EUGIPPIUS. - Christian writer of late Latinity, born in the second half of the 5th century, mentioned as still living in a letter of 533. He was one of the disciples of St. Severinus, apostle of Noricum, who in 482 transferred the body of their master through various lands, until they stopped (492) at Castellum Lucullanum near Naples (today's Pizzofalcone), where the Saint received honorable burial.
From here E., having become abbot, had relations with illustrious personages of the time, such as Bishop Fulgentius of Ruspe and the Roman deacon Paschasius. To the latter E. sent, in 511, a documented memoir of his own on the figure of his master Severinus so that, expanding it, he might compile a life of him. But Paschasius urged E. to publish the Vita Severini himself just as it was. Animated by fervent admiration for the ascetic, E. colors the narrative with the marvelous, through the account of a great number of miracles. But modern scholarship seeks in the work especially information about the culture of the era, so scarce in other sources, and about the migrations of peoples, which appear in the background. For a popularizing purpose, to spread, by limiting and clarifying it, the vast thought of Augustine, E. wrote a collection of 348 excerpta from the work of the Saint, of varying length, dedicating them to the Roman woman Proba. E. places special emphasis on the passages on charity (letter 167 and sermon 350).
A rule, written for his monks, has been lost. The work of E. is remembered by Cassiodorus and by Isidore.