Victorinus

ON ST. VICTORINUS, BISHOP OF PETTAU IN PANNONIA,

PROBABLY AT THE BEGINNING OF THE FOURTH CENTURY.

Victorinus, bishop of Pettau and martyr. (S.)

BY G. V. H.

§ I. The memory of Victorinus in the martyrologies.

Of Victorinus, bishop and glorious martyr of Christ, though his Acts have perished and his books been lost, there lives on, surviving in the annals of the Catholic Church, a splendid glory of doctrine and sanctity. [The Acts being lost, the elogium of St. Victorinus passed into the martyrologies from St. Jerome and others.] So outstanding were this man's merits toward the Church of Christ that, though all the monuments of his genius and knowledge have been destroyed and the narrative of his martyrdom itself has fallen out of use, the fame of his greatness alone, among those nearly of his time and closest in age, snatched his name from oblivion along with the memory of his good deeds; that these should not be altogether blotted out was the doing above all of Jerome through his frequent praises and encomia of Victorinus, and also of Optatus of Milevis and Cassiodorus. From whose books posterity excerpted the elogium of the holy bishop and martyr, which, inscribed in the annals of the saints, preserves for Victorinus the triple crown of priesthood, martyrdom and doctrine. Of the martyrologists who mention Victorinus the first is Ado, writing thus on the fourth day before the Nones of November: The heavenly birthday of St. Victorinus, bishop of Pitabio, who in the persecution of Diocletian was crowned with martyrdom. Usuard, following him, writes on the same day: The heavenly birthday of Blessed Victorinus, bishop of Pitabio, who after many teachings, as St. Jerome testifies, in the persecution of Diocletian was crowned with martyrdom. On whom Wandelbert: On the fourth, O holy Victorinus and martyr, * you are made blessed. Maurolico distorts the elogium of Usuard, making Victorinus of Poitiers instead of Pitabio. Galesini disfigured his elogium of Victorinus with the same error: At Poitiers, of St. Victorinus, bishop, who, instructed in doctrine and adorned with heavenly virtues, in the very persecution of Diocletian accepted death for the name of Christ not only with constancy but even with the highest joy. Finally, in the Roman Martyrology Victorinus is celebrated with this elogium on the fourth day before the Nones of November: On the same day, the heavenly birthday of St. Victorinus, bishop of Poitiers, who after publishing many writings, as St. Jerome testifies, was crowned with martyrdom in the persecution of Diocletian. In the Hieronymian martyrologies the name of Victorinus is not found at the second day of November. But I am of the opinion that the martyr Victorinus who is praised in the same on the Kalends of November is this Victorinus of ours.

* royal codex: meritisque

§ II. Of the marks branded on the name of Victorinus.

Why the opuscula of Victorinus were proscribed. Although few things have become known to us concerning Victorinus, yet several questions must be raised; to which we shall endeavor that a fitting answer be given. And first indeed it can seem strange that the opuscula of a man so expressly praised by Jerome, as will be plain below, were proscribed among the apocrypha by Pope Gelasius. But Baronius, in the notes to the Martyrology, at this place: Do not wonder, reader, he says, if Pope Gelasius, in the canon Sancta Roman., distinction 15, reckoned the opuscula of this Victorinus among the apocrypha Migne, P. L., vol. LIX, p. 163.: for (as St. Jerome writes in On Ecclesiastical Writers, under Papias) Victorinus followed, together with several other holy and learned men, the opinion concerning the millennium, which indeed (as we said above) up to the times of Pope Damasus was freely held without loss of faith or division of communion, nor was it charged as a crime against Papias, Justin Martyr or others, so as to prevent their being enrolled among the saints and churchmen. But when that opinion was condemned, the writings favoring it too seem to have been rightly proscribed.

It may also be asked why the condemnation of Victorinus is found in the second Roman synod under Pope Silvester. The same Baronius gives the answer in the same note: Another condemnation of the same, supposititious. And again, he says, concerning Victorinus we warn the reader that, in some uncertain way, there crept into the second Roman synod Labbe, Conciliorum collectio, vol. I, p. 1547–1549., held under Pope Silvester, in chapter 2, the condemnation of Victorinus, bishop of Poitiers, for wrongly reckoning the paschal cycles: for he had nothing whatever in common with the paschal calculation, or with Pope Silvester, since he had been crowned with martyrdom already in the times of Diocletian. The above-mentioned error seems to have come from another Victorinus, an Aquitanian, a reckoner of the ecclesiastical calculation, whose cycles were convicted of error by Victor of Capua, Bede and others, who also lived in the time of Pope Hilary, as Gennadius writes, On Illustrious Men, chapter 88; whence it appears that that canon is not of that council held under Silvester, but of another, though it slipped into that one: or it should be said that it treats there of some other, unknown man, and not of Victorinus bishop of Poitiers, for in the lists of the bishops of that church there is placed only one of that name, and he a martyr and the first bishop of that see, of whom we treat here. So Baronius; but, as Launoy has skilfully observed De S. Victorino. Observ. IV., Baronius creates a gratuitous trouble for himself and contends with a phantom. For both that Victorinus and the synod which condemned him are fictitious. There was a certain Victorius, not Victorinus, who at the request of Pope Hilary published a paschal cycle in the year 463. The name of this Victorius Gennadius Migne, P. L., vol. LVIII, p. 1112. placed in the catalogue of illustrious men, and says that he was an Aquitanian by race. Since Gennadius was his contemporary and could have known him by sight, we must surely judge with Launoy that Gennadius did not mistake the man's name, and that it is not Victorinus but Victorius, by which name he is also known in the fourth council of Orléans, in the year of Christ 545, chapter I: It was resolved therefore, God being propitious, that holy Easter according to the table of Victorius be celebrated by all priests at one time. In the Ecclesiastical Annals at the year 303, no. 127, Baronius ascribed besides another cause why Pope Gelasius reckoned the books of Victorinus among the apocrypha: namely that in the explanation of the Scriptures he followed Origen. Which, even if it be true, yet supplies no cause for proscribing his works.

§ III. Whether St. Victorinus was bishop of Poitiers or of Pettau.

Victorinus is proved to be bishop not of Poitiers but of Pettau A question of greater moment was raised in the memory of our fathers concerning the episcopal see of St. Victorinus, whether he presided over the church of the Pictavi in Gaul or that of Pettau in Pannonia. To which question the Frenchman J. Launoy gave a most ample answer in his splendid dissertation On Victorinus, Bishop and Martyr, which had first been published in the year 1653: we have before our eyes the second edition, enlarged and more correct. First of all we shall give the occasion of the dispute from Launoy himself, which he recounts thus to Christophe Fauveau, a Paris theologian, canon and official of Poitiers: That Victorinus, who underwent martyrdom when Diocletian was raging against the Christians, was bishop of Poitiers, most learned Fauveau, many writers have handed down to memory for about five hundred years past. Among them some are men of Poitiers and of the house, others are foreigners and strangers. The more celebrated men of Poitiers and of the house lived in our own age, Jean Besly and, led on by him, Henri Louis Chasteigner de La Rocheposay, bishop of the place, both otherwise well deserving of letters. The foreigners and strangers flourished both at this time and before it. The older carried a torch before the younger toward their fall, and built up the road of error. Both were deceived by the not dissimilar patronymic of another city, whose church Victorinus administered: they took the bishop of Poitiers and of Petavio or Pitabio for one and the same. They themselves erred, and in erring they wrongly believed that an error had been made by those who, in Blessed Jerome and other authors, had written Petavionensis or Petabionensis. Such a similarity of names once begot similar errors and cast darkness on outstanding writers. Then, after some things interposed, he concludes his speech thus: Further, that Victorinus was renowned as bishop not of Poitiers in Aquitania II, but of Petavio or Petabio in Upper Pannonia, is confirmed by so many things that why others have thought otherwise excites the very greatest wonder. Of these many things I extract a few, but the chief. Then I add some observations to the dissertation by which it is either further illustrated or its future usefulness is explained. Let the kind reader know, then, that the whole case hangs on the reading of a single word, which some, not understanding it, have brought over by correction to the form of a similar word. For when they read in Jerome and others of Victorinus Petabionensis, Petavionensis or Pictavionensis, and the scribes did not recognize the city, they wrote Pictaviensis. That Victorinus was bishop of Pettau (Pœtovio, the same as Petabio), we can easily prove. Launoy has long since expended the labor on our behalf, which, lest we do what has been done, we have had no need to recall to the anvil. What

he inquired into and found demonstrates the matter plainly and perfectly.

