ON ST. VICTOR OF CAPUA, BISHOP AND CONFESSOR, IN CAMPANIA,
IN THE YEAR 554.
HISTORICAL SYLLOGE.
The cult and memory of the saint in the sacred Calendars; his writings; the time of his episcopate and death.
Victor, bishop and confessor, at Capua in Campania. (S.)
J. V. H.
The cult of St. Victor: The Roman Martyrology on the present day announces St. Victor, bishop of Capua, conspicuous for learning and holiness. Chastelain has the same announcement under this day, but on the 4th day before the Nones of April he had already written: "The deposition of the venerable Victor of Capua, whom the venerable Bede praises for his knowledge of the ecclesiastical computus." On that day indeed, the 2nd of April, St. Victor is read to have been deposed in an ancient monument, of which we shall treat below. Francesco Maria de Aste, archbishop of Otranto, in his Annotations to the Roman Martyrology, has that the name of St. Victor is nowhere found in the Calendar of Capua. The cause of this neglect I indeed do not know, unless perhaps it is to be ascribed to ignorance of the place in which the body of our saint lay hidden for many centuries. For Ughelli has this [Italia sacra aucta, volume VI, column 307. Michele Monaco, Sanctuarium Capuanum, p. 98.]: "Vincenzo Verace, in the History of the same monastery, writes that the sacred remains of Victor were found together with other relics of saints under the high altar of the church of the monastery of Monte Vergine in the year 1480, on the 27th day of July, where they are venerated with an annual office; although in the Capuan Breviary no memory of Victor is had." This laying of the body under the high altar with other relics of saints certainly shows an ancient cult, but indicates at the same time that the fame of his holiness was not widely spread; wherefore not only the classical Martyrologies of Ado and Usuard but also their Auctaria were ignorant of it; only Pietro Galesini, who lit the way for the Roman Martyrology of Baronius, composes a brief eulogy of the saint. The monastery of Monte Vergine, which is the head of an order under the rule of St. Benedict, is situated in the diocese of Avellino, and our Papebroch wrote a clear description of it in the Appendix to the Life of St. William, abbot, on the 25th day of June Acta Sanctorum, volume V of June, p. 134..
[2] his writings on the cycle No Acts of St. Victor survive, and his chief deeds are to be drawn from the Venerable Bede. A compendium of them, yet not without faults, is presented by the Italian Hagiology in these words: "Victor, bishop of Capua, conspicuous for learning and holiness, confuted the paschal cycle of Victorius of Aquitaine and composed another, which the fourth Synod of Orléans received and approved. He published a Preface on the Concordance of the Gospels, wherefore Bede called him a most holy and most learned man, and many writers make mention of him with praises. When he had passed from this life, he merited to be enrolled among the holy bishops." I said that the cited compendium of the Life is not without its faults: for certainly it is erroneous to say that the Fourth Synod of Orléans, celebrated in the year 541, approved the paschal cycle of our Victor, since by the first canon it is enacted Labbe, Concilia, volume V, column 381. "that holy Easter be celebrated by all priests at one time according to the table of Victorius" (not of Victor). For the synod treats of Victorius of Aquitaine, or of Marseille, who in the year of Christ 463 under Pope Hilarus composed a paschal Cycle Cf. Baronius at this year, § II; Pagi, Critica, § III., not of our Victor, who, as we have from the Venerable Bede in the book On the Reckoning of Times, chapter LI Volume II of the Works, p. 92, Cologne edition 1612., wrote on the Cycle in the year of Christ 550. Here are the words of Bede: "But lest the lovers of Victorius (of Aquitaine) should tear us to pieces as having rashly attacked him, let them read the book of a most learned and most holy man, namely Victor, bishop of Capua, on Easter, which was thought ought to be celebrated on the fifteenth day before the Kalends of May, in the thirteenth Indiction, the ninth after the consulship of Basilius, and they will find of how much worth their master has been reckoned by prudent and Catholic Doctors of the Church; the beginning of whose book is: 'When the venerable solemnity of Easter, on what day especially it would fall in the thirteenth Indiction of the present year, was being solicitously inquired by us, and according to the constitutions of the venerable Fathers we said that the Resurrection of the Lord was without doubt to be celebrated on the eighth day before the Kalends of May, our answer seemed to some by no means reasonable, because a certain Victorius in the paschal circle which he published fixed the day of the Lord's Resurrection otherwise, although he also designated this day which we likewise profess is to be celebrated.' And in the course of the Work: 'But now,' I say, 'the order requires that I lay bare evidently the errors of the cycles which Victorius published,
since he does not know how to define the lawful paschal day, so that, when he has been shown in this way to have failed in the past, he may both lack authority in the present and future and lose the occasion of perverse persuasion.'" Thus Bede.
