Sts Alypius and Possidius, bishops

We remember together two of the men most closely associated with Augustine of Hippo. Like Augustine, Alypius was a native of Thagaste in Roman North Africa (today Souk-Ahras in Algeria) where his parents were «leading citizens», according to Augustine in his «Confessions». They were of a similar age, with Alypius slightly the younger. Alypius greatly admired the talent of Augustine, sat in on many of his lectures from Thagaste to Milan, shared many of his intellectual and moral wanderings as well as his conversion experience and, later, his monastic life and apostolic labours.

Augustine valued particularly his young friends «solid virtue» and chastity despite his addiction at one time to the public games and gladiatorial contests of the Carthaginian circus, from which Augustine’s words were to rescue him. Alypius – called in the «Confessions» «the brother of my soul» was baptised with Augustine at Milan and returned with him to Africa to set up their lay monastic community at Thagaste. Eventually Alypius would become bishop of Thagaste shortly before his friend became bishop of Hippo. Later he would appear with some frequency in Augustine’s letters and probably died soon after Augustine’s death in 430.

Possidius was also a native of Roman North Africa. A member of Augustine’s first community at Hippo, he was one of some ten members of the community chosen as bishops in the North African Church, in his case at Calama where he was to face much opposition from the Donatists. With Augustine and Alypius he was part of the delegation of Catholic bishops that met the Donatist representatives at a famous meeting at Carthage in 411. Possidius was later exiled from his diocese when the Vandals tried to impose the Arian heresy in North Africa and he died in exile about 437. Possidius wrote an invaluable first biography of Augustine with whom, as he tells us himself, «I lived in close friendship for almost forty years». He also compiled a valuable catalogue of Augustine’s writings.