ordinary calculation to shew that its dimensions typify the number of years in the life of our Lord. On N.T. Victor wrote a commentary, 11 fragments of which, preserved in the Collections of Smaragdus, are collected by Pitra (Patr. Lat. cii. 1124), according to whom a St. Germain MS. of Rabanus Maurus's Commentary on St. Matthew marks numerous passages as derived from Victor. Fragments of Capitula de Resurrectione Domini are given in Spicil. Sol. i. (liv. lix. lxii. lxiv.), in which Victor touches on the difficulties in the genealogy in St. Matthew and on the discrepancy between St. Mark and St. John as to the hour of the Crucifixion. Of the last he gives the explanation of Eusebius in Quaestiones ad Marinum, and also one of his own.
III. Victor's most celebrated work was that on the Paschal Cycle mentioned by several chroniclers and praised by Bede (de Rat. Tempa. 51), whose two extracts are in Patr. Lat. lxviii. 1097, xc. 502. The rest was supposed to be lost till considerable extracts from it contained in the Catena of Joannes Diaconus were pub. in Spicil. Sol. (i. 296). It was written c. 550, to controvert the Paschal Cycle of VICTORIUS (2), according to which Easter Day would have fallen that year on Apr. 17, while Victor considered Apr. 24 the correct day in accordance with the Alexandrine computation which he defends.
[F.D.]
Victor (48) Tununensis, an African bishop and chronicler. He was a zealous supporter of the "Three Chapters," enduring much persecution after 556 and till his death c. 567, both in his own province and in Egypt. Of his Chronicle, from the creation to a.d.. 566, only the portion 444–566 remains, dealing almost exclusively with the history of the Eutychian heresy and the controversy about the "Three Chapters." It also gives details about the Vandal persecution, the memory of which must have been still fresh in his youth, and various stories telling against Arianism. The Chronicle is very useful for illustrations of the social and religious life of cent. vi. It is printed in Migne's Patr. Lat. t. lxviii. with Galland's preface. Cf. Isid. de Vir. Ill. c. 38; Cave's Hist. Lit. i. 415. A treatise On Penitence, included among the works of St. Ambrose, is attributed to Victor; Ceill. v. 512; x. 469, xi. 302.
[G.T.S.]
Victorinus (4), 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 (Catal. Script. Eccl. 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 (in Eccles. iv. 13; in Ezech. xxvi. and elsewhere), but considered him to have been affected by the opinions of the Chiliasts or Millenarians (see Catal. Script. 18, and in Ezech. l.c.). 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 Decretum de Libris Recipiendis, which Baronius (ad ann. 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.
[H.A.W.]
Victorinus (6), called Caius Marius (Hieron. Comm. on Gal. Proleg.) and also Marius Fabius (see Suringar, Hist. Scholiast. Lat. p. 153, note); known also as Afer, from the country of his birth. He is to be distinguished from two Christian writers called Victorinus mentioned by Gennadius (de Scriptor. Eccl. cc. 60 and 88), and from Victorinus of Pettau, the commentator on the Apocalypse. He was a celebrated man of letters and rhetorician in Rome in the middle of 4th cent.
His conversion is the subject of the well-known narrative in St. Augustine's Confessions (bk. viii. cc. 2–5). In extreme old age zealous study of Scripture and Christian literature convinced him of the truth of Christianity. He told Simplician, afterwards bp. of Milan, that he was a Christian, and when Simplician refused to regard him as such till he saw him "in the church," asked him in banter "whether walls, then, make Christians?"—a characteristic question from one disposed to regard Christianity rather as another school of philosophy than as a social organization. The fear of his friends, however, which kept him from making profession of his faith, was removed by further meditation, and after being enrolled as a catechumen for a short time, he was baptized, and by his own deliberate choice made his preliminary profession of faith with the utmost publicity. St. Augustine gives us a vivid account of the excitement and joy his conversion caused in Christian circles at Rome. This was at least before the end of the reign of Constantius, a.d. 361; but he continued to teach rhetoric in Rome till 362, when Julian's edict forbad Christians to be public teachers (Aug. Conf. l.c.). Then, "choosing rather to give over the wordy school than God's Word," he withdrew, and as St. Jerome emphasizes his great age before conversion, it is not surprising that we hear no more of him. He lived, however, long enough to write a number of Christian treatises and commentaries, and it is possible that Jerome alludes to him as alive on the outbreak of the disputes connected with the name of Jovinian in 382. (See Proleg. to Victorinus in Migne's Patr. Lat. vol. viii. p. 994 for question of reading.)
The following is a list of his Christian writings: (1) The anti-Arian treatise, de Generatione Verbi Divini, in reply to the de Generatione Divina by Candidus the Arian. (2) The long work adversus Arium, elicited by Candidus's brief rejoinder to the former treatise. Bk. ii. must have been written not later than 361 (see c. 9), bk. i. c. 365 (see c. 28). (3) The de ὁμοουσίῳ Recipiendo, a summary of (2). (4) Three Hymns, mainly consisting of formulas and prayers intended to elucidate