[4] from St. Jerome, The first argument is drawn rightly and with reason from St. Jerome, of whom Launoy brings forward five passages, from which it is proved that St. Victorinus was called by Jerome not of Poitiers, but of Pettau or Pitabio. Two survive in the book On Illustrious Men. One is under Papias, bishop of Hierapolis: “Tertullian also, he says, in the book On the Hope of the Faithful, and Victorinus Pictavionensis and Lactantius are led by this opinion;” so the Venetian edition of the year 1470. With this edition several ancient manuscript codices agree, one of Saint-Germain-des-Prés at Paris, another of Saint-Victor at the same city, where Petavionensis, a third of the royal library, a fourth of the library of the Du Puys, where Pitabionensis, a fifth of the monastery of Notre-Dame de Longpont, a sixth of the monastery of Notre-Dame du Val, a seventh of Notre-Dame of Reims, two in the library of de Thou, of most approved mark. From these, which are the more certain, must be corrected the Roman edition of the years 1468 and 1470, the Mainz of the year 1470, the Venetian of the year 1488, the Basel of the years 1492, 1516, 1524, 1526, 1553, 1565, the Lyon of the year 1530, the Roman of 1561, and the other editions that follow, in which Pictaviensis is written.

[5] [in] Then he passes to the second passage from the same book On Illustrious Men, which is under Victorinus himself: Victorinus, bishop of Pitabio, did not know Latin as well as Greek. Hence his works seem great in thought, but rather poor in the composition of the words. They are these: Commentaries on Genesis, on Exodus, on Leviticus, on Isaiah, on Ezekiel, on Habakkuk, on Ecclesiastes, on the Canticle of Canticles, on the Apocalypse, and Against All Heresies, and many others. At the last he was crowned with martyrdom. So, says Launoy, the Roman edition of the years 1468 and 1470, the Mainz of 1470, the Basel of 1516, 1524, 1526, 1553, 1565, the Lyon of the year 1530, Sixtus of Siena in book 6 of the Bibliotheca sacra, notes 345 and 347, Bellarmine in the book On Ecclesiastical Writers. With all of these the manuscript codices agree, one of Saint-Germain, another of Saint-Victor, a third of the royal library, a fourth of the Du Puy library, a fifth of the monastery of Longpont, a sixth of Notre-Dame du Val, two in the library of de Thou, of most approved mark. From these must be corrected the manuscript codex of Notre-Dame of Reims and others, if there be any. There must also be corrected the Venetian edition of the years 1470 and 1488, the Basel of the year 1492 and the Roman of the year 1561, and the others following, in which Pictaviensis is read.

[6] five The third passage of Jerome is in the Letter against Vigilantius. “I say nothing of Victorinus Pictavionensis and the rest who have followed and copied Origen in the explanation of the Scriptures.” So the Roman edition of the years 1468 and 1470, the Mainz and Venetian of the same year 1470, the Venetian of 1488, the Basel of 1492, 1516, 1524, 1526, 1553, 1565, the Lyon of the year 1530. These editions are supported by manuscript codices, one of Saint-Victor, a second of the College of Navarre in the University of Paris, a third of the Tillet library, a fourth of the monastery of Notre-Dame de Longpont, a fifth of the monastery of Saint-Jean-des-Vignes at Soissons, a sixth of Antoine Loisel, formerly an illustrious advocate in the parlement, a seventh of the College of Clermont at Paris of the Society of Jesus, about eight hundred years old, an eighth of the Friars Preachers of St. Mary of the Annunciation at Paris, a ninth at Rouen in the library of the brothers Bigot, a tenth, a Florentine manuscript of the year 1584, which is in the royal library; three in the library of de Thou, of which two are very ancient. From these must be corrected the Roman edition of the year 1561, and the others following in which Pictaviensis is put back. Wonderful is the agreement of all the editions with the manuscripts before that Roman edition, which was corrupted by Mariano Vittori.

[7] at the least The fourth passage is in the book against Helvidius near the end: “He calls Tertullian in testimony for himself and sets forth the words of Victorinus Pictabionensis.” So the Roman edition of the years 1468 and 1470, the Venetian of 1470 and 1488, the Basel of the year 1492, the Paris of the year 1512, where Pictavionensis. There are added manuscript codices, one of the College of Navarre, a second of the Tillet library, a third of the monastery of Notre-Dame de Longpont, a fourth of the monastery of Saint-Jean-des-Vignes at Soissons, a fifth of the College of Clermont at Paris, about eight hundred years old, a sixth of the Friars Preachers of St. Mary of the Annunciation at Paris, a seventh the Florentine already mentioned, an eighth of the monastery of Saint-Remi at Reims, two of Saint-Victor, of which one is about six hundred years old; three of the library of de Thou, of which two are very ancient, the manuscript codex of the monastery of Saint-Remi at Reims. From these must be corrected the Mainz edition of the year 1470, the Basel of 1516, 1524, 1526, 1553 and 1565, the Lyon of the year 1530, the Roman of 1561 and the others following, in which Pictaviensis appears.

[8] places. The fifth passage, finally, is on chapter 36 of Ezekiel: What many of our writers, and especially the book of Tertullian entitled On the Hope of the Faithful, and the seventh volume of the Institutes of Lactantius promise, and the frequent expositions of Victorinus, bishop of Pitabio. So the Venetian edition of the years 1497, 1516, 1524, 1526, 1553 and 1565, the Lyon of the year 1525 (?). There agree the codices written by hand, one of the monastery of Notre-Dame de Longpont, the other of Saint-Germain, drawn in letters of Saxon form, which belongs to the age of Charlemagne, or certainly of his sons. Since this one on that condition is equivalent to many, it would suffice: whence necessarily must be corrected the Roman edition of the year 1561, of which Vittori says thus in his notes to that chapter: Pitabionensis was falsely read before, which error Sophronius introduced, when he rendered the Latin word incorrectly in Greek in the catalogue. I on the contrary vehemently contend that that is now falsely read which was rightly read before, and that Vittori, led by a suspicion as empty as it was false, changed the old writing. First of all, from whom did he learn that Sophronius did not rightly translate the Latin word that Jerome used? For he pronounces this gratuitously, which was to be pronounced with the highest reason. And surely Vittori himself seems not to know the difference between Pitabio and Pictavum, which Sophronius recognized, as the second argument will evidently show. Next he supposes that Jerome's catalogue written in Latin has perished, and that the one which survives is had from the Greek version of Sophronius, which someone has translated into Latin. Which in this kind of matter is so false that nothing could be falser. There survive to this day several manuscript copies of the Latin edition, with which the Greek version of Sophronius is not joined, and in which Victorinus Pitabionensis is read, not Pictaviensis. Erasmus, I think, is the first who, when the Latin catalogue of Blessed Jerome had already been edited at Rome, Venice and Mainz, added the Greek version of Sophronius, when at Basel in the year 1516 he prepared the edition of all the works of Jerome. Then, even if we should imagine that Sophronius did what Vittori would have him do, it would not follow from this that the word cited from Jerome's commentary on Ezekiel is corrupt. For either that commentary would have had to be rendered in Greek by Sophronius, that it might in like manner be vitiated, or the catalogue must first have been copied by the scribes who copied the commentary, that they might afterwards pour into the same commentary the error drawn and sipped from it. But the first no mortal will dream of; the second only some soothsayer and vain conjecturer will affirm.

[9] The same is proved So John Launoy in the first chapter of the arguments by which it is proved that Victorinus was called by Jerome bishop not of Poitiers but of PITABIO. Since this is proved most solidly and most unconquerably, and Jerome, the authority for this matter, merits complete credit, the matter is finished. Since, however, what ought by no means to have happened, that cause has been called into controversy even in our time, we shall add the second argument of the most diligent Launoy, which is taken from Sophronius, who translated Jerome's book On Illustrious Men into Greek.

[10] from Sophronius There was, as is believed, a contemporary of Jerome, a Greek author by name Sophronius, who translated his book On Illustrious Men or On Ecclesiastical Writers into his own language. He speaks thus of Victorinus under Papias: Καὶ Τερτυλλιανὸς ἐν τῇ βιβλῳ περὶ τῆς ἐλπίδος τῶν πιστῶν, καὶ Βικτορῖνος Πεταβῖνος, καὶ Λακτάντιος ταύτῃ τῇ δοκήσει εἱλκυνται. Then under Victorinus himself, Βικτορῖνος Πεταβίωνος ἐπίσκοπος etc. But that in the former passage Πεταβῖνος does not mean a man of Poitiers, Sophronius himself is his own witness under Hilary, bishop of the Pictavi of Aquitaine: Ἱλάριος, he says, Πικταβίων Ἀκοιτανίας ἐπισκοπος. For from ἀπὸ τῶν Πικταβίων would be said not Πεταβῖνος, as Sophronius speaks, but Πικταβῖνος. In the latter passage the matter is clearer still. For Sophronius calls Victorinus bishop Πεταβίωνος and Hilary bishop τῶν Πικταβίων Ἀκοιτανίας. These things are at any rate clear and leave no room for doubt. Launoy then confirms the Greek manner of speaking by adducing passages of Socrates and Sozomen: Socrates in book III of the Ecclesiastical History, chapter 8, Sozomen in book V of the same History; chapter 12, call Hilary bishop not Πεταβίωνος but Πικτάβων, or Πικταβίων, the latter τῆς πόλεως Ἀκοιτανίας, the former τῆς πόλεως δευτέρας Ἀκοιτανίας. But that Sophronius wrote in the first syllable not ι but ε is a difficulty foreign to this place; for whether it be an error of a scribe, or of Sophronius, it does not follow from this, as Launoy rightly says in the same place, that for Sophronius bishop Πεταβίωνος and τῶν Πικταβίων sound the same.

