† Saint of the Day †
(November 2)
✠ St. Victorinus of Pettau ✠
Bishop of Poetovio and Martyr:
Born: ---
Likely in Greece
Died: 303 or 304 AD
Poetovio
Venerated in:
Roman Catholic Church
Orthodox Church
Feast: November 2
Saint Victorinus of Pettau or of Poetovio was an Early Christian ecclesiastical writer who flourished about 270, and who was martyred during the persecutions of Emperor Diocletian. A Bishop of Poetovio in Pannonia, Victorinus is also known as Victorinus Petavionensis, Poetovionensis or Victorinus of Ptuj.
Life:
Born probably in Greece on the confines of the Eastern and Western Empires or in Poetovio with a rather mixed population, due to its military character, 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. Bishop of the City of Pettau, he was the first theologian to use Latin for his exegesis.
His work is in the main exegetical. Victorinus composed commentaries on various books of Holy Scripture, such as Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Isaiah, Ezekiel, Habakkuk, Ecclesiastes, the Canticle of Canticles, St. Matthew, and the Apocalypse, besides treatises against the heresies of his time. All that has survived is his Commentary on Apocalypse and the short tract On the construction of the world.
Victorinus was a firm believer in the millennium He was also much influenced by Origen. His works were ranked with the Apocrypha in the decree, later attributed to Pope Gelasius I, which excluded and anathematized them with that of many other early fathers. That is to say, they were not considered free of error. By contrast, St. Jerome gives him an honourable place in his catalogue of ecclesiastical writers. 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
According to Jerome, Victorinus died a martyr in 304 He is commemorated in both the Eastern and Western Churches is 2 November. Until the 17th century, he was sometimes confused with the Latin rhetorician, Victorinus Afer.
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