ON S. FLOSCULUS, OR FUSCOLUS, BISHOP OF ORLEANS IN GAUL.
ABOUT THE YEAR OF CHRIST 500.
CommentaryS. Flosculus, Bishop of Orleans in Gaul.
I. B.
[1] The city of Orleans in Gaul (which the writers of the Middle Ages called Aurelianis omni casu, as is evident from the second Life of S. Genevieve, the third of January, chapter 8, number 34, and Aurelianis, as in the Life of S. Maurus the Abbot, the fifteenth of January, chapter 6, number 33 and number 36; The Acts of S. Flosculus, Bishop of Orleans, are lost. most of the learned agree was the ancient Genabum) has been made illustrious by many Saints: two of them on this day, S. Flosculus or Fuscolus the Bishop, and S. Sicharia the Virgin. The name of each is celebrated in the Martyrologies; their Acts have perished or still lie hidden. We shall treat of S. Sicharia separately below.
[2] Concerning S. Flosculus, the old Roman Martyrology, bearing the name of S. Jerome, has this: At Orleans, the deposition of the Blessed Flosculus the Bishop. Birthday on the second of February. Usuardus, Ado, and very many manuscripts add nothing further. Bellinus, the Florarium, Galesinius, and others add: and Confessor. Nor did Andreas Saussaius himself discover anything else about him in his Gallican Martyrology, who on the third of February weaves this eulogy of him, which could apply to any Bishop Confessor: At Orleans, S. Flosculus, Bishop and Confessor, who, shining before his committed flock with an excellent example of holy living, attained by a happy end to the joys of the blessed life. Constantinus Ghinius has this: At Orleans, S. Flosculus the Bishop, who succeeding S. Prosper was the thirteenth Bishop of that See; and, as a true flower, gave forth the fragrance of good works. He rested in the Lord on the fourth day before the Nones of February about the year of the Lord 450. We shall presently examine these claims. Constantius Felicius writes that he was crowned with martyrdom at Rome together with Fortunatus, Felicianus, Aurelianus, etc.; using a faulty codex in which, instead of the city name Aurelianis, the name Aurelianus was expressed as that of a Martyr.
[3] The name variously expressed. He whom the Roman Martyrology old and modern, Ado, Notker, and many manuscripts call Flosculus; Usuardus, the Centula manuscript ascribed to Bede, the manuscript of S. Lawrence at Liege (which is Ado's), the Martyrology of the Abbey of S. Lawrence at Bourges published by our Philippus Labbeus, and very many manuscripts call Fuscolus. Canisius and Molanus in the first edition of Usuardus call him Floscolus. Bellinus de Padua in the Venice edition, Maurolycus, the Florarium, and other manuscripts call him Fulcolus: Bellinus in the Paris edition, the manuscript of S. Lambert at Liege, and Galesinius, etc., call him Flostolus. The Prague manuscript Martyrology calls him Efflosculus. Richardus Wytfordus calls him Frustolus. Felicius calls him Furcolus.
[4] The infant who is mentioned in the Life of S. Anianus the Bishop, the seventeenth of November, who was placed at the altar by the command of S. Evurtius the Bishop, so that he might take a parchment or brief from it, and as he laid his hand on the altar and touched the brief exclaimed: His age. Anianus, Anianus, Anianus of this city has been appointed Pontiff by God — and thereafter uttered nothing until the proper age for speech — this child (as Carolus Sausseius writes in book 2 of the Annals of Orleans) is said to have been S. Flosculus: which may rightly be doubted, he asserts, as a matter of probability; since S. Anianus sat for about sixty-five years, S. Prosper for at least ten, and besides, four Bishops must have sat between them: Magnus, Febatus, Gratianus, and S. Monitor. We shall treat of the ages and deeds of these others elsewhere; S. Prosper on the twenty-ninth of July, S. Evurtius on the seventh of September, S. Monitor on the tenth of November. Since S. Anianus died, as is said in his Life, two years after Aetius defeated Attila in battle — which is established to have occurred in the consulship of Marcian and Adelphius, the year of Christ 451 — and five Bishops sat after him before S. Flosculus, the time of his death, Ghinius is not correct in saying above that he died about the year 450. He would have said more correctly about 500; since his successor Eusebius is read to have attended the first Council of Orleans, in the last years of Clovis.
[5] Carolus Sausseyus writes that, on account of the solemnity of the Purification, his feast at Orleans is transferred to the third of February. A basilica was built in his name in the same city, feast on the third of February at Orleans; a church, which is otherwise called S. Mary the Golden, otherwise S. Mary the Regular, and today the Conception; it is a Priory of the Order of S. Augustine and a parish church. His body, together with the bodies of SS. Anianus, Euspicius, Monitor, Baudelius, Scubilius, and Agia the mother of S. Lupus, was translated to the church of S. Anianus built by King Robert in the year 1029, as will be narrated more fully in the Life of S. Anianus from the Life of the same King written by Helgaldus, a monk of Fleury. Translation. The anniversary memorial of his Translation is recorded in the sacred Fasti on the fourteenth of June, as can be seen in Molanus and Saussaius, whom we shall cite elsewhere.