[11] and many others. It will suffice to have touched on the chief heads of the rest of his arguments. After the two cited, he derives the third argument from the title of the Commentary of Victorinus on the Apocalypse, which Marguerin de La Bigne and Sixtus of Siena found in their manuscript codices inscribed with the name of Victorinus of PITABIO. The fourth he draws from three ancient manuscript codices On the Authentic and Apocryphal Scriptures, in which Victorinus is called PETAVIONENSIS, PICTABIONENSIS, PICTAVIONENSIS, but by no means Pictaviensis. The fifth is supplied by the martyrologies of Usuard and Ado, in which Victorinus is called bishop of PITABIO. The sixth from three other martyrologies, one recently edited and two in manuscript: in the former Victorinus is read as bishop PICTABIONENSIS, in the latter as PITABIONENSIS. The seventh is furnished by the first edition of the Councils of Merlin, made at Paris in the year 1520, and ten years later the second, of Cologne: in both editions, supported by good and ancient codices, there is read: Opuscula Victorini PITABIONENSIS apocrypha. The eighth is taken from the Roman correctors of Gratian, who wrote in the margin of the chapter Sancta Romana Ecclesia, distinction XV: The opuscula of Victorinus, bishop of Poitiers, otherwise PITABIONENSIS. The ninth from the authority of García, who edited the Councils of Spain, in whom there is read in the Catalogue of Jerome: Victorinus PITABIONENSIS, martyr. The tenth argument is negative and therefore not effectual in itself, but in the given circumstances it does not lack its weight. It is drawn from the silence of Fortunatus, bishop of Poitiers, and of Gregory of Tours, who, if they had known so great a man to be the first bishop of the Pictavi, would beyond doubt have celebrated the praises of Victorinus. The eleventh argument is a certain passage of Bede from the booklet On the Holy Places, where he says: Led by which opinion Victorinus PITABIONENSIS. The twelfth is supplied by Johannes Aventinus, historian of the Bavarians, who in book II of the Annals of the Bavarians, Victorinus

of whom Jerome makes mention, calls bishop PETAVIONENSIS. The thirteenth and last is taken from the ancient custom of the Christians, who never left their martyrs uncelebrated. But the ancient Pictavi left their Victorinus uncelebrated. Therefore Victorinus was not bishop of the Pictavi. In this argument Launoy is wonderfully pleased with himself; to us it seems weak. Nor did the victorious cause of the church of Pettau need so shaky a prop.

[12] The same cause, lately called into controversy anew, wins again. As everyone understands, the chief part of the arguments is the authority of Jerome, Ado and Usuard, which even alone settles the matter, and after the labors of Launoy the cause could have seemed adjudged. But in our time it has again begun to be called into controversy by a venerable man, the presbyter Auber, in the periodical Revue d'Aquitaine Nos. 19, 20, 21.: to whom a most learned man of the Order of St. Benedict, Dom Chamard, replied. He wished to inspect with his own eyes the codices of the works of St. Jerome which the national library of Paris possesses. And one hundred and fifteen codices having been inspected, all except one confirm the readings PETABIONENSIS, PITTABIONENSIS, PETAVIONENSIS. Of these, those which are of better mark and older, in particular that which is number 12161, a palimpsest of the sixth century, and the most beautiful Carolingian codices of the ninth century, nos. 9532, 1866, 1870 and others, have PETABIONENSIS. Another codex of the ninth century, PETOBIONENSIS [D. Chamard, Saint Victorin, évêque et martyr, et saint Nectaire, évêque de Poitiers, p. 11.]. The manuscript codices from the Mazarine library, at Paris, nos. 264 and 265, have Pictabionensis and Petabionensis Ibid., note 4.. The care of this most learned man magnificently confirms the labor of Launoy. An Usuardine codex also, contemporary with the author, from the same national library of Paris, Latin fund no. 13745, fol. 77, has thus: On the fourth day before the Nones of November, the heavenly birthday of Blessed Victorinus, bishop PETABIONENSIS Ibid., p. 11.. We too had wished to make use of the aforesaid codices with our own eyes; nevertheless, lest we do what has been done, we have spared labor and time. For the cause of Victorinus, bishop of PETTAU, not of Poitiers, stands and will stand unconquered.

§ IV. How it came about that Victorinus was held to be bishop of Poitiers.

[Auber attempts to claim St. Victorinus for the church of the Pictavi; Chamard refutes him.] Now we come to another question, namely when and how the church of Poitiers claimed for itself Victorinus of Pettau. The aforementioned Auber in the periodical cited above Revue d'Aquitaine, p. 299., so I read in Dom Chamard Op. cit., p. 14., says: It is a thing worth noting that among the writers of our history Nectarius is rarely named, Victorinus very often. Under this name he had a cult among the Pictavi on the 3rd day of November, and had it from time immemorial until years much later than the year 1682, in which the last Proper was made, which preceded the diocesan breviary given in the year 1665 by the Most Reverend Lord Beaupoil de Saint-Aulaire. Only then was our saint (Victorinus) excluded from public cult. Why? Because he was not acceptable to the innovators, who at that time were so eager to turn our traditions upside down. Thus, not without great ardor of zeal, the presbyter Auber. To whom, not without a kindly smile, the distinguished Chamard replied, most expert in the affairs of the Pictavi. I humbly confess, he says, after the historians of the Pictavi have been examined in every part, that none has become known to me who has spoken rarely of Nectarius, frequently of Victorinus. Moreover, in none of the many manuscript codices of liturgical matters originating from Poitiers which I have examined at Paris have I found, at the 2nd or 3rd day of November, a feast of St. Victorinus, bishop and martyr, nor in the manuscript or printed codices at Poitiers, whose public library and seminary library possess missals printed in the years 1525, 1548, 1580, 1618, 1768, besides the breviary of the year 1765; also missals, breviaries, and other liturgical books, manuscript and printed, of the twelfth, fifteenth and sixteenth centuries Ibid., pp. 14, 15.. Finally he says in a note that he has found the feast of a certain Victorinus, martyr, in one calendar, not in the month of November, but at the 2nd day of December, and he adds that in the Proper of the cathedral of the Pictavi of the years 1631, 1667 and 1682 the feast of our Victorinus is found. How this took root among the Pictavi for a time we shall now narrate. John Launoy, whose merits in this business are so splendid, added certain observations at the end of that brilliant dissertation On Victorinus, Bishop and Martyr, part of which we have shared with the reader; of which observations the sixth has this title or statement of argument: It is not yet the thirtieth year since the church of Poitiers acknowledged Victorinus as its bishop.

[14] The origin of the error. He recounts the amusing business thus, after a few prefatory remarks, in the manner of a recapitulation: So far we have accomplished chiefly three things: first of all that Victorinus was not bishop of Poitiers, but of Petavio; next that the five passages of Jerome, which have been corrupted in the printed copies of his books since the year 1561, are to be restored to their former integrity, and Petavionensis taken up again in place of Pictaviensis; further that those have erred who took that matter otherwise. Now it belongs to ecclesiastical history to note at what time first and by what authors the church of Poitiers admitted Victorinus as its bishop. And this happened thirty years ago, through the chief collaboration of two men, Jean Filleau, cantor and official of Poitiers, and Jean Besly, advocate of the king. For the latter, since he was a learned man and was held to be such, gave the beginning to the matter, when he put together the series of the bishops of Poitiers and placed Victorinus at the head of it, led by the authority of those whose errors we have transfixed. But the former completed the matter, when, too credulous of Besly, he inserted into the calendar which he had taken in hand to remake Victorinus, bishop and martyr of Poitiers. All this the bishop confirmed, when on the one side he willed that the heavenly birthday of Victorinus be celebrated with the rite of a double feast, on the other he composed the Litanies, as he calls them, of Poitou, in which Victorinus, martyr and bishop of the Pictavi, is set forth to be prayed to. To the proof of the litanies he attached the one book of Jerome on the illustrious writers of the Church; from which also one lesson of the second nocturn, being taken, has occupied the breviary. Now so to have set this forth is to have refuted it.

[15] The error of Jean Besly is explained. That these things may be better understood, we set down the following for the sake of elucidation. The book of Jean Besly was brought to light by his son, Jean Besly, after the death of the author, at the desire of the Most Illustrious Lord Henri Louis Chasteigner de la Roche-Pazay, bishop of Poitiers, in the year 1647, as the editor testifies in the dedicatory letter prefixed to his father's book, in which he offers his father's posthumous opuscule to the aforesaid bishop. The book, written in the French idiom, bears this title: The Bishops of the Pictavi, with Proofs. It begins from a catalogue of the bishops: 1. Nictarius or Victorinus, 2. Liberius; whose names he then repeats with the proofs, in this way: Nictarius or Victorinus: Demochares, book III On the Rite of the Mass, from the Catalogue of the Saints, book X, chapter 12, testifies that this bishop is also named Victorinus. He lived under the emperors Valerian and Gallienus. He underwent martyrdom, and is venerated with a feast on the 2nd day of November, in the Roman martyrology, Cardinal Baronius, vol. II of the Ecclesiastical Annals at the year 303 and vol. III at the year 324. Then he cites the passages of Jerome, to Paulinus, to Magnus the orator, and On Ecclesiastical Writers, chapter 84; to which he subjoins Sophronius translating thus into Greek: Βικτωρῖνος Πιταβίωνος ἐπίσκοπος, and he adds in the margin that Victorinus fell in the persecution of Diocletian, citing Binius, Bibl. Patr., vol. I, col. 1034, then from distinction 15 that Gelasius rejected the writings of Victorinus among the apocrypha, likewise from the Roman council in the year 494. In which places he thinks that Victorinus of Poitiers is noted; which he adds time and again, in no way moved by the Greek version of Sophronius. Besly did not err in alleging the texts of Jerome; but he erred with Demochares and Baronius, calling Victorinus bishop of Poitiers. And these things are manifest from the foregoing.