[3] the paschal cycle, which Victorius From the very words of St. Victor, therefore, it is established that he wrote on the paschal cycle in the ninth year after the consulship of Basilius, which concurs with the common year 550, when in fact there was a disagreement between the Westerners and the Easterners about the day of celebrating Easter, some assigning the 8th, others the 15th day before the Kalends of May. Wherefore the error of those is manifest who said that the paschal cycle of our Victor was approved by the Fathers of the Fourth Council of Orléans, inasmuch as he published his lucubration a whole nine years later. Down to the times of Victorius of Aquitaine the Westerners and Easterners disagreed chiefly in two things concerning the paschal question: first, the head of the month Nisan, or the beginning of the paschal moon, which the Westerners or Latins began from the 5th day of March. The other concerned the paschal Sundays, which these too extended from the 16th to the 22nd moon. The former, concerning the head of the month Nisan, Victorius too rejected; since it had this inconvenience, that the paschal feast of the Lord's Resurrection would be celebrated before the vernal Equinox, fixed by the Nicene decree to the 21st day of March or the 12th day before the Kalends of April, or on the Equinox itself, whenever, with the dominical letter B, the paschal new moon fell on the 5th of March: for then the 14th moon or full moon fell on the 18th day of March, the 15th day before the Kalends of April, marked with the letter G. Whence it followed that Easter would precede the vernal Equinox by one day. Moreover, whenever the same new moon obtained the dominical letter C, so often Easter fell on the very day of the Equinox. And both were against the decision of the Fathers, wherefore the Westerners were compelled to violate the fixed rules too.
[4] of Aquitaine had not yet wholly Victorius of Aquitaine brought a remedy to the evil by establishing that the beginning of the paschal new moon should be reckoned from the 6th day of March, and since this day contained no golden number, the new moon in fact never began before the 7th day of March. By this method Victorius indeed obtained that Easter always fell after the vernal Equinox fixed to the 21st day of March. But from this ordering of Victorius another inconvenience arose, about which the other dissension between the Westerners and Easterners turned. For since the 16th moon was the first day on which the paschal Sunday could fall, it followed that, whenever the Sunday concurred with the 15th moon, so often the solemnity of the Resurrection had to be transferred to the 22nd moon. Which method the Venerable Bede reprehends in the following words, On the Reckoning of Times, chapter LVII Volume II of the Works, p. 95.: "Those who think that the Lord's day of Easter is to be celebrated from the 16th moon to the 22nd labour under a double misery, because they both never have the lawful beginning of Easter, and it often happens that they attain none of the days which are prescribed in the law in their paschal observance: while they wholly reject from their festivity both the evening of the fourteenth day, on which it was enacted that Easter should begin, and the morning of the fifteenth, on which the solemnity of the seven days of unleavened bread was commanded to begin, and moreover, in punishment of this sin, they command that the 22nd day, which in the whole paschal institution through Moses is found not once named, be frequently sanctioned as the beginning of their Easter."
