LIFE OF SAINT AUGUSTINE

In reviewing the life of Possidius,20 the first fact to be noted is that, apart from his relations with Augustine, he is practically unknown. He first appears as one of the group of intimate friends whom Augustine gathered around him in the monastery at Hippo and is mentioned only once after |12 Augustine's death.21 Possidius himself states at the very close of the Vita that he had lived with Augustine on terms of intimate friendship for "almost forty years." Augustine was made Presbyter at Hippo in 391 and "soon after" 22 established his monastery. As this was thirty-nine years before Augustine's death, Possidius must have become connected with the monastery at the very beginning or soon after. Where he came from and how he came to enter the monastery must remain matters of conjecture, but it seems fair to suppose that he came from Hippo or the immediate neighborhood.

The date of Possidius's birth, also, may be arrived at only approximately. As he was still living and performing his episcopal duties seven years after the death of Augustine,23 who lived to be seventy-six,24 he was in all likelihood younger than his teacher and friend. When he entered the monastery, therefore, he was probably not over thirty, as Augustine was then thirty-five. Moreover he was probably at least twenty, in view of the fact that he soon became Augustine's intimate friend. This would accordingly fix the date of his birth somewhere between the years 360 and 370.