[16] Likewise the error of Demochares. Demochares, whom Besly praises as his authority, speaking in book III On the Sacrifice of the Mass about the first bishop of the Pictavi, erred once and again, says Launoy in observation III added at the end of the aforesaid dissertation. His words are: First we shall set out the bishops in order of the see of Poitiers, the number of whom follows according to Bouchet in the Annals of Aquitaine: St. Victorinus or Nectarius, in the Catalogue of the Saints, book X, and in the Catalogue of Ecclesiastical Writers of the year 1561. First of all he is deceived, in indicating that Bouchet mentioned Victorinus. For he does not mention him: so far is he from reckoning Victorinus and Nectarius as one and the same bishop. Next he is deceived, when he transfers the same confusion to both those catalogues. For neither Peter, bishop of Equilium, in the Catalogue of the Saints, nor Mariano Vittori in Jerome's Catalogue of Illustrious Men, which had appeared at Rome with the rest of his works in the year 1561, touches on Nectarius, bishop of Poitiers. Demochares fell into this twofold error, since on the one hand in the list of the bishops of Poitiers which Bouchet had drawn up he came upon Nectarius as first and no Victorinus at all; but on the other, since in the Catalogue of the Saints of Peter, which has many similar scandals, and in Jerome's Catalogue of Illustrious Men, which Vittori had wrongly corrected, he saw Victorinus as bishop of Poitiers. Then Demochares, not knowing in what place to set Victorinus, confused him with Nectarius. So Launoy. But I for my part suspect that the same reason deceived Demochares (or Antoine Du Mouchy) into confusing the two, which in our time beguiled Auber, the French presbyter of whom we have already spoken. For since Nectarius most certainly was bishop of Poitiers, as is most unconquerably proved in Dreux du Radier Bibliothèque historique et critique du Poitou, vol. I, pp. 5 ff. from a certain commentary of the most learned presbyter Le Bœuf, asserting and proving with the best arguments that Nectarius sat in the see of the Pictavi, and since he read elsewhere of Victorinus bishop of Poitiers, I think that he entered upon the same path as Auber later, and believed Nectarius or Nictarius a Greek name of which the Latin version was Victorinus: απο των νικητηριων, νικτηριος, νικταρεος, Nictareus. Which Rivinus, whom Auber cites, also attributes to Jerome, a sentence being invented to this end which is nowhere read in Jerome.

[17] The whole question arose from errors. But, setting jests aside, let us return to serious things. The whole cause of the episcopate of Victorinus at Poitiers thus rests on pure errors, and when these are exposed the whole cause falls too. But, someone will say, so many and such great men have gone over to these which you call errors. I confess it and grieve. But the good examples of great men are to be followed, not their errors, which if they could have detected them, they themselves before others would have repudiated. They read in approved authors, and as they had no suspicion of error, they thought true what they read. The most learned Possevino erred when he wrote in the Apparatus sacer: Victorinus Pictabionensis, more correctly Pictaviensis. That is, as Launoy says Observation 3., he followed the errors of Honorius, Vittori, Demochares and the corrupted decree of Gratian, and walked in their footsteps. Miræus in his ecclesiastical library, says the same Launoy, speaks in like manner concerning Victorinus,

as if no one had ever made him bishop Pictavionensis or Pitabionensis. He therefore simply calls Victorinus bishop of Poitiers, to whom he assigns those books which Jerome and Sophronius had assigned to the man of Petabio. To accomplish this he thought he should use the authority of Jerome, of Gelasius in the decree on the authentic Scriptures, of Honorius of Autun and of Baronius Ibid.. Baronius erred when, in the note to the Roman martyrology where Victorinus is named of Poitiers instead of Pettau, he confirmed this by saying: Of whom Bede, Usuard, Ado and Peter in the catalogue, book X, chapter 12, write, as does St. Jerome in On Ecclesiastical Writers. And first indeed, Baronius did not see the genuine Bede; for what in his age was circulated under the name of Bede is not the martyrology of Bede; for all its days are full, whereas Bede, as Usuard testifies in his letter to the emperor Charles (the Bald), left very many days of the calendar untouched Sollerius in the Preface to Usuard, art. 3, no. 161.. Of Ado and Usuard treatment was given above among the heads of Launoy's arguments; both call Victorinus not Pictaviensis, but Pitabionensis. From the same arguments it is plain that Peter de Natalibus erred, who, like Baronius himself and others, drew his error from a corrupt reading of Jerome; for he, as we have abundantly proved, knew no Victorinus of Poitiers, but one of Pitabio. We therefore, the error being, as we may rightly hope, abolished for ever, pass on to the rest.

§ V. Testimonies of the ancients concerning St. Victorinus. Monuments of both Pannonias.

[Testimonies of St. Optatus, St. Jerome and Cassiodorus concerning St. Victorinus.] We ought in this place to treat of the Acts of St. Victorinus; but either the injury of time has destroyed them, or the negligence of men has lost them. For which reason it has seemed good to scrape together whatever the ancient authors committed to writing concerning Victorinus, from which men of a later age drew those few things that are known about Victorinus. Let the testimonies of the ancients follow in this order. St. Optatus, bishop of Milevis, On the Schism of the Donatists, book I, chapter 9: Marcion, Praxeas, Sabellius, Valentinus and the rest down to the Cataphrygians were in their own times overcome by Victorinus of Petavio and Zephyrinus of the City and by Tertullian and by other defenders of the Catholic Church Migne, P. L., vol. XI, pp. 898, 899.. St. Jerome in Letter XVIII: “Six wings to one and six wings to the other,” our Victorinus interpreted as the twelve apostles Ibid., vol. XXII, p. 365.. In Letter XXXVI: I shall set down the words of Hippolytus the martyr, from whom our Victorinus too does not much differ Ibid., p. 460.. In Letter LVIII: Victorinus, crowned with renowned martyrdom, cannot express what he understands Ibid., p. 585.. In Letter LXII: I say nothing of Victorinus of Petabio and the rest, who followed and copied Origen only in the explanation of the Scriptures Ibid., p. 603.. In Letter LXX: Victorinus the martyr, although erudition is lacking in his books, yet the will for erudition is not lacking Ibid., p. 668.. In Letter LXXIV: Nor are we more eloquent than Hilary, nor more faithful than Victorinus, who translated his (Origen's) treatises not as interpreters but as authors of their own work Ibid., p. 749.. In the apology against the books of Rufinus: If he was building up authority for his own work, wishing to show whom he followed, he had at hand Hilary the confessor, who translated nearly forty thousand lines of Origen on Job and the Psalms. He had Ambrose, nearly all of whose books are full of this man's sayings: and the martyr Victorinus, who proves his simplicity in this, that he contrives snares for no one. Of all these he is silent, and as it were passing over the pillars of the Church, he pursues through corners only me, a flea and a man of nothing Ibid., vol. XXIII, p. 399.. In the book On Illustrious Men, chapter 18, under Papias: This man (Papias) is said to have published the Jewish δευτέρωσιν of a thousand years, whom Irenæus and Apollinarius followed, and the others who say that after the resurrection the Lord will reign in the flesh with the saints. Tertullian also, in the book On the Hope of the Faithful, and Victorinus of Petabio and Lactantius are led by this opinion Ibid., p. 637.. Where Martianay notes: Erasmus falsely read Victorinus Pictaviensis; since there is no manuscript codex which does not read Petabionensis or Pictabionensis. Likewise in chapter 74 of the same work, under Victorinus himself: Victorinus, bishop of Petavio, did not know Latin as well as Greek. Hence his works seem great in thought, but rather poor in the composition of the words. They are these: Commentaries on Genesis, on Exodus, on Leviticus, on Isaiah, on Ezekiel, on Habakkuk, on Ecclesiastes, on the Canticle of Canticles, on the Apocalypse of John, Against All Heresies and many others. At the last he was crowned with martyrdom Ibid., p. 683.. In the book On the Perpetual Virginity of Blessed Mary against Helvidius: He calls Tertullian in testimony and sets forth the words of Victorinus, bishop of Petabio. And of Tertullian I say nothing more than that he was not a man of the Church. But of Victorinus I assert the same as of the evangelists, that he spoke of brothers of the Lord, not of sons of Mary. And brothers in that sense which we set forth above, by kinship, not by nature Ibid., p. 201.. In the Commentary on Ecclesiastes, on that verse: Better is a poor and wise youth than an old and foolish king who knows not how to provide for the future, he writes thus: Origen and Victorinus did not think very differently from one another. For after that general sentiment which is plain to all, that a poor and wise youth is better than an old and foolish king, and that it often happens that the former through his wisdom, even coming out of the king's prison, rules in place of the perverse master, and the foolish king loses the rule he held; they have interpreted this passage of Christ and the devil, in that they take the poor and wise boy to be Christ Ibid., pp. 1050, 1051.. In the prologue to the Commentaries on the prophet Isaiah: And it is a matter of great labor and work to wish to expound the whole book of Isaiah, on which the talents of our forebears have sweated: I mean the Greeks; but among the Latins there is great silence, except for the martyr Victorinus of holy memory, who could say with the Apostle: Though unskilled in speech, yet not in knowledge Ibid., vol. XXIV, p. 20.. In book XI of the Commentaries on Ezekiel: For we do not look for a jewelled and golden Jerusalem from heaven according to the Jewish fables, which they call δευτερώσεις: nor again are we to suffer the injury of circumcision, nor to offer victims of bulls and rams, nor to sleep in the idleness of the sabbath. Which many of our writers also promise, and especially the book of Tertullian entitled On the Hope of the Faithful, and the seventh volume of the Institutes of Lactantius, and the frequent expositions of Victorinus, bishop of Petabio, and lately our Severus in the dialogue to which he gave the name Gallus Ibid., p. 339.. In the prologue to the Commentaries on the Gospel of Matthew: I confess that many years ago I read twenty-five volumes of Origen on Matthew, and as many of his homilies, a comma-by-comma kind of interpretation, and the commentaries of Theophilus, bishop of the city of Antioch, of Hippolytus the martyr too, and of Theodore of Heraclea, and of Apollinaris of Laodicea and Didymus of Alexandria; and of the Latins the opuscula of Hilary, Victorinus, Fortunatian, from which, even if I were to pluck only small things, something worthy of memory would be written Ibid., vol. XXVI, p. 20.. In the prologue to the translation of the thirty-nine homilies of Origen on the Gospel of Luke: Moreover I have arranged to send to you after a few days the commentaries of the most eloquent man Hilary and of the blessed martyr Victorinus, which they published on Matthew in different speech but with one grace of the spirit, that you may not be ignorant how great a zeal for the holy Scriptures our own men too once had Ibid., p. 220.. Cassiodorus in the book On the Institution of Divine Letters, chapter 5: Concerning which book (Ecclesiastes) Victorinus too, from orator a bishop, has discoursed somewhat Ibid., vol. LXX, p. 1117.. Chapter 7: Concerning whom (Matthew) Victorinus too, from orator a bishop, has discoursed somewhat Ibid., p. 1119.. Chapter 9: Concerning which book (the Apocalypse) Victorinus too, the bishop often mentioned, treated briefly all the most difficult passages Ibid., p. 1122..