[5] had partly corrected: But neither did this disagreement touch the question raised about the Easter of the year 550, of which our St. Victor wrote. For in that year the Westerners celebrated the solemnity of the Resurrection, put off among the Easterners to the 8th day before the Kalends of May, on the 15th day before the Kalends, and that indeed on the very 14th paschal moon, as is plain from the Golden Number of this year, which was XIX, and the new moon fell on the 2nd day before the Nones (the 4th) of April, to which if thirteen days are added, one comes to the full moon or to the 17th of April (the 15th day before the Kalends of May): the calculation would certainly have tottered, since after this day, namely lest the Christians seem to judaize, the Sunday of the Resurrection would have had to be kept. Yet let us not suspect that the Latins violated the rule prescribed by the Nicene Synod, as though they had wished to celebrate Easter with the Jews on the very fourteenth moon. For the cause of this disagreement must be sought further back: the Westerners set the 3rd day of April as the extreme limit of the paschal new moon, which the Easterners prolonged by two days Sanclementi, De vulgaris aerae emendatione, p. 187., whence it came about that the moon which these numbered as the 14th was computed by the Latins as the 16th. This too was fixed and settled, that the limits of the paschal festivity should be confined within the 11th day before the Kalends of April and the 11th day before the Kalends of May (22nd of March – 21st of April), so that it was permitted neither to anticipate the nearer limit nor to leap over the further. Which indeed St. Leo forbids to be done in the same case for the year 455, in letter 88 to Paschasinus, bishop of Lilybaeum, saying Volume I of the Works, column 1060, Ballerini edition, Venice 1753.: "This we find wholly foreign to the ecclesiastical rule." Nevertheless the holy Pontiff, although not convinced by the reasons of the Easterners, yet solely out of zeal for unity and peace proclaimed Easter according to their opinion. But the same controversy recurring after a circle of ninety-five years, or in the year of Christ 550, the dispute broke out afresh, for which I believe our Victor composed his work on the paschal cycle, namely so that the further paschal limit might be transferred from the 11th to the 7th day before the Kalends of May (22nd – 25th of April), which Dionysius Exiguus too had tried to carry out about the year 526. But the Latins' way of proceeding long fluctuated, and only under Charlemagne after the year 784 was the controversy settled L'Art de vérifier les dates, Chronological Table.. Whoever wishes to see more may consult the books of Gilles Boucher and of Petau on the Doctrine of Times.
[6] he also publishes in Latin a Harmony of the Gospels, Another work too of our St. Victor is celebrated, namely the Concordance of the Four Gospels, which he translated from Greek into the Latin tongue. Rémi Ceillier, O.S.B., in his work on Ecclesiastical Authors Histoire générale des Auteurs ecclésiastiques, volume XVI, p. 547., says that St. Victor relied on not sufficiently firm reasons when he ascribes this Gospel Concordance or Harmony to Ammonius of Alexandria. But to one reading the preface of the pontiff of Capua it is altogether evident that he remained doubtful between Ammonius and Tatian, to which of them he should attribute the lucubration. For his words plainly testify to this Bibliotheca maxima Patrum, volume III, p. 266, Lyon edition 1678.: "I think," he says, "that the said volume is not the edition of Ammonius but of this man (Tatian), because Ammonius is reported to have attached to the account of Matthew the account of the remaining Evangelists in separated discourses: but here the beginnings of St. Luke have been taken up, although for the most part he has joined the sayings of the other three to the Gospel of St. Matthew: so that it may rightly be doubted whether the invention of this work ought to be reckoned Ammonius's or Tatian's." Nay, from this text Baronius, at the year 174, § VI, took it that Victor adjudged the Gospel Harmony to Tatian. But to me he rather seems to have hesitated, doubtful between the two, since, deceived by the report of those who said that the Gospel of St. Matthew especially had been laid at the foundation of the lucubration of Ammonius, while in the Concordance published by our Victor we read that St. Luke took the principal parts, he could not recognize the work of Ammonius; although, for the rest, the most learned man was reluctant to attribute it to the heretic Tatian.
