AURELIUS, St. — Bishop of Carthage and primate of the African Church from about 392 to 429. Even as a deacon he displayed great charity toward the poor and zeal for the purity of worship, as St. Augustine, who was his close friend, relates (*De Civitate Dei*, XXII, 8; Epist. 22, 4; PL 33, 92). More a man of action than of thought, he was a zealous and prudent pastor. St. Augustine also informs us that A. was the first to put an end at Carthage to the scandalous popular rejoicings that were customary at the festivals of the martyrs (*Sermo* 111, 5; PL 38, 1415). It was during his episcopate that the temple of the goddess Caelestis was destroyed (421), whose ancient cult was so dear to the Carthaginian people. He insisted that priests should preach in the episcopal church even in his own presence, a practice then almost unheard of, for which St. Augustine praised him (*Epist.* 41, 1; PL 33, 158) and defended him against a certain Hiarus, who reproached A. for introducing the custom of singing psalms during Mass (*Retractationes*, II, 11; PL 32, 634). It was at A.’s request that St. Augustine composed the work *De opere monachorum* against the idleness of certain monks (*Retract.*, II, 21; PL 32, 638 sq.).
During the almost forty years of his episcopate he presided over more than twenty synods. The first was at Hippo in 393, at which important disciplinary measures were taken (Mansi, III, 894; Hefele-Leclercq, II, pp. 84-90); the others were almost always held at Carthage. Among these are to be remembered that of June 411, in which a public debate was organized between the Catholic bishops and the Donatists, supported in the first session by A. (his remarks are recorded in PL 11, 1231-37, 1257-1353) and in the following sessions by St. Augustine and Possidius; and that of Carthage in 418 against Pelagius and Caelestius.
From the acts of these synods and other testimonies it is clear that A. enjoyed the greatest veneration and esteem from the African bishops, who called him “sancus senex,” “sancus papa Aurelius”; equal esteem was shown him by Pope Innocent I (PL 20, 517) and St. John Chrysostom (PG 52, 700). Of his writings there remain: a letter to all the bishops established in the provinces of Byzacena and Numidia to transmit to them an imperial constitution against the Pelagian heresy (PL 20, 1009 sq.), and the brief allocutions delivered at the various synods (Mansi, III, cols. 699-843). The Carthaginian calendar of the early 6th century records his deposition on July 20, whence he passed into the *Martyrologium Hieronymianum*.