[19] Inscriptions and titles of Pannonia in which is the name Victorinus. After these praises from writers, we have judged that another kind of document should be added, namely the inscriptions and titles on stones, found throughout both Pannonias, which speak of Victorini, from which perhaps some light may be sprinkled on the obscure history of St. Victorinus. The order of the numbers is that of the Corpus of Latin Inscriptions of Theodor Mommsen, in the first part of the third volume. We edit the texts, emended so far as was permitted from the Ephemeris Epigraphica, vol. II, fasc. 4.

IN LOWER PANNONIA.

Waitzen, in the palace of Cardinal Migazzi:

AVR . VICTORINE

QVAE . VIXIT . ANN

XVII . MES . VI . DIEB

X . AVR . VIAToR . MIL

COH . MAVROR

CONIVGI . KARISSIM [To Aurelia Victorina, who lived 17 years, 6 months, 10 days; Aurelius Viator, soldier of the cohort of Moors, to his dearest wife.] Vol. cited, no. 3542.

Buda:

D . M IVLIVS VIC

TORINVS . 7 LEG . IIII FL

SPHINC

////// [To the divine shades. Julius Victorinus, centurion of the Fourth Legion Flavia, Sphinc…] Ibid., no. 3555.

Alt-Ofen, in the gardens of a priest, several names of men, among which:

FL VICTORINVS Flavius Victorinus Ibid., no. 3591.

Found about fifty years ago in the royal wood of Kising near Bekás-Megyer or Krottendorf in the county of Pest; it is extant at Pest in the monastery of the Franciscans:

i o m

IVNONI reG MINeRVÆ

cETERIS diIS DEABUSque

OMNIBVS POSSESSOR

eS VICI VINDONIANI

EX VOTO POSVERV

NT QuOR Ncm scripTA

SVNT

AVR ÆPictETIANuS

aVR VETTIANVS eQR

////// TORINVS/ [To Jupiter Best and Greatest, to Queen Juno, to Minerva, to the other gods and to all the goddesses, the landholders of the village Vindonianus set this up by a vow; whose names are written: Aurelius Epictetianus, Aurelius Vettianus, knight, …torinus.] Ibid., no. 3626.

At Pressburg, Donaugasse no. 144, in the gardens of Scuborits, who probably brought the stone from elsewhere:

DIS PATRIS MA

NALPHO ET THEAN

DRIO PRO SAL

DD NN

CL VICTORINVS

EQ COH CAN ////

ET - CL - MAXIMVS - FIL

DOM - CAN - V - S - L - L [To the ancestral gods Manalphus and Theandrius, for the safety of our lords, Claudius Victorinus, horseman of the cohort Can…, and Claudius Maximus his son, of the home Can…, fulfilled the vow gladly and deservedly.] Ibid., no. 3668. Cf. Ephemeris epigraphica, II, no. 722.

IN UPPER PANNONIA.

Column at Mokritz, at the chapel of St. Anne.

I . O . M

MARCIVS

VICTORI

NVS ET COR

VRSINA

HEIVS CVM

MARCIS

V . S . L . L . [To Jupiter Best and Greatest, Marcius Victorinus and Cor. Ursina, his wife, with the Marcii, fulfilled the vow gladly and deservedly.] Ibid., no. 3917.

Degoj on the river Kulpa:

I . O . M .

NVNDINARIO

PRO SALVTE Ê

IMP . GORDIANI NO

G . D . Q . VICTORINVS

DEC COL . SISC ĪĪVIR/

EQ . ROM . SAC . I/P//R

ET C . D . VICTORINNVS

FIL DEC COL SISC . EQ . R

P 1 LIA . LVCIL . KA

CONIVX SACERDOT

A.D. 238. PIO . ET . PROCVLO . COS . [To Jupiter Best and Greatest Nundinarius, for the safety of the Emperor Gordian our lord, G. D. Q. Victorinus, decurion of the colony of Siscia, duumvir, Roman knight, priest…, and C. D. Victorinnus, his son, decurion of the colony of Siscia, Roman knight, … Lucil. Ka…, his wife, priestess, in the consulship of Pius and Proculus.] [Ibid., no. 3936. Cf. Henzen, Annali dell' instituto archeol. di Roma 1859, vol. 31, p. 117.]

A chest at Militär-Sissek in the house of Paul Bitroff, in whose vineyard it was found:

D M

PONTIO LVPO AVG COL

SISC SCRIBAE MVNIC FAVST

PONTIA . VICTORINA . SOROR

ET . DOMIT . CRESCENS . A . D . E [To the divine shades. To Pontius Lupus, Augustalis of the colony of Siscia, scribe of the municipality of Faust…; Pontia Victorina his sister and Domitius Crescens set this up from his own property.] Ibid., no. 3974.

Alt-Sziszeg, found in the courtyard of the parish priest and preserved by him:

FELICISSIMAE ET SACMENEVNss~O CONIVGI

DOMINVS VICTORINVS MARITVS SEPVLCRVM

EORVM COLLOCAVIT FELICISSIMA QVE VIXIT

CVM EO ANNIS XIII ANNO VRBIS DXVII SAR1VNAM

// VIISI // Cx // D〉 PHY // DEO [To Felicissima and … his wife, Dominus Victorinus her husband placed the tomb of them; Felicissima, who lived with him 13 years, in the year of the City 517 … to God.] Ibid., no. 3996a.

At Andautonia:

NEM . REG .AVG . SAC

IVL . VICTORINVS . VET

MVN . AND . CVM . SVIS

V . S . L . M [Sacred to Queen Nemesis Augusta; Julius Victorinus, veteran of the municipality of Andautonia, with his family, fulfilled the vow gladly, deservedly.] Ibid., no, 4008.

At Pettau, at St. Martin's:

ISIDI

AVG

SIGNVM

C VM . BAS

VICTORIN

EX . VOTO

POSVIT To Isis Augusta, Victorinus placed this statue with its base, by a vow. Ibid., no. 4016.

