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The Great Cloud of Witnesses · The Martyrs' Church
Victorinus of Pettau
died c. 304Early Church
The first Latin commentator on Scripture, who wrote on Revelation and died under Diocletian.
Summary
- Lived died c. 304.
- Stood in The Martyrs' Church (AD 100–313).
- Hangs on The Fathers and The Martyrs.
- Tradition: Early Church.
The life
Victorinus was bishop of Poetovio in Pannonia, a Roman garrison town on the Drava river, in what is now Ptuj in Slovenia. He wrote in the second half of the third century, and he was the first Latin-speaking Christian to write commentaries on books of the Bible.
Jerome, who knew his work well and used it, made a blunt observation about him: he did not know Latin as well as he knew Greek, and so his works, though excellent in matter, are inferior in style. Victorinus was reading Greek exegesis, Origen, Hippolytus, Irenaeus, and carrying it west into a language that had no commentary tradition yet.
His Commentary on the Apocalypse is the oldest surviving Latin commentary on Revelation, and one of the oldest commentaries of any kind. He read the book by what he called recapitulation: the seals, the trumpets, and the bowls are not a sequence of successive events but the same period told three times over, from different angles. That reading has been argued about ever since and is still one of the live options.
He also expected a literal thousand-year reign of Christ on earth after the resurrection of the just, the position later called chiliasm or millenarianism, which was the common view of the second and third century church and which the West largely abandoned after Augustine. Jerome held the later view, and when he reissued Victorinus's commentary he edited the ending, cutting the millenarian passages and substituting his own. For centuries only Jerome's version was known. The original text was recovered in the modern era, and both recensions can now be compared.
Another work survives, On the Creation of the World, a short treatment of the seven days.
He also, Jerome says, wrote commentaries on Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Isaiah, Ezekiel, Habakkuk, Ecclesiastes, and the Song of Songs, and a book against all heresies. Those are lost.
Jerome ends the entry with one line: and at the last he was crowned with martyrdom. The Great Persecution began in 303, and Victorinus is usually placed among its dead, about 304. Nothing further is recorded, no trial, no account, no place. The record of his death is a single clause in a fourth-century catalogue.
Sources: Jerome, On Illustrious Men 74, and Letters 58 and 70; Victorinus, Commentary on the Apocalypse and On the Creation of the World (Ante-Nicene Fathers, vol. 7); Philip Schaff, History of the Christian Church, vol. 2.
What was happening while he lived3 moments · AD 100–313
- 250Decius orders the whole empire to sacrificeFor the first time the persecution was universal by decree: every inhabitant had to sacrifice before a commission and receive a signed certificate proving it. About forty-odd of those certificates have been dug up in Egypt on papyrus, ordinary paperwork of a very hard year. Fabian, bishop of Rome, was killed in January 250; thousands of others simply signed and lived, and the church spent the next decade arguing about what to do with them.
- 257–260Valerian targets the leadershipValerian went after the church's structure rather than the crowd: bishops, priests, and deacons first, then Christians of senatorial and knightly rank, and the cemeteries where they met. Cyprian, bishop of Carthage, was beheaded on September 14, 258; Sixtus II of Rome was seized in a catacomb the same year. When Valerian was captured by the Persians, his son Gallienus reversed the policy in 260, and the church got about forty years of quiet.
- 303–311Eight years of pressure, and the handers-overSome clergy surrendered the Scriptures to be burned to save their people, and were afterward called handers-over, *traditores*, the root of our word traitor. Eusebius, who lived through it, describes executions in Palestine and Egypt in numbers he says he saw with his own eyes. The bitterness over who had held firm would split the North African church in the next era.
In their own words
“And the beast which thou sawest is of the seven." Since before those kings Nero reigned. "And he is the eighth." He says only when this beast shall come, reckon it the eighth place, since in that is the completion. He added:- "And shall go into perdition." For that ten kings received royal power when he shall move from the east, he says. He shall be sent from the city of Rome with his armies. And Daniel sets forth the ten horns and the ten diadems.”
Commentary on the Apocalypse of the Blessed John · on Revelation 17:11
“The beast that was, and now is not, is an eighth king, who belongs to the other seven and is going into destruction.”
“And when the Lamb had opened one of the seven seals, I saw, and heard one of the four living creatures saying, Come and see. And, lo, a white horse, and He who sate upon him had a bow." The first seal being opened, he says that he saw a white horse, and a crowned horseman having a bow. For this was at first done by Himself.”
Commentary on the Apocalypse of the Blessed John · on Revelation 6:1
“Then I watched as the Lamb opened one of the seven seals, and I heard one of the four living creatures say in a thunderous voice, “Come!””
“And there are seven kings: five have fallen, and one is, and the other is not yet come; and when he is come, he will be for a short time." The time must be understood in which the written Apocalypse was published, since then reigned Caesar Domitian; but before him had been Titus his brother, and Vespasian, Otho, Vitellius, and Galba. These are the five who have fallen. One remains, under whom the Apocalypse was written-Domitian, to wit.”
Commentary on the Apocalypse of the Blessed John · on Revelation 17:10
“There are also seven kings. Five have fallen, one is, and the other has not yet come; but when he does come, he must remain for only a little while.”
Go further
Read them yourself. Public-domain works are free to read in full; the rest open where the book can be found.
Search Victorinus of Pettau at the Internet Archive · every work MannaFest cites
Why this one hangs here
Wrote the first Latin commentary on Revelation and died in Diocletian's persecution.
Hangs on The Fathers: The men who carried the faith out of the apostles' hands, and wrote down what they had received. Hangs on The Martyrs: The witnesses who paid with their lives, from the arena at Carthage to the present day, and the confessors who paid with everything short of their lives.
Standing beside himThe Martyrs' Church · 40 on this stretch of wall
A 22-year-old mother who kept a diary in prison and walked into the arena at Carthage singing.
Stayed with his people through plague and persecution, then walked to his own beheading and paid the executioner.
Traced his teaching straight back to the apostle John through Polycarp, and wrote the first great takedown of the gnostics.
Kept wearing his philosopher's cloak after he met Christ, argued the faith to the emperor's face, and was beheaded for it.
Wanted to die with his martyred father as a boy, and spent the rest of his life laying six versions of the Old Testament side by side.
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The lawyer who gave the church the word Trinity and told Rome that the blood of the martyrs is seed.