Difference between revisions of "Victorinus"

<p> <b> [[Victorinus]] </b> ( <b> 4 </b> ), St., of Pettau, bishop and martyr. He was apparently a Greek by birth, and (according to the repeated statement of Cassiodorus) a rhetorician before he became bp. of Pettau (Petavio) in Upper Pannonia. He is believed to have suffered martyrdom in Diocletian's persecution. St. [[Jerome]] (our chief authority concerning him) mentions him several times, and with respect even where his criticisms are adverse. He enumerates, among his works ( <i> Catal. Script. Eccl. </i> 74) commentaries on Gen., Ex., Lev., Is., Ezek., Hab., Eccles., Cant., Matt., and Rev., besides a treatise "adversus omnes haereses." Jerome occasionally cites the opinion of Victorinus ( <i> in Eccles. </i> iv. 13; <i> in Ezech. </i> xxvi. and elsewhere), but considered him to have been affected by the opinions of the Chiliasts or [[Millenarians]] (see <i> Catal. Script. </i> 18, and <i> in Ezech. l.c. </i> ). He also states that he borrowed extensively from Origen. In consequence, perhaps, of his Millennarian tendencies, or of his relations to Origen, his works were classed as "apocrypha" in the <i> [[Decretum]] de Libris Recipiendis </i> , which Baronius ( <i> ad ann. </i> 303) erroneously refers to a synod held under Gelasius. Little or nothing is left—nothing; indeed, which can be said to be his with any certainty. Poems are attributed to him with no authority better than that of Bede; while the two lines [[Bede]] quotes as his were clearly written by some one with a tolerable knowledge of Latin. </p> <p> [H.A.W.] </p>

<p> bishop OF PETTAU (Petavionensis), a town in ancient Pannonia, not of Poitiers, as Baromius states, lived about A.D. 290, and was an orator before he became a bishop. He was of Greek extraction, and was better acquainted with the [[Grecian]] than the Latin tongue. Of his works, a fragment, De Fabrica Mundi, was published by [[Cave]] (see below). Jerome says that Victorinus wrote commentaries on most of the books of the Old Test., and he is also credited with the authorship of a commentary on the Apocalypse. He died, according to the [[Roman]] martyrology, a martyr's death, under Diocletian, about 303. See Dupin, Nouvelle Bibl. des Auteurs Ecclis. (Paris, 1693), 1, 194.; Cave, Scriptorum Eccles. Hist. Lit. (Genev. 1693), p. 73 sq.; Max. Bibl. Vet. Patr. etc. (Lugd. 1677), vol. 3, where the commentary on the [[Apocalypse]] occurs, 4p. 414 sq.; Herzog, Real- Encyklop. s.v. </p>