Alipius, Saint

ALIPIUS, Saint. - Bishop of Tagaste, disciple and very close friend of St. Augustine, to whom we owe almost everything we know about him. Born at Tagaste a few years after Augustine, he attended his lessons both in his native city and at Carthage. The friendship that followed, and which was never to lose anything of its intimacy throughout their whole lives, drew the pupil away from his unruly passion for the games of the circus, but bound him to the master in adherence to Manichaeism. Having gone to Rome to study law, and having been elected comes elargitionum, A. suffered a painful fall into his passion for the spectacles of the gladiators; but afterwards he was drawn back from it by his very vivid sense of moral probity and by the goodness and mercy of the Lord (Confess., 6, 8, n. 13). He followed Augustine to Milan, took part in all the alternating vicissitudes, struggles and anxieties of his conversion, supported him in the hard battles and defeats of the senses, and received in return the most pressing invitations to embrace the Christian religion. The two friends were baptized together (25 April 387) and lived together at Cassiciacum, taking part in those philosophical disputations that Augustine describes in the two opuscules: Contra Academicos and De Ordine (PL 32, 905 ff.; 977 ff.). Having returned to Africa, A. was Augustine's companion in the monastery of Hippo: he made a brief journey to the East, where he met St. Jerome, and shortly afterwards was elected bishop of Tagaste (394). The city, under his guidance, caused to flourish anew that holiness, exactness and orthodoxy that prevailed at Hippo. He took part in several councils and fought vigorously against the heretics, comforted by the example, the letters and the love of Augustine. He appears to have died in 429 or 430. His name entered the Roman Martyrology only in 1584, under the date of 15 Aug. But the Hermits and the Canons Regular of St. Augustine celebrate his feast on the 18th.

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