FULGENTIUS FERRANDUS: Deacon at Car thage; d. there before 547. He suffered banishment from Africa under the Vandal King Thrasamund and accompanied his friend and teacher, Fulgentius of Ruspe (q.v.), into exile to Sardinia, but returned to Africa in 523 and became deacon at Carthage. Nothing is known of his later life. Apart from an anonymously transmitted biography of Fulgentius of Ruspe (MPL, lxv. 117 150), he left behind him several letters and circulars on dogmatic and ethical questions (MPL, lxvii. 887 948). Best known, and of greatest interest as regards church history, is the circular addressed in 546 to the Roman deacons Pelagius and Anatolius on the occasion of the Three Chapter Controversy (q.v.). The title is, Pro epistula Ibce episcopi Edesseni adeoque de tribus capitulia eoncilii Chalce donensis adversus acephalos. Fulgentius expresses himself very positively against the contemplated condemnation of the Three Chapters; and he succeeded in confirming the African bishops in their opposition. There may still be mentioned, as of moment for the history of canon law, his Breviatio car nonum (MPL, Ixvii. 949-962), a compilation of the church regulations at that time operative in North Africa.

G. Krüger.

Bibliography: The Letters of Fulgentius are collected in A. Mai, Scriptorum veterum nova collsdio, iii. 2, pp. 169-184, 10 vols., Rome, 1825-38; A. Reifferscheid, Aneodota Casineneia, pp. 5-7, Wratislaw, 1871-72; O. Bardenhewer, Patrologie, p. 544, Freiburg, 1901; DCB, ii. 583-584.

FULGENTIUS OF RUSPE: Bishop of Ruspe in the province of Byzacena, North Africa; b. at Telepte, North Africa, 468; d. at Ruspe Jan. 1, 533. He was born of a senatorial family, and on account of his good education and practical ability obtained at an early age the office of fiscal procurator, but, under the influence of Augustine's writings, he soon entered a cloister and subjected himself to the strictest asceticism. The persecutions of catholics under the Vandal King Thrasamund drove him from his home to Sicily and Rome about 500. On his return he became abbot of a small island cloister on the African coast, and in 508 (or 507) bishop of Ruspe. Scarcely had he entered upon his office when with other catholics he was banished from North Africa. With many of his fellow exiles, including his biographer, Fulgentius Ferrandus (q.v.), he settled at Cagliari, Sardinia, where he developed great practical and literary activity and became the recognized leader of the exiles in their efforts to effect their return to Africa. In 515 Thrasamund summoned him to a disputation that he had arranged between catholics and Arians, but Fulgentius, persisting in his conviction, had to return into exile. He was likewise drawn into the disputes of the Eastern Church by request of the so-called Scythian monks (see Semi-pelaglianism Theopaschites). On the death of Thrasamund in 523 he returned to Ruspe and resumed the administration of his diocese, which he resigned a year before his death.

Fulgentius was one of the most influential champions of orthodoxy against Arianism and Semi-Pelagisanism, to which he opposed the Augustinian doctrine, though avoiding, as far as possible, its subtleties and austerities. Of his numerous writings the most important are: Contra Arianos; Ad Thrasamundum regent Vandalorum libri iii; De remissions pu;catorum ad Buthymium libri ii; Ad Monimum laTbri iii; De veritate pradestinationis et gratite deb ad Johannem et Venerdum libri iii; De fide sive de regula verse fidet ad Petrum, his best-known and most valuable writing; and Liber de incarnations et gratin domini nosh Jesu Christi, addressed to the Scythian monks, and also designated as Epist. (xvii.) ad Petrum diaconum. The best edition of the works of Fulgentius is that of L. Mangeant (Paris, 1684; reprinted in MPL,1xv.105-1018).

G. Krüger.

Bibliography: O. Bardenhewer, Patrologie, pp. 544 @lq.. Freiburg, 1901; F. Wbrter, Zur Dogmengeschichte des Semipeiapianismus. Münster, 1900; Harnack, Dogma, v. 258 sqq., 293; DCB, ii. 576-583 (rather detailed); ABB, Jan., i. 32-45.