VICