Victorinus

d. c.303. Earliest Latin exegete, and martyr under Diocletian. He was bishop of Pettau, near Vienne. Jerome, our chief source, lists commentaries by Victorinus on various biblical passages, but only that from Revelation is extant. Jerome criticized his style and repudiated the Millenarianist tendencies of this exegesis. Victorinus was influenced by Origen* especially, Papias* of Hierapolis, Irenaeus,* and Hippolytus.* Victorinus's belief in the reign of Christ on earth beginning with the resurrection of the just in the seventh millennium also appears in his partially extant De fabrica mundi. This latter is no longer considered to be part of his lost commentary on Genesis, but actually a treatise on the week of creation, in which symbolic emphasis is placed on the number seven. Probably because of his Millenariani views, Victorinus's writings were included among the apocryphal works by the Decretum Gelasianum. The treatise Against All Heresies attributed to him by Jerome is lost, but stylistic and other internal evidence suggests it is not identical with that treatise which was appended to Tertullian's Prescription of Heretics.