In the church of the fortress of Salvar:

C . IVLIVS

SEVERINVS

VET . LEG . I . ADIVT

VIV . FECIT . SIBI . ET

STRABONIAE . VICTO

RINAE . CONIVG . PIENT

TISSIMAE . ANNOR . XXX

ET . C . VLPIO . LICINIO

AMICO . OPTIMO [Gaius Julius Severinus, veteran of the First Legion Adjutrix, made this while living for himself and for Strabonia Victorina his most dutiful wife, aged 30 years, and for Gaius Ulpius Licinius, his best friend.] Ibid., no. 4148.

§ VI. Of the homeland, family, learning, episcopal see, age and martyrdom of St. Victorinus.

The homeland of St. Victorinus seems to be Pannonia, perhaps the city of Pettau. We have now laid before the reader's eyes all that antiquity handed down to posterity concerning our Victorinus. It remains that we extract from this what is to be determined concerning the most holy bishop, martyr and doctor. And first indeed it is asked from what homeland he arose or from what family he sprang. Concerning the homeland there is the greatest doubt. Jerome, who could best of all have instructed us, offers nothing else except that, opposing Victorinus to the Greek doctors, he constantly calls him Latin, and calls him our Victorinus. But he asserts that the same man was much better learned in Greek than in Latin, so much indeed that he says the works of Victorinus seem great in thought, but rather poor in the composition of the words, to such an extent indeed that he cannot express what he thinks. Led by which words Cave Script. Eccl. Hist. litt., p. 94., Tillemont Mémoires, vol. V, p. 133., Lumper At the place to be cited at the end of this §. and others have thought that Victorinus was born in Greece or on its borders. Which indeed they seem to suppose not unsuitably. But I am prevented from adhering to this opinion by Jerome, who in calling him our Victorinus, suggests a man of the West and of a homeland which speaks Latin; which, although it does not settle the matter of itself, yet very many inscriptions found through both the lower and upper Pannonia have caused me to think that the words of Jerome should be understood in that sense. For ten inscriptions of that region, of which one was found at Pettau, speak of Victorini and Victorinæ; whence it may be concluded that Victorini dwelt in Pannonia, and that St. Victorinus is on that account called ours by Jerome, because he knew that he had arisen in Pannonia, not far from Jerome's native soil. We are of the opinion also that our saint was born in the very city of Pettau *, although we are not able to demonstrate it by a certain argument; but the inscription found at Pettau sufficiently suggests that a family of Victorini dwelt in that city, and that not of the lowest condition, since one of it publicly set up a statue to Isis by a vow. That some of the Victorini living through the region of Pannonia believed in Christ is proved by the Christian inscription given above. And if we consider moreover that it is more credible that the clergy of Pettau chose their own citizen as bishop rather than a foreigner, not without cause do we seem to ourselves to be inclined to this view, that we should believe Victorinus, bishop of Pettau, to have arisen from Pettau itself.

[21] A notable family. Concerning the family of Victorinus no one has committed anything to writing. If, however, we run through the inscriptions of Upper Pannonia, we find Victorini of a most honorable condition, duumvirs, Roman knights, we find men rich enough to build tombs for themselves, to erect statues: whence no slight indication is drawn that they were of a notable family. Moreover the ancients were not accustomed to choose bishops from the lowest of the common people. There is added the testimony of Cassiodorus saying that Victorinus was made a bishop from an orator; which I see no reason why anyone should call into doubt with Tillemont (at the place just cited). Hence it is that we consider our Victorinus to have been of the leading men of the city of Pettau.

[22] [The learning of Victorinus perhaps not great in secular letters, very great in divine ones.] There are those who oppose this opinion, led by the authority of Jerome, who writes that erudition was lacking to Victorinus, a defect which we could hardly admit in a man liberally educated and devoted to the art of oratory. But I think that the words of Jerome are to be so understood that he denies that exquisite and outstanding erudition in secular matters, such as befitted a man of so great a talent, but not all erudition absolutely, and such as could be acquired in half-barbarous Pannonia by a youth educated in his own municipality. For what is the meaning of yet the will for erudition is not lacking? I assent to Schönemann when he says (Bibl. Patr. lat., vol. I, chapter III, 8): since so few specimens of the style of Victorinus survive, and those not sufficiently certain, it will hardly be possible to settle this question. Nevertheless, from Jerome's assertion that the will for erudition was not lacking in Victorinus, I conclude that in the holy man's works there were scattered indications of erudition and a manifest zeal for acquiring it. In the same way I understand the Latinity of Victorinus criticized by Jerome. For it is plain that Victorinus was well trained in Greek letters, which suits one liberally educated, perhaps having used Greek masters in keeping with the condition of his family, but that he learned Latin from the city's own grammarian. I am of the opinion therefore that one accustomed both to speak and to write Greek never employed the Latin idiom with that purity of tongue and pen which a youth trained in his native speech and using outstanding masters would obtain with no great labor. If Jerome had had only his own grammarian of Stridon, he would never have acquired that exact elegance of Latinity. But it did not fall to everyone to hear Donatus at Rome. Besides, one who had written so many volumes on such great matters, who handed Origen to Latin ears not as an interpreter, but as the author of his own work, although he did not equal Ambrose, nor the elegance of Jerome or Rufinus, nor rose to the Gallic buskin of Hilary, must yet be reckoned to have written in an acceptable style. And in truth those few fragments, rather than continuous speech, which are commonly ascribed to the author himself, are not in so abject a language. But enough and more than enough about these things. For we are prevented from arriving at the clear truth by the injury of times and men. But the things that we know for certain about Victorinus are of the highest and divine praise. He was a bishop, an outstanding teacher of the sacred letters, an untiring defender of the church, a hammer of heretics, and finally a renowned martyr of Jesus Christ.

[23] The city of Pettau Perhaps it will not be foreign to this place to extract a few things about the city of Pettau itself, over which Bishop Victorinus presided. We find its name formerly written in more ways than one. But concerning that city let us hear the distinguished Mommsen in the Corpus of Latin Inscriptions, prefacing the titles found at Pettau: which essay is read in the first part of volume III. For there is described, p. 510, the colony Ulpia Trajana Pœtovio *, of the tribe Papiria.

[24] is described. Pœtovio (so all the inscriptions found in the town itself or near it, likewise the one reported above, no. 753, in which it is called Colonia Ulpia Pœtovionensis from Upper Pannonia, and below no. 5427, found at Kalsdorf near Graz, in which is read: M. Ulpius Saturnus domu Ulpia Pœtovione, and those of the City, Gruter 533, 8: P. Barbius P. f. Papiria Pœtovione Maximianus, and Henzen no. 6791: M. Mummius M. f. Verinus Pap. Pœtov., and the Tarraconensian one vol. II, no. 4147: M. Aur. M. f. Pap. Lucilio Pœtovion.; likewise Tacitus, Hist. 3, 1 and the Antonine Itinerary p. 261, 262, 265 according to the best codices: against this, Petovionenses in the African inscription, Renier no. 1718; Petovio or Potovio in the Jerusalem Itinerary p. 561; Petobio in Ammianus 14, 11, 19. Ποτόβιον in Ptolemy 2, 14, 4, according to the better books the worse have παταυιον; Ποτέκιον corruptly in Zosimus 2, 46, Patavio in the Antonine Itinerary p. 129, and Priscus p. 84 Müll.: ἀπὸ Παταβίωνος τῆς ἐν Νωρικῷ πόλεως; Petavio in the Peutinger Table, and the inscription of the City, Fabretti 129, 54 = Gud. ms. 293, 3, in which there is C. Julio C. f. Ulpia Petavione) is first remembered in Tacitus, loc. cit., in narrating the events of the year after Christ 69, whence it is understood that at that time the Thirteenth Legion Gemina had its winter quarters there (cf. nos. 4061, 4118, which is of a legate of that legion under the rule of Nero), so that it grew up altogether, like most other towns of these parts, out of a camp and its settlements. But that soldiers were withdrawn also from Pœtovio already in the first century for the occupying of the Danube frontier is gathered from what I have set forth in their proper places about the camps of Acumincum and Aquincum, likewise of Brigetio, and when these were made the Pœtovio camps certainly ceased. The same is confirmed by the legionary tiles, since at Pœtovio are found only those of the Thirteenth Legion, which down to the times of Trajan garrisoned Pannonia, and none of those legions which it is established held Pannonia in the second century; and lastly the tiles of the Thirteenth Legion at Pettau surpass the tiles of the same legion at Vienna both in rarity and in simplicity, and show themselves to be older. For which reason I think that the Thirteenth Legion was transferred from Pœtovio to Vindobona not so much under the rule of Trajan as before, that is under the rule of Vespasian; although you may perhaps argue from no. 4025, of a trierarchy of the Flavian Pannonian fleet, that a fleet also stood at Pœtovio afterwards. Pœtovio moreover received the form of a colony from Trajan; for it is called colonia Ulpia Pœtovionensis in the inscription just cited, no. 753; Ulpia Pœtovio in the one from Noricum and the one from the City cited above; lastly the abbreviations not rare in the inscriptions of Pœtovio themselves, never found outside the territory, C. V. T. P., are without doubt rightly commonly taken of Colonia Ulpia Trajana Pœtovio, since such a doubling as Ulpia Trajana, not otherwise commonly met with, is found more than once in the colonies of that emperor. And not only was the name of a colony attributed to it, but that colonists were led there from Italy has been shown by inscription no. 4057 of a veteran of the Second Legion Adjutrix, by origin of Dertona, but led to Pœtovio by the second agrarian discharge, so that, if indeed we have rightly explained the abbreviations and rightly referred the inscription to Trajan, it now appears that he made discharges on account of settlements and numbered them, as he numbered the alimentary obligations. To the same settlements we shall likewise refer what Hyginus the land-surveyor has, p. 121 (cf. p. 205) Lachmann, that lately a certain evocatus of Augustus assigned lands in Pannonia in accordance with the will and liberality of the emperor Trajan Augustus Germanicus. — That Pœtovio belonged to Upper Pannonia until Constantine the Great (see no. 4121), besides Tacitus and Ptolemy the inscriptions

