look, he who had ascended descended. Seek where he had ascended: "Up to the third heaven." Seek where he had descended: To giving milk to little ones. Hear that he descended: "I became a little one," he says, "in your midst, as if a nurse were fondling her own children." For we see both nurses and mothers de-scend to little ones; and though they know how to speak Latin, they clip their words and somehow switch their speech so that they may be able to communicate their desires through simple language; for if they should speak in a mature, grammatically correct fashion, the in-fant does not hear with understanding. Neither does he benefit. And some eloquent father, though he be a great orator, thundering with his tongue and rattling the magistrates' platforms, if he should have a son, when he returns home, he puts aside the legal eloquence by which he had ascended and with childish language he de-scends to his little one.”

Imported from an open dataset — not yet checked against the printed edition.