Victorinus of Pettau
Home > Church Fathers > Victorinus of Pettau Victorinus of Pettau At a Glance Treatise Genre: (4/5) ***** Reliability of Dating: (3/5) *** Length of Text: Greek Original Language: Ancient Translations: Modern Translations: English Estimated Range of Dating: 270-310 A.D. Chronological List of Early Christian Writings Discuss this text on the Early Writings forum. Text Victorinus: On the Creation of the World Victorinus: Commentary on the Apocalypse Latin text: Victorini episcopi Petavionensis Opera Resources Catholic Encyclopedia: St. Victorinus Wace's Dictionary: Victorinus Victorinus of Pettau Offsite Links Bardenhewer's Patrology: Victorinus of Petta Victorinus of Pettau: Four Creatures The Four Living Creatures and the Four Gospels St Victorinus of Poetovio: In Apocalypsin The "Creeds" of St.
Victorinus and St. Patrick Books Siegmar Dpp and Wilhelm Geerlings, Dictionary of Early Christian Literature, pp. 596-597 Claudio Moreschini and Enrico Norelli, Early Christian Greek and Latin Literature, Vol. 1, pp. 396-398 Johannes Quasten, Patrology (4 Volume Set), Vol. 2, pp. 411-413 Recommended Books for the Study of Early Christian Writings Information on Victorinus of Pettau Claudio Moreschini writes, "Victorinus wrote commentaries on nine books of the Bible, which seem to have been chosen with the idea of studying the most famous of the historical (Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus) and prophetic (Isaiah, Exekiel, Obadiah, Ecclesiastes, Song of Songs) books, and the Apocalypse. He also authored a commentary on Matthew.
His exegesis was completely under the influence of Origen, who at that time was the most famous student of the sacred text; thus his fame had spread from Alexandria to distant Noricum. The method Victorinus followed seems to have been to compose 'scholia' after the manner of Origen. The interpretation is primarily allegorical, with a marked interest in arithmology. Despite his spiritualist exegesis, Victorinus supposedly professed millennialism in its crudest form, and for this he was much criticized." (Early Christian Greek and Latin Literature, p. 397) K. H. Schwarte writes, "Commentarius in apocalypsin (in apoc.), composed soon after the Valerian persecution, therefore ca.
260. The original version was published 1895/1916; known earlier and transmitted in older mss. is the revision (in language and content) of the original that Jerome undertook ca. 400 (additions from Tyconius and replacement of the chiliastic with a spiritualizing interpretation of the thousand-year reign [Rev 20]). Two later versions of Jerome's recension differ chiefly in the text of Rev that is used." (Dictionary of Early Christian Literature, p. 596) J. Quasten writes, "The exegesis of Victorinus is based on Greek authors, on Papias, Irenaeus, Hippolytus, and especially on Origen. It seems that he did not give a running commentary on the entire text but contented himself with a paraphrase of selected passages.
Thus Cassiodorus is more exact than Jerome, when he avoids the term commentary and states that Victorinus dealt briefly with some difficult places in the Apocalypse (Inst. 1, 9). The so-called Decretum Gelasianum de libris recipiendis et non recipiendis declared the works of Victorinus 'apocryphal,' most probably on account of their chiliastic tendencies." (Patrology, vol. 2, p. 413) K. H. Schwarte writes, "De fabrica mundi (fabr. mund.), a typological interpretation, based on number symbolism, of the week of creation, with a chiliadic interpretation of the days of creation and a chiliastic interpretation of the sabbath that ended creation." (Dictionary of Early Christian Literature, p.