in very great number testify, so that those are not to be listened to who today assert the contrary: but in the fourth century it is no less established that Pœtovio was comprised within the bounds of Noricum, namely Mediterranean Noricum. Thus the Jerusalem Itinerary, written in the year after Christ 333, extends Noricum to Pœtovio, adding “you cross the Bridge, you enter Lower Pannonia” (in place of which either Upper or Savia ought to have been named); likewise Ammianus, loc. cit., and Priscus, loc. cit., expressly call Pœtovio a town of the Norici. — Of the form of its commonwealth, whatever we know the inscriptions have taught. The administration of the revenues of the province of Upper Pannonia must in some manner have had its seat at Pœtovio; for there are found in the inscriptions procurators of the province of Upper Pannonia (nos. 4024, 4031, 4046), record-keepers of that province (nos. 4043, 4066), assistants to the record-keepers (nos. 4020, 4023, 4062), keepers of the records (no. 4032), a paymaster of the record-keepers (no. 4044), a paymaster of the accounts of the chest of the province of Pannonia (no. 4049), a freedman of Augustus from the record-office of the revenues of Illyricum (no. 4063), a freedman of the Augusti from the coin-office of the province of Upper Pannonia (no. 4035, in an inscription of the year after Christ 207), a steward of the twentieth on inheritances of both Pannonias (no. 4065), and lastly, those who pertain to the customs of Illyricum, countersigners and like officials (nos. 4015, 4017, 4024). When we come to municipal matters, decurions are found everywhere; likewise duumvirs for pronouncing justice (nos. 4038, 4069, cf. 4028), prefects (no. 4028?), ædiles (no. 4038), quæstors (no. 4038); pontiffs (Renier no. 1718), augurs (no. 4038), former priests (no. 4033 and Renier, loc. cit.); augustales (no. 4107), a college of youth with its prefects and quinquennales (no. 4043), likewise a great college of the Lares and of the images of Cæsar (no. 4037). Of the tribe there is certainty both from the inscription of Pœtovio no. 4071, and from the three external ones adduced above.”

[25] [where after a long episcopate, perhaps about the year 304, St. Victorinus died a martyr.] From these things the diligent reader can sketch for himself, as it were, a certain face of the town of Pettau at the time when Victorinus ruled its church. When he rose to the summit of this dignity no one has told us. Since, however, he met death for the faith in the persecution of Diocletian, he must have flourished about the end of the third century or the beginnings of the fourth. If he wrote his works, of which St. Jerome lists a large enough number, in the episcopate, he presided over the church of Pettau for many years. In what year he underwent his blessed martyrdom I have found nowhere written among the ancients; but I strongly suspect that Victorinus, having suffered about the beginnings of the persecution raging through the West, celebrated his glorious triumph in the year 304, the fury of the persecutors having extended from Italy, Aquileia, and Trieste into the towns of Pannonia. And if this is so, we can perhaps assign to Victorinus by a probable conjecture an episcopate of thirty or thirty-four years. What he showed himself to be through those times the books he wrote testify, which demonstrate to us a man turning the divine page with hand by night and by day, meditating continually, so that he could compose so many books of commentaries; and a pastor of the flock of Christ, ever watchful, who refuted by his written books all the heretics whatsoever that he knew. From which we can easily understand with how great a zeal he watched over his own flock, and with how much care he fed the people committed to him with saving doctrine, who endured such great labors for the good of the universal Church, worthy indeed to add to so many insignia of merits the laurel of martyrdom. And here indeed the lack of documents bids us set an end concerning the labors and the happy contest of Victorinus. Of the writings of the most blessed martyr very many have treated, whose names it would be long to recite and whose opinions long to bring forward, nor does it belong to this place. For which reason we send the studious reader to the distinguished Lumper's Prolegomena on St. Victorinus, Bishop and Martyr, prefixed to the remains of the works of St. Victorinus, and likewise to the notes of the editors placed under these in the Latin Patrology. There he will find all the questions pertaining to the works of Victorinus splendidly treated Migne, P. L., vol. V, p. 281–346..

* Pettau

* Pettau

§ VII. Of the cult of St. Victorinus and of the Church of Pettau.

In the year 1768, the clergy of Pettau How ancient in the Church is the cult of St. Victorinus, bishop of Pettau and martyr, the martyrologies demonstrate abundantly, whose elogia we brought forward in the first paragraph of our Commentary. But whether he enjoys a special cult and honor in the church over which he presided we have still not discovered. For the priests of that church, when questioned, gave no answer to our letters. But in the church of Poitiers he was honored for some time, as was said in the Commentary, where we refuted the error of those who believed Victorinus to be bishop of the Pictavi. This most pious error of the Pictavi God permitted to this end, that he might stir up the negligence of the people of Pettau and their minds careless of their holy bishop to repair, though late, by cult so great an injury to the most holy martyr. At length in the year 1768 the clergy and city of Pettau offered a supplication to the holy See, of which behold the summary:

[27] invoking a very ancient cult Most Blessed Father. Prostrate most humbly at the sacred feet of Your Holiness, the petitioner Francis Ignatius, count of Inzaghi, archpriest and dean of Pettau, of the diocese of Salzburg, with all the clergy of his district both secular and regular, and also with all the inhabitants of the same city, with fitting submission sets forth how there persists, continued from so many centuries down to these very times, the veneration toward St. Victorinus, martyr and formerly their bishop: And indeed, although so many wars, persecutions and other injuries of the times have left no other clear trace, yet this esteem and devotion concerning their aforesaid bishop, drawn by tradition from their forebears, has remained unshaken down to this very age. For which reason he most devoutly entreats that Your Holiness, for the increase of devotion, may most graciously grant that an office of the same saint with proper lessons under the rite of the first or second class be recited, and the mass be said, both by the secular and the regular clergy existing in this district, and this favor which God, etc. — Francis Ignatius, count of Inzaghi, archpriest and dean of Pettau, together with all his clergy. — Francis Wasser, judge of the city of Pettau. — Francis Louis Sabinf, syndic. — Joachim Joseph Harrer, senator and elder. — Francis Xavier Schmidt, assessor. — Anthony Coteritz, assessor.

[28] for obtaining permission for liturgical cult, Rescript of the Sacred Congregation of Rites: — To the Most Eminent and Most Reverend Lord Cardinal Boschi, that he may review it and report in the Sacred Congregation of Rites. — V. Macedonius, secretary of the Sacred Congregation of Rites. Then there follow the mass Statuit from the common of one martyr and bishop with a proper prayer, and three proper lessons of the office of the second nocturn. Finally there is attached the testimony of the bishop of Seckau, vicar general of the archbishop of Salzburg, in favor of the grant of the favor requested, which is as follows.

[29] although there was added We, Joseph Philip, by the grace of God bishop the recommendation of the Ordinary, of Seckau, prince of the Holy Roman Empire, canon capitular of the metropolitan church of Salzburg and the cathedral church of Brixen, provost of Ehrenburg, vicar general in pontificals and spirituals through both Styrias and the district of Neustadt, etc. etc., count of Spaur. — Our dean and archpriest of Pettau, Francis Ignatius, count of Inzaghi, has set forth to us that he, with the inhabitants of the same city, has most humbly entreated the holy See that there be granted to him for St. Victorinus, bishop and martyr, whom they prove to have been bishop of Pettau, not of Poitiers, a mass (sic) with an office of nine lessons. Accordingly we accompany their pious supplications with these presents, DEEMING THEM ENTIRELY WORTHY THAT THE FAVOR REQUESTED BE MOST KINDLY CONFERRED ON THEM BY THE HOLY SEE. — Given at Graz in our episcopal residence, on the 25th day of March 1768.

Joseph, bishop of Seckau.

At the personal command of the said prince and bishop there subscribed Wolfgang Innocent Poss, doctor of both laws, protonotary apostolic, ecclesiastical counsellor and secretary, by his own hand.

Place of the † seal.

