Yesterday, by the way, was also the Feast of St. Alypius, who was the life long friend of St. Augustine of Hippo, who became the bishop of Augustine’s home town. Here is his entry in the Martyrologium Romanum:
5. Commemoratio sancti Alypii, episcopi Thagastensis in Numidia, qui sancti Augustini olim discipulus, postea in conversione socius, in munere pastorali collega et in certaminibus adversus haereticos commilito strenuus ac demum in caelesti gloria consors fuit. … The commemoration of Saint Alypius, bishop of Thagaste in Numidia, who having once been the student of Saint Augustine, later was his companion in conversion, his colleague in pastoral care and a fellow soldier, strenuous in their battles against heretics, and later his fellow participant in heavenly glory.
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Intriguing! Was Alypius a popular given name?
To my untutored ear, it sounds kinda similar to the Assyrian Church missionary Alopen mentioned on the Xi-an stele in Hebei, China:
http://www.orthodox.cn/history/jingjiao/010724firstarrival_en.htm
“…the first official and documented arrival of Christianity in China took place in the year 635. A delegation from Baghdad, headed by a Persian bishop with the Chinese name Alopen, was received by Emperor Taizong of the Tang dynasty in Changan, then capital of China, near present-day Xi’an.”
(translated text at Fordham :
http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/eastasia/781nestorian.html
and more fascinating facts at Diocese of Hong Kong’s Holy Spirit Study Centre
http://www.hsstudyc.org.hk/Webpage/Tripod/T124/T124_E05.htm
(from “Le Christ Chinois, Héritages et espérance” Collection Christus No. 87 Essais, Desclée de Brouwer, Bellarmin, Paris, 1998, translated and used with permission)
IHMO similarities of “al – yp – ius” in etymology of the Sanskrit term ‘upaniá¹£ad’ worthy of note also: upa- (near), ni- (down) and sad (to sit), i.e. referring to the “sitting down near” a spiritual teacher. Could these late Hindu texts be syncretisms of ancient Assyrian Christian Wisdom teachings emanating from Tibetan remnants?