FERRANDO. - African bishop, d. ca. 546. He was a disciple of St. Fulgentius of Ruspe, and when the latter was exiled, along with 60 other African bishops, by the Vandal king Thrasamund to Sardinia (ca. 508), he followed him, and won over by his exhortations he embraced the religious life in a small monastery founded by Fulgentius at Cagliari. Having returned to Africa in 523, under King Hilderic, he was deacon of the Church of Carthage.

He wrote: the Vita s. Fulgentii, in which the admiration and grateful affection for the master and the evident edifying intent do not impair the value of the historical document, of the greatest importance for the knowledge of Fulgentius and of the African Church under Vandal rule. The Vita has come down to us anonymous: the attribution to F. is suggested by valid internal arguments, which few contest; the Breviatio canonum, which gathers in 232 chapters, arranging them by subject, the disciplinary norms in force in the Church, drawn from numerous Greek and African councils, treating first of the clergy: bishops (1-84), priests (85-103), deacons (104-20), other clerics (121-42), then of the councils (143-44), of crimes and of the conduct to be observed toward heretics, Jews and pagans (145-98), of Baptism (199-205), of Lent (206-10), finally of various subjects (211-32); Letters: 5 are notes of a personal character; 2 submit questions to Fulgentius, on a catechumen baptized when he was already deprived of consciousness and who died without having received the Eucharist (1), on the Trinity and on Jesus Christ; 5 are treatises in the form of a letter: to Anatolius, on the two natures and the one person of Christ (3), to Eugippius, on the same subject (4), to Severus of Constantinople, again of Trinitarian and Christological content (5), to Pelagius and Anatolius, deacons of Rome, on the question of the Three Chapters, to whose condemnation F. declares himself opposed, mentioning explicitly only Ibas of Edessa (6), to Count Reginus, in which, succeeding Fulgentius who had meanwhile died, he sets forth the duties of a Christian general (7).

Bibliography4 works

BIBL.: Ed. the Vita Fulgentii, with the works of the latter: Pl. 63, 378-435. The letters and the Breviatio Canonum, loc. cit., 67, 667-662. Migne published only the 7 letters-treatises, reproducing the edition of P. F. Chifflet, Dijon 1649 (the 4th completed by A. Mai, Script. vet. nova coll., 3, II, Rome 1828, pp. 169-84). The 5 shorter letters were published by A. Reiferscheid, in Analecta Constantiniana (ed. Index Scholarum Univ. Vratisl. per biennium 1871-72, 5, VII). Studies: G. Ficker, Zur Würdigung der Vita Fulgentii, in Zeitschr. f. Kirchengesch., 21 (1901), pp. 9-42; Schanz, IV, II, pp. 572-74; Bardenhewer, V, pp. 316-19; Moricca, III, II, pp. 1395-1407.

Michele Pellegrino

@incollection{ec5_ferrando, author = {Pellegrino, Michele}, title = {Ferrando}, booktitle = {Enciclopedia Cattolica}, volume = {V}, pages = {1181}, 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/ferrando} }

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