St
Victorinus on fresca in church in Nova Cerkev, Municipality of Vojnik in eastern Slovenia.
Saint Victorin
Évêque de Pettau, en
Pannonie (+ v. 304)
Né en Slovénie, à Ptuy ou Pettau. C'est le plus ancien exégète de l'Eglise d'Occident. Fidèle au texte grec, il commenta aussi bien l'Ancien Testament que les Evangiles ou l'Apocalypse. Les premiers Pères de l'Eglise le tenaient en haute estime. Certains hagiographes français voudraient en faire un évêque de Poitiers en transposant le nom latin "Pettaviensis" en " Pictaviensis. " La vérité historique ne permet pas de les suivre dans cette interprétation.
Après avoir composé plusieurs ouvrages pour commenter les Livres saints, il
reçut, vers 304, dans la persécution de Dioclétien, la couronne du martyre.
Martyrologe romain
SOURCE : https://nominis.cef.fr/contenus/saint/36/Saint-Victorin.html
St. Victorinus of Pettau
Death: 304
Bishop and martyr.
Originally a Greek, he became bishop of
Pettau, in Pannonia (later Styria, Austria). He was martyred during the
persecutions of Emperor Diocletian (r.
284-305). Victorinus was also the author of several biblical cornrnentaries,
although he may have been an adherent of Millenarianism, a heresy of
that time.
SOURCE : https://www.catholic.org/saints/saint.php?saint_id=1980
St. Victorinus
An ecclesiastical writer
who flourished about 270, and who suffered martyrdom probably
in 303, under Diocletian.
He was bishop of the City
of Pettau (Petabium, Poetovio), on the Drave, in Styria (Austria);
hence his surname of Petravionensis or sometimes Pictaviensis, e.g. in the
Roman Martyrology,
where he is registered under 2 November, which long caused it to be thought
that he belonged to the Diocese of Poitiers (France). Until the
seventeenth century he was likewise confounded with the Latin
rhetorician, Victorinus
Afer. According to St. Jerome, who gives
him an honourable place in his catalogue of ecclesiastical writers,
Victorinus composed commentaries on
various books of Holy Scripture,
such as Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Isaias, Ezechiel, Habacuc, Ecclesiastes, the Canticle of Canticles, St. Matthew, and
the Apocalypse,
besides treatises against the heresies of his
time.
All his works have
disappeared save extracts from his commentaries on Genesis and the Apocalypse,
if indeed these texts are really a remnant of his works, concerning which
opinions differ. These latter with a critical annotation are published in Migne's P.L., V
(1844) 301-44. It is certainly incorrect to regard him as the author of two
poems, "De Jesu Christo" and "De Pascha", which are included
in the collection of Fabricius.
Born on the confines of the Eastern and Western Empires, Victorinus spoke Greek
better than Latin, which explains why, in St. Jerome's opinion,
his works written in the latter tongue were more remarkable for their matter
than for their style. Like many of his contemporaries he shared the errors of the
Millenarians, and for this reason his works were ranked with the apocrypha by
Pope Gelasius.
Sources
BARONIUS, Ann. (1589),
303, 126-7; CAVE, Script. eccles. hist. litt., I (1741), 147-51; CEILLIER,
Hist. des aut. sacr., III (1732), 245-48; FABRICIUS, Bib. lat. med. aev., VI
(1746), 822-23; HARNACK, Chron. altchristl. litt., II (Leipzig, 1904), 426-32; HIERONYMUS, De vir. ill., 74; Act.
SS. Boll., Nov. 1 (1887), 432-43; LAUNOY, De Victorino episc. et mart. dissert.
(Paris, 1664); PRILESZKY, Act. et Script. SS. Corn. Firmil., Pont. et Victorini
suo ord. digesta Cassoviae (1765): TILLEMONT, Mem. pour serv. d l'hist.
ecclés., V (1698), 311-2, 707-9.
Clugnet,
Léon. "St. Victorinus." The Catholic Encyclopedia. Vol.
15. New York: Robert Appleton
Company, 1912. <http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/15414a.htm>.
Transcription. This
article was transcribed for New Advent by Michael T. Barrett. Dedicated to
the memory of St. Victorinus.
Ecclesiastical
approbation. Nihil Obstat. October 1, 1912. Remy Lafort, S.T.D.,
Censor. Imprimatur. +John Cardinal Farley, Archbishop of New York.
Copyright © 2023 by Kevin Knight.
Dedicated to the Immaculate Heart of Mary.
