Tolle, lege! ('Take up and read!'). These overheard sing-song words prompted Augustine to take up and read Romans 13.13, a lectionary event that led to his conversion to Christianity. The differences and similarities between Augustine and C.S. Lewis, both avid readers who came to faith in Jesus Christ as adults, are many and striking. As regards similarities, both were well acquainted with the pagan philosophical options of their day; both were skilled in the art of ancient rhetoric, though neither knew Hebrew; both initially regarded the style of biblical texts to be somewhat lowbrow and unseemly. As regards differences, one contrast will have to suffice: whereas Augustine felt compelled to repudiate as false the Manichaean gnostic myths in which he used to believe, Lewis's conversion led him to recognize the biblical story of Jesus as 'myth become fact'. This phrase has puzzled both critics and admirers as to its implications for his view of scripture. It also places Evangelicals, perhaps the group most responsible for Lewis's popularity, in something of a quandary when it comes to scripture, for Evangelicals warm to 'fact' but sound the alarm over 'myth'. Lewis was not terribly troubled over his Evangelical credentials or lack thereof. He was neither a biblical scholar nor professional theologian but a 'mere Christian' and scholar of medieval and Renaissance English literature. He was a person of 'books' before he became a person of 'the book'.