Fulgentius
Acta Sanctorum, May 22
Source text: Public Domain. English translation/apparatus/encoding: CC BY-NC 4.0, Wroot Press.
https://actasanctorum.org/may/day-22/fulgentius.html
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ON ST. FULGENTIUS,

BISHOP OF OTRICOLI IN ITALY.

SIXTH CENTURY.

HISTORICAL COMMENTARY.

On his cult, the notice from S. Gregory: on the other apocryphal Acts.

Fulgentius, Bishop of Otricoli in Italy (S.)

BY THE AUTHOR G. H.

Otriculum, or Utriculum, to others also
Otriculi and Urticuli, a town, one old,
the other present-day. The old was in a plain
beside the Tiber's bank, where also vaults
and columns and many other of antiquity
traces are found. [The sacred cult.] But the present-day on a neighboring mountain
constructed, is between Narni to the North and Civita-Castellana
to the south. In old Otriculum was Bishop
S. Florentius, of whom in the present-day town perseveres
the Ecclesiastical veneration, which in the Ms. Florarium of the Saints and
in Galesinius is referred at the Kalends of January: but in
Ferrarius in the general Catalogue at the third day of December:
but in the Catalogue of the Saints of Italy he transmits the reader
to this XXII of May, when in each Catalogue of
him he treats: The elogia everywhere are taken from book 3 of the Dialogues
of S. Gregory the Great, who when in the eleventh chapter he had treated of
S. Cerbonius Bishop of Populonia, [Acts from the Dialogues of S. Gregory] whose annual celebrity is
the day X of October; and had narrated the ship, in which his body
was carried, by a stormy rain to have been untouched: soon in chapter
twelve of S. Fulgentius these things he recounts.

[2] This which of the divided rain done I narrated miracle,
also in the veneration of another Bishop
was shown. For a certain Cleric old, who
still survives, to the same thing to have been present testifies,
saying: Fulgentius the Bishop, who over the Church of Utriculum
presided, the most cruel King Totila hostile
in every way had. [He sends to Totila gifts,] And when to those parts with
his army he had drawn near, it was the care of the Bishop through his Clerics
gifts to him to transmit; and his fury's madness,
if he could, with gifts to mitigate. Which he, when he saw,
forthwith spurned: and angry to his men
commanded, that the same Bishop with all harshness
they should bind, and him for his examination keep. [bound to him he is led:]
Whom while the fierce Goths, the ministers namely of his cruelty,
held, surrounding him in one place
to stand they ordered, and to him on the ground a circle they designated,
beyond which a foot to extend in no way he should dare.
And when the man of God in the excessive sun was scorched, by
the same Goths surrounded, and by the designation of the circle
enclosed, [enclosed in a designated circle,] suddenly lightnings and thunders and so great
force of rain burst forth, that those who him to be guarded had received,
the immensity of the rain to bear could not.
And while a great too much inundation was made, within the same
designation of the circle, in which the man of the Lord Fulgentius
stood, not even one of rain a drop descended.
Which when to the King most cruel was announced, that
mind savage to a great of him reverence was turned,
whose punishment before with insatiable fury he thirsted. [from the rain untouched he remains.] So
the omnipotent God against the elated minds of carnal men
of his power the miracles through the despised works, that
those who proudly against the precepts of truth themselves elevate, their
neck the truth through the humble may press. Thus far
S. Gregory: and from him Peter de Natalibus book 2 of the Catalogue
chapter 33 and others. We treated on the day XIV of May of SS. Victor and
Corona, and in the Analecta num. 2 we said, that S. Fulgentius
about the year DXL the body of S. Victor found, and above
it built an altar. Masini in Bononia perlustrata,
Relics of the same some asserts to be kept in the church
of S. Stephen. Ferrarius from the monuments of the Church of Utriculum
these things adjoins:

[3] [whether alive in a pit he was buried?] When Totila to Utriculum had come, and at the instigation of the wicked
the holy Bishop to be cut down, and before
his chariot bound to be led had commanded; him the soldiers,
because from preaching he ceased not, into a pit
casting headlong alive bury. But a globe of light, from
which the voice of Fulgentius praying, and of another him consoling
was heard, being seen; the King and those standing by, the man's
sanctity admiring, and made penitent, him to
burial accompanied. To which that Annotation
adds Ferrarius: If so the matter holds, as a Martyr
therefore, not as a Confessor by the Church of Utriculum
S. Fulgentius the Bishop is to be venerated. But how can be believed
a narration so different from that which to us handed down
S. Gregory? Therefore we do not think it to be labored by us, that
from the Otriculan church we should receive those very things which Ferrarius
alleges monuments, deservedly for figments to be held.
