other apostles with whom John lived," he had always observed, and though himself not persuaded to renounce the custom of the elders in his own church, had still honourably accorded the Eucharist in the church to Polycarp, and parted from him in peace (Eus. H. E. v. 24). Jerome (u.s.) alludes to several letters written by Irenaeus to the same purpose. The Quartodecimans seem to have maintained their usage till the council of Nicaea, which enjoined its discontinuance. The intolerance of Victor evidently neither won general approval nor effected his intended purpose. Victor is mentioned by St. Jerome (op. cit. c. 34) as a writer of a treatise on the Easter question and other works.
[J.B—Y.]
Victor (39) (Victorius, Victorinus), Claudius Marius, the author of three books in hexameter verse, containing the narrative of Genesis down to the destruction of the cities of the Plain; author also of a letter to "Salmon," or Solomon, an abbat, in hexameter verse, on the corrupt manners of his time. He is probably the Victorius, or Victorinus, mentioned by Gennadius (de Vir. Ill. 60) as a rhetorician of Marseilles, who died "Theodosio et Valentiano regnantibus" (i.e. 425–450), and who addressed to his son Aetherius a commentary on Genesis. Gennadius says "a principio libri usque ad obitum patriarchae Abrahae tres diversos edidit libros." This does not accurately describe the work we have under the name of Cl. M. Victor. But there is a diversity of reading in the passage of Gennadius. In Erasmus's ed. of St. Jerome the passage stands "quatuor versuum edidit libros." If this be the right reading, it seems almost certain that the three books we have of Cl. M. Victor, ending as they now do at a point which seems to call for some explanation, are the first three books of those mentioned by Gennadius, and that a fourth book, now lost, carried on the narrative to Abraham's death, where a natural halting-place for the work is presented. The three books correspond very well with what Gennadius says of the work of Victorius; they are written in a pious and Christian spirit, but without depth or great force of treatment. They are, mainly, a paraphrase in verse of part of Genesis with but few reflections; the narrative, with one or two exceptions, keeping closely to that of Scripture. The most notable variation is the introduction of a prayer by Adam on his expulsion from Paradise, which is followed by a strange episode. The serpent is discerned by Eve, who urges Adam to take vengeance on him. In assailing him with stones, a spark is struck from a flint, which sets fire to the wood in which Adam and Eve had taken shelter, and they are threatened with destruction. This mishap is the means of revealing to them metals, forced from the ground by the heat, and of preparing the earth, by the action of the fire, for the production of corn. The style of the poem and its language are in no way remarkable; its versification is generally tolerable, but there are instances of wrong quantities of syllables. The Ep. to Salomon is a poem of about 100 hexameters, and more original, though not of special interest. Both are in De la Bigne's Bibl. Patr. viii. 278, and Appendix; and in Maittaires' Corpus Poetarum Lat. ii. 1567.
[H.A.W]
Victor (44) Vitensis, a N. African bishop and writer. The known facts of his life are very few. He was called Vitensis either after his see or after his birthplace. He seems to have been numbered amongst the clergy of Carthage c. 455. His Hist. Persecutionis Provinciae Africanae is very interesting, as he appears to have been with safety an eyewitness of the Vandal persecution for more than 30 years. He was actively employed by Eugenius, metropolitan of Carthage, in 483. Early in that year Hunneric banished 4,966 bishops and clergy of every rank. Victor was used by Eugenius to look after the more aged and infirm of the bishops. The History gives us a view of the religion of the Vandals. It also relates many particulars about Carthage, its churches, their names and dedications, as those of Perpetua and Felicitas, of Celerina and the Scillitans (i. 3). It shews the persistence of paganism at Carthage, and mentions the temples of Memory and of Coelestis as existing till the Vandals levelled them after their capture of Carthage. This temple of Coelestis existed in the time of Augustine, who describes in his de Civ. Dei, lib. ii. cc. 4, 26 (cf. Tertull. Apol. c. 24) the impure rites there performed. Its site was elaborately discussed by M. A. Castan in a Mém. in the Comptes rendus de L’Acad. des Inscript. t. xiii. (1885), pp. 118–132, where all the references to its cult were collected out of classical and patristic sources. Victor's History contains glimpses of N. African ritual. In lib. ii. 17 we have an account of the healing of the blind man Felix by Eugenius, bp. of Carthage. The ritual of the feast of Epiphany is described, while there are frequent references to the singing of hymns or psalms at funerals. In Hist. lib. v. 6, we read that the inhabitants of Tipasa refused to hold communion with the Arian bishop. Hunneric sent a military count, who collected them all into the forum and cut out their tongues by the roots, notwithstanding which they all retained the power of speech. This remarkable fact has been discussed by Gibbon, c. xxxvii., by Middleton in his Free Inquiry, pp. 313–316, and by many others. The History of Victor is usually divided into five books. Bk. i. narrates the persecution of Genseric, from the conquest of Africa by the Vandals in 429 till Genseric's death in 477. Bks. ii. iv. and v. deal with the persecution of Hunneric, a.d. 477–484; while bk. iii. contains the confession of faith drawn up by Eugenius of Carthage and presented to Hunneric at the conference of 484 (cf. Gennadius, de Vir. Ill. No. 97). In the Confession (lib. iii. 11) the celebrated text I. John v. 7, concerning the three heavenly witnesses, first appears. (See on this point Porson's letter to Travis, and Gibbon's notes on c. xxxvii.). The life and works of Victor have been the subject of much modern German criticism, which has not, however, added a great deal to our knowledge. Ebert's Literatur des Mittelalters im Abendlande (Leipz. 1874), t. i. 433–436, fixes the composition of the History at c. 486. In A. Schaefer's Historische Untersuchungen (Bonn, 1882), Aug. Auler (pp. 253–275) maintains, with much learning and
