FORTUNATIANUS. - Bishop of Aquileia, African by origin, he was elected around 342 amid the tumults provoked by the Arian bishops Ursacius and Valens. He was present at the Council of Sardica (343), and in 345 he had as his guest in Aquileia St. Athanasius and the emperor Constans. Pope Liberius placed great trust in him on the occasion of the Council of Milan convoked by Constantius in 355. But F. subscribed to the condemnation of St. Athanasius, and in 357-58 he is said to have had a large part in making Liberius bend to the wishes of the emperor Constantius. There is no further record of him; certainly by 371 he was already dead.

St. Jerome reports that F. under Constantius wrote commentaries on the Gospel "titulis ordinatis, brevi et rustico sermone" (De viris illustr., 97: PL 23, 735; cf. also in the introduction to the Gospel of St. Matthew: ibid., 26, 20); elsewhere he calls those commentaries "margarita de evangelio" (ibid., 22, p. 343); they have not yet been traced among the anonymous works that have come down to us.

Bibliography4 works

BIBL.: L. Duchesne, Libère et Fortunation, in Mélanges d'archéel. et d'histoire, 28 (1908), p. 45 ff.; P. Paschini, Le vicende politiche e religiose del territorio friulano ecc., in Mem. stor. foragini, 8 (1912), p. 233 ff.; id., Storia del Friuli, I, Udine 1934, p. 30 ff.; U. Mannucci, Istituzioni di patrolania, II, Rome 1942, p. 202.

Pio Paschini

@incollection{ec5_fortunaziano, author = {Paschini, Pio}, title = {Fortunaziano}, booktitle = {Enciclopedia Cattolica}, volume = {V}, pages = {1542--1543}, note = {Cited by column}, publisher = {Ente per l’Enciclopedia Cattolica e per il Libro Cattolico}, address = {Città del Vaticano}, year = {1950}, url = {https://azioneromana.com/article/fortunaziano} }

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Fortunatianus

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