Victor Vitensis
Victor Vitensis
An African bishop of the Province of Byzacena (called VITENSIS from his See of Vita), b. probably about 430. His importance rests on his “Historia pesecutionis Africanae Provinciae, temporibus Geiserici et Hunirici regum Wandalorum”. This is mainly a contemporary narrative of the cruelties practised against the orthodox Christians of Northern Africa by the Arian Vandals. Formerly divided into five books, this work is now usually edited in three, of which the first, dealing with the reign of Geiseric (427-77), is derived from the accounts of others, while the second and third, covering the reign of Huneric, are a strictly contemporary account of events, of which the author was in the main an eyewitness. No exception can be taken to the accuracy of Victor’s narratives, except that at all times he exaggerates, but when allowance is made for the stress of feeling under which the work was written, it can be seen that he records little that did not happen. Victor throws much light on social and religious conditions in Carthage and on the African liturgy of the period. His history contains many valuable documents not otherwise accessible, e.g. the Confession of Faith drawn up for the orthodox bishops by Eugenius of Carthage and presented to Huneric at the conference of Catholic and Arian bishops in 484. Two documents: a “Passio beatissimorum martyrum qui apud Carthaginem passi sunt sub impio rege Hunerico (die VI. Non. Julias 484)” and a “Notitia Provinciarum et Civitatum Africae”, formerly appended to all the MSS. and now incorporated in the printed editions, are probably not Victor’s. The former may be the work of one of his contemporaries; the latter is a list of the Catholic bishops summoned to the conference of 484, arranged according to provinces, with an exact indication of the ecclesiastical geography of that portion of Africa.
———————————–
The early editions of Victor are found in MIGNE, LVIII, 179-276. Newer and more critical editions by HALM (Berlin, 1879) in Mon. Germ. Hist.: Auct. Antiq., III, 1; and PETSCHENIG (Vienna, 1881); Corpus Scrip. Eccles. Lat., VII; FERRERE, De Victoris Vitensis libro qui inscribitur historia persecutionis Africanae Provinciae (Paris, 1898).
PATRICK HEALY Transcribed by Michael T. Barrett Dedicated to all who suffer for the Faith
The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume XVCopyright © 1912 by Robert Appleton CompanyOnline Edition Copyright © 2003 by K. KnightNihil Obstat, October 1, 1912. Remy Lafort, S.T.D., CensorImprimatur. +John Cardinal Farley, Archbishop of New York
Fuente: Catholic Encyclopedia
Victor Vitensis
Victor (44) Vitensis, a N. African bishop and writer. The known facts of his life are very few. He was called Vitensis either after his see or after his birthplace. He seems to have been numbered amongst the clergy of Carthage c. 455. His Hist. Persecutionis Provinciae Africanae is very interesting, as he appears to have been with safety an eyewitness of the Vandal persecution for more than 30 years. He was actively employed by Eugenius, metropolitan of Carthage, in 483. Early in that year Hunneric banished 4,966 bishops and clergy of every rank. Victor was used by Eugenius to look after the more aged and infirm of the bishops. The History gives us a view of the religion of the Vandals. It also relates many particulars about Carthage, its churches, their names and dedications, as those of Perpetua and Felicitas, of Celerina and the Scillitans (i. 3). It shews the persistence of paganism at Carthage, and mentions the temples of Memory and of Coelestis as existing till the Vandals levelled them after their capture of Carthage. This temple of Coelestis existed in the time of Augustine, who describes in his de Civ. Dei, lib. ii. cc. 4, 26 (cf. Tertull. Apol. c. 24) the impure rites there performed. Its site was elaborately discussed by M. A. Castan in a Mm. in the Comptes rendus de LAcad. des Inscript. t. xiii. (1885), pp. 118-132, where all the references to its cult were collected out of classical and patristic sources. Victor’s History contains glimpses of N. African ritual. In lib. ii. 17 we have an account of the healing of the blind man Felix by Eugenius, bp. of Carthage. The ritual of the feast of Epiphany is described, while there are frequent references to the singing of hymns or psalms at funerals. In Hist. lib. v. 6, we read that the inhabitants of Tipasa refused to hold communion with the Arian bishop. Hunneric sent a military count, who collected them all into the forum and cut out their tongues by the roots, notwithstanding which they all retained the power of speech. This remarkable fact has been discussed by Gibbon, c. xxxvii., by Middleton in his Free Inquiry, pp. 313-316, and by many others. The History of Victor is usually divided into five books. Bk. i. narrates the persecution of Genseric, from the conquest of Africa by the Vandals in 429 till Genseric’s death in 477. Bks. ii. iv. and v. deal with the persecution of Hunneric, a.d. 477-484; while bk. iii. contains the confession of faith drawn up by Eugenius of Carthage and presented to Hunneric at the conference of 484 (cf. Gennadius, de Vir. Ill. No. 97). In the Confession (lib. iii. 11) the celebrated text 1Jn 5:7, concerning the three heavenly witnesses, first appears. (See on this point Porson’s letter to Travis, and Gibbon’s notes on c. xxxvii.). The life and works of Victor have been the subject of much modern German criticism, which has not, however, added a great deal to our knowledge. Ebert’s Literatur des Mittelalters im Abendlande (Leipz. 1874), t. i. 433-436, fixes the composition of the History at c. 486. In A. Schaefer’s Historische Untersuchungen (Bonn, 1882), Aug. Auler (pp. 253-275) maintains, with much learning and acuteness, that Victor was born in Vita, that his see is unknown, that he was consecrated bishop after the persecution, and wrote his History before 487, and that this History is a piece of tendency-writing and untrustworthy. He cannot recognize in the action of Genseric against the Catholic party anything but a legitimate measure of state repression. The best of the older editions of the History is that of Ruinart, reprinted with its elaborate dissertations in Migne’s Patr. Lat. lviii. Michael Petschenig, in the Vienna Corpus Scriptt. Ecclesiast. Lat. t. vii. (Vindob. 1881) abandons the old division of the text, dating from Chifflet in 17th cent., and divides it into three books. In all the editions will be found the Notitia Prov. et Civit. Africae, a valuable document for the geography and ecclesiastical arrangements of N. Africa. Ceill. (x. 448-465) gives a full analysis of Victor’s History. It was translated into French in 1563 and 1664, into English in 1605.
[G.T.S.]