St. Victorinus of Pettau

Victorinus was bishop of Pettau and an early Christian writer. Butler draws on St. Jerome’s testimony to his learning, his scriptural work and his martyrdom. Jerome praised the substance of his writings while finding their Latin style less accomplished.

The short notice describes a teacher who devoted his learning to the service of the Church. He wrote against the heresies of his time and composed commentaries on many parts of Holy Scripture. Butler names a treatise on the creation of the world and a commentary on the Apocalypse among the works then preserved.

Victorinus belonged to the Church of the late third century. Butler treats the precise year of his martyrdom as probable rather than certain. This reading leaves that year open and preserves the older witness to a bishop whose teaching and death both belonged to his confession of Christ.