[7] and other books And these things indeed we had already written about the writings of St. Victor of Capua when there was brought to us a signal gift of friendship, the Spicilegium Solesmense, in which the Reverend Jean-Baptiste Pitra, O.S.B., skilfully collects the remains of antiquity, accurately edits them, and learnedly and elegantly unfolds them. And from this monument it is clear that fragments of our Victor survive, hitherto unpublished Works of St. Irenaeus, p. 240 and following, Paris edition 1675.. Namely Scholia on Genesis, and perhaps on Exodus (for the text of that book is frequently expounded): and those scholia seemed to the Solesmes editor to be excerpts of various authors, chiefly Greeks, whom our man rendered into Latin; and in this way fragments of St. Polycarp have been preserved to us, part of which François Feuardent had already published in the edition of the Works of St. Irenaeus Works of St. Irenaeus, p. 240 and following, Paris edition 1675., while the rest the praised Dom Pitra brings to light today Spicilegium Solesmense, p. 266.. To these are added certain things from Origen, and indeed they reveal a book of Origen distributed into several tomes which none of the editors had hitherto suspected, namely Περὶ φυσεων; similarly Victor has preserved for us fragments of Basil the Great, Severian of Gabala and Diodore of Tarsus. He also wrote a book, Reticulum, or On the Ark of Noah, from whose measurements he draws out the age of Christ of 33 years Spicilegium Solesmense, p. 288.: another work too is praised, namely Chapters on the Resurrection of the Lord, in which he leaves to the judgment of the reader the question of one or two Mary Magdalenes Ibid., Prolegomena, p. LIV.. Finally, in John the Deacon there occurs some explanation of the paschal moon, on the occasion of the words of Exodus XXII, 2, in which the paschal month is called the beginning of the months, the first among the months of the year Ibid., p. 296..
[8] The autograph of St. Victor perhaps exists today at Fulda. To these finally seems to have to be added either a commentary on, or a more correct recension of, the Acts of the Apostles, the Epistle of St. James to the dispersed, and the Apocalypse. For of this lucubration of our Victor there exists a very ancient monument, namely a book which in the year 755 St. Boniface, Apostle of the Germans, had carried with him when he was killed by the pagan Frisians. For, the slaughter having been accomplished, when the barbarians had slipped away to the spoils and carried them off to the ships, they found in the baggage nothing but books, which they scattered over the field and threw into the reed-beds of the marshes. Very many of them, however, were afterwards recovered, of which some are in the library of Hesse-Kassel, but three, says Johann Georg von Eckhart [De rebus Franciae Orientalis et episcopatus Wirceburgensis, volume I, p. 539. And Schannat, Vindemiae literariae, collection I, p. 219.], "survive at Fulda, to be esteemed above the rest… The second Boniface codex, which exists at Fulda, is 14 inches in height and 6 in breadth, and is adorned well enough with silver clasps and little plates here and there of rude work, and contains I. A Harmony of the four Gospels. II. A Table of the lessons customarily recited in the Church. III. The Epistles of blessed Paul. IV. A Designation of the places in which the Apostles lie. V. The Acts of the Apostles. VI. The Epistle of St. James to the dispersed. VII. The Apocalypse, at the end of which are added verses of Pope Damasus on blessed Paul the Apostle. All are written in square letters. At the front is read: Here begins the Preface of Victor, bishop of Capua. After the Acts of the Apostles it is written in cursive letters: † Victor famulus cri et ejus gratia episc. capuæ legi nonas mai d indictione nona quinque post consulatum Basilii v. c. c. [Victor, servant of Christ and by his grace bishop of Capua, I read it on the Nones of May, d, in the ninth indiction, the fifth year after the consulship of Basilius, vir clarissimus.] And after the Apocalypse these things are seen: Victor famulus christi et ejus gratia
episcopus capuæ legi apud… ind. non … legi ind. x die prid. Iduum april. [bishop of Capua, I read it at… indiction nine … I read it in indiction ten on the day before the Ides of April.] Whence it is evident that Victor, bishop of Capua, reread this codex in the year of Christ 546 and finished it in the year 547. "Of this most holy bishop of Capua, therefore," says Anton Francesco Gori Thesaurus Veterum Diptychorum, volume III; Schannat, Vindemiae cited, p. 21., "it was the care to reread the sacred codices after the exemplar of another older book, and, if need were, to punctuate and emend them, which also, in order to give assurance to posterity, he wrote at the beginning X. F, that is, servant of Christ, and at the end likewise with his own hand, I have read, my sign." Schannat brings specimens of the characters Cf. p. 219.. From which words one may deduce that this book is worthy of a double honour; insofar as it was written by the hand of St. Victor and assigned to the perpetual use of St. Boniface the Martyr. These indeed are the principal writings of our saint of which knowledge has come to us.
