Saint Victorinus of Pettau

Saint Victorinus of Pettau (also Ptuj or Poetovio; Greek: Βικτωρίνος Πεταβίου; died 303 or 304) was an Early Christian ecclesiastical writer who flourished about 270, and who was martyred during the persecutions of Emperor Diocletian. A Bishop of Poetovio (modern Ptuj in Slovenia; German: Pettau) in Pannonia, Victorinus is also known as Victorinus Petavionensis or Poetovionensis. Victorinus composed commentaries on various texts within the Christians' Holy Scriptures. Born probably in Roman Greece on the confines of the Eastern and Western Empires or in Poetovio with rather mixed population, due to its military character, Victorinus spoke Greek better than Latin, which explains why, in St. Jerome's opinion, his works written in the latter tongue were more remarkable for their matter than for their style. Bishop of the City of Pettau, he was the first theologian to use Latin for his exegesis. His works are mainly exegetical. Victorinus composed commentaries on various works of the Bible, including Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Isaiah, Ezekiel, Habakkuk, Ecclesiastes, the Song of Songs, Matthew, and the Apocalypse of John (Revelation). He also composed theological treatises against varieties of Christianity he considered heretical. The only works of his that survived past antiquity, however, are his Commentary on the Apocalypse and the short tract On the construction of the world (De fabrica mundi). Victorinus was much influenced by Origen. Jerome gives him an honorable place in his catalogue of ecclesiastical writers. Jerome occasionally cites the opinion of Victorinus (on Ecclesiastes 4:13, Ezekiel 26, and elsewhere), but considered him to have been affected by the opinions of the Chiliasts or Millenarians. According to Jerome, Victorinus died a martyr in 304.