[30] the cause was deferred. But what is said in the bishop's testimony, whom they prove to have been bishop of Pettau, not of Poitiers, looks to a most learned memorial by Achille Ruschi, which the petitioners offered together with the supplication; in which Victorinus is claimed for the church of Pettau, by nearly the same arguments which we pursue in the Commentary. From this supplication we learn that in the year 1768 the memory of and devotion to Victorinus, received from their fathers, persevered among the people of Pettau, without however their offering any singular cult to so great a man. But what outcome the proposed supplication had at that time is plain from the following words, which are inscribed on the back of the copy transmitted from Rome to our predecessors in the customary manner: In the Congregation of Sacred Rites held on the 17th day of August 1768 it was rescripted: Deferred and according to the mind. The mind is that inquiry be made whether St. Victorinus had a public cult in the city of Pettau, for which a proper office is sought. Apart from this we know nothing about the cult offered to St. Victorinus at Pettau, so that in what state that cult now is, is plainly hidden from us.

[31] The relics of St. Victorinus, which in Usuard In the Lübeck-Cologne edition of Usuard, in Sollerius, on the 2nd day of November there is read thus: On the same day in Monasterio the translation of Sts. Victorinus and Florian, martyrs. Two celebrated translations of St. Florian are held: one from Noricum to Rome, the other from Rome to Poland. When the former was made is unknown; the latter took place in the year 1183. On which matter see Godfrey Henschen in the Acta Sanctorum at the 4th day of May Vol. I, pp. 466, 467.. More than one question arises from this. And first indeed it is asked what the name Monasterio means. Is it the proper name of a city or town, or a common noun? I should think that the monastery of St. Florian is indicated, of which Henschen brings forward the following from Rader Bavaria sancta, vol. I, p. 18.. An illustrious church was founded to his (Florian's) memory: in later centuries there was added a monastery, to be inhabited by companions of St. Benedict: which thereafter, since the age reduces all things to decay, was restored by Angelbert, pontiff of Passau, and assigned to those professing the discipline of St. Augustine; which finally the prelate Altmann brought, when it was again failing, to greater splendor, and it was named by posterity St. Florian's. The same things, says Henschen, are confirmed by Wiguleius Hund in the Bishops of Passau, asserting that Engelbert (above, Angelbert) sat from the year of Christ 1045 to the year 1065, and that the monastery of St. Florian, destroyed by the Hungarians, was repaired by him and restored to the canons of St. Augustine. There is there even now a provostship, on the testimony of Henschen, of canons regular of St. Augustine, midway between the cities of Linz and Steyr, and it was still in a flourishing state in the year 1826, as is read in Albert Muchar Noricum Romanum, vol. II, p. 113..

[32] are read to have been translated formerly with the relics of St. Florian, From this monastery, then, the relics of St. Florian were translated to Rome, and thereafter from Rome to Poland, at the petition of King Casimir, by the handing over of the supreme pontiff Lucius III. It is now asked which of these translations is treated by the martyrologist. I am of the opinion that it is the former; for there is no reason why we should think of the latter,

since it does not touch the monastery. According to this martyrologist, then, together with the relics of Florian the sacred bones of St. Victorinus too were translated. They seem therefore to have been translated hither from the place of first burial. But the place of this burial is unknown. We know at any rate that St. Victorinus was bishop of Pettau; but of the place of his martyrdom and tomb, as of the rest, we are ignorant. What if Victorinus underwent martyrdom at nearly the same time and place as Florian, perhaps one of the forty martyrs by the glory of whose confession Florian, as is read in his Acts, was stirred to run to the contest of martyrdom? For then, having obtained a place of burial near St. Florian, who had triumphed first, enjoying perhaps an equal honor with this saint in the church afterwards built in the monastery, rescued with equal caution when the barbarians made their inroads, translated to Rome with Florian, perhaps he still rests at Rome.

[33] are still I make another conjecture. For there must be some way of explaining both the announcement of the martyrologist and the avowal of the people of Pettau in the year 1768, who said that the veneration, esteem and devotion toward Victorinus received from their forebears persisted among them, but that so many wars, persecutions and other injuries of the times had left no other clear trace of the same Victorinus. The matter therefore could have stood thus. The memory of Victorinus flourished at Pettau with due cult in the first times of the Church's peace, and an altar was erected over the sacred relics; but later, when the barbarians made their inroads, the church of Pettau having been destroyed and the town, its inhabitants dispersed, reduced to a wilderness, the presbyters dug up the bones of their holy bishop and translated them to the sanctuary of St. Florian, whence for like causes they were snatched from the fury of the barbarians together with Florian. That this conjecture may be supported by some probable reasoning, I shall briefly narrate the fortunes of the church of Pettau.

[34] perhaps at Rome. At what time the church of Pettau was established we are instructed by no documents, either genuine or spurious. But the colony of Pœtovio was such, as the description of the distinguished Mommsen indicates Above, p. 440., that in the third century it was surely fit for an episcopal see to be established in it, as was in fact established, and over it St. Victorinus presided. Whether he was the first bishop of this church, or succeeded others, can no longer be determined. Whether another bishop succeeded him immediately after his martyrdom, we do not know. Stephen Salagius, treating of the ancient bishoprics in Pannonia, says: To me, indeed, though diligently searching out the memorials of antiquity, it has not been possible to find the name of any prelate of Pettau down to the times of the council of Sardica De statu ecclesiæ Pannonicæ libri VII, book III, chapter VI, no. 6 (p. 202).. In the catalogue of the Fathers of Sardica which the Ballerini edited Opera S. Leonis M., vol. III, p. XLIV., there is read: Aprianus of Petabio in Pannonia. In the same way this Aprianus subscribed the letter of St. Athanasius to the churches of the Mareotis Ibid., p. 611.. In the catalogue of the bishops who were present at the council of Sardica, compiled by St. Athanasius, there is likewise read Aprianus, but with the name of the see omitted. After Aprianus there is found a bishop of Pettau by name Mark, whose memory survives in the letter of the synod of Aquileia of the year 381 to the Augusti Gratian, Valentinian and Theodosius. In which the fathers of the council call Mark a holy priest of admirable memory. At that time therefore, when these things were written, Mark had already departed from the living. Concerning him let us hear Stephen Salagius Volume just cited, p. 203.: The holiness of the man and his singular zeal for defending the Catholic faith without doubt gave the Arians a reason for raging against him and against the church of Pettau, a huge storm being stirred up. For striving to strip him of his see, they intruded into the chair of Pettau a certain Julianus Valens, a wicked man, against the will of the people, who contended for their lawful pastor. Nor did the people devoted to Christ long endure the perfidious usurper; for when he had been cast down from the unjustly usurped see they also, as he deserved, drove him shamefully from the city. Valens, irritated by this, resolved to take vengeance on his fellow-citizens, and betrayed the city to the Goths, who overthrew it. After this he migrated to Italy, whose most flourishing cities he contaminated with illicit ordinations. For which reason he was summoned to the council of priests which was held at Aquileia in the year 381, to answer for the overthrow of his homeland and the betrayal of his citizens. But when the man of ruined conscience had avoided the sight of the synod, the Fathers determined that the aid of the emperors should be implored against him. All these things shine forth from the very letter of the synod of Aquileia, whose words are these Letter 10 among those of Ambrose, class I, Maurist edition.: For what shall we say of Julianus Valens? who, though he was nearby, avoided the council of priests, lest he be compelled to answer to the priests for the overthrow of his homeland and the betrayal of his citizens. Who also, it is asserted, profaned by Gothic impiety and clothed after the manner of the Gentiles with a neck-chain and arm-band, has dared to come forth in the sight of the Roman army: which without doubt is a sacrilege not only in a priest, but even in any Christian; for it is abhorrent to the Roman manner. Unless perhaps the idolatrous priests of the Goths are accustomed so to come forth. Let the name of priest move your piety, which that sacrilegious man defames; who is also convicted by the voices of his own, if any can yet survive, of an unspeakable crime. Let him at any rate go back to his own home; let him not contaminate the cities of most flourishing Italy, who now by illicit ordinations associates with himself men like himself, and seeks to leave behind through every abandoned man a seed-bed of his impiety and perfidy, who has not even begun to be a bishop. For first at Patavio he had been set over the holy man Mark, a priest of admirable memory: but after he was disgracefully cast down by the people, he who could not be at Patavio has now ridden upon Milan, after the overthrow of his homeland, let us say the betrayal. Let your piety therefore deign to take thought concerning all these things, lest, obedient to the statutes of your tranquillity, we seem to have come together in vain. After this holy bishop Mark and the intruded Julianus Valens, certainly no name of a prelate of Pettau thereafter, says Salagius, occurs in the ancient monuments, although the city itself survived in the fifth century, in which Priscus the rhetorician flourished, who calls it a city of Noricum; and it with its territory was subject to the archbishops of Salzburg, and has remained so to this day. Whoever desires more on these matters may consult the often-praised Salagius, book III, chapter VI. In that overthrow of Pettau, then, which we have reported, it may be that the presbyters of this church, having dug out the sacred relics of Victorinus from the rubble, carried them elsewhere, and that they at last rested at St. Florian's and were carried away to Rome in a common translation with the bones of the same holy martyr. We have diligently surveyed various catalogues of the relics of the City of Rome and of other cities in which the name of Victorinus occurs more than once; but so great is the multitude of martyrs distinguished with the name of Victorinus, that we have not been able to excerpt from them any certain document for the relics of our Victorinus.