[10] Further, besides what has already been said, we have no other things which illustrate the deeds of St. Victor. The time of his episcopate There existed at Capua, on the witness of Michele Monaco Sanctuarium Capuanum, p. 91., near the seat called "of Antinianus," a balcony projecting over the street, in whose pavement was laid a stone, having this epitaph carved within a carved Crown: Victor episc. sedit ann. xiii. dies xxxviii. Depositus sub die IIII (in Ughelli wrongly III) Italia Sacra, volume VI, column 306, Non. April. ann. xiii p. c. Basili v. c. Indictione secunda. [Victor, bishop, sat 13 years, 38 days. Deposited on the 4th day (in Ughelli wrongly 3rd) before the Nones of April, in the 13th year after the consulship of Basilius, vir clarissimus, in the second Indiction.] Basilius held the consulship in the year of Christ 541, whence the thirteenth year after this consulship concurs with the year of Christ 554: then St. Victor died, and indeed on the 4th day before the Nones (the 2nd) of April, after he had sat 13 years and 38 days. Whence we also have that his ordination falls on the 24th day of February, which in the year 541, marked with the dominical letter F, was the second Sunday of Lent and sacred to St. Matthias the Apostle: for we know that even in ancient times the custom was kept that the Ordinations of bishops were celebrated on Sundays or on the feasts of the holy Apostles. Nor must it be passed over that in the epitaph of St. Victor years and days above thirty are numbered; which indeed some may suspect to be repugnant to the custom of the ancients. But, although the ancients were usually accustomed to number by years, months and days, there occur nevertheless examples which show that, whenever the days did not exceed the space of two months, then, the month being omitted, days above thirty were expressed. Baronius brings forward an epitaph at the year 357, §1: Fl. Jovina quæ vixit annis tribus, d. XXXII depos. neofita in pace XI Kal. Octob. [Flavia Jovina, who lived three years, 32 days; deposited a neophyte in peace on the 11th day before the Kalends of October.]
[11] and his death. A scruple might also be raised for a reader unpractised in antiquarian matters by the omission of the title with which we are accustomed to distinguish the Blessed; namely the bare name is written, without the appellation of Saint being added. But this very omission is an argument that the stone was placed soon after his death: for the same simplicity recurs in other stones. I shall bring forward two inscribed to men whose holiness and cult can be doubtful to no one. Baronius at the year 604, § XVII, brings forward the epitaph of St. Gregory the Great in these words: Hic requiescit Gregorius Papa, qui sedit annos tredecim, menses sex, dies decem, Depositus quarto idus Martii. [Here rests Gregory, Pope, who sat thirteen years, six months, ten days; deposited on the fourth day before the Ides of March.] In the same year, St. Augustine, Apostle of the English, having died, a monument was placed in which no appellation of Holiness is given, and he is simply called "Lord Augustine," Baronius, ibid., § LXII. Finally, it will seem strange to some that our St. Victor is recorded by the Roman Martyrology under the 17th day of October, since his death is tied to the 2nd day of April, his invention to the 27th of July. But Michele Monaco answers Ibid. that such diversities commonly occur in the Martyrologies, and not indeed without reason: "In instituting the feasts of the saints," he says, "besides the death and deposition, there are wont to be considered the invention, translation, re-burial, the memory of some torment undergone or of a miracle wrought; likewise conversion, ordination, canonization and other things of this kind" Pagi, Critica in Baronium, at the year 69, § XXII and following.. From what has so far been said it is clear that Filippo Ferrari is mistaken, who in his Catalogue of the Saints of Italy relates that St. Victor ascended the see of Capua in the year 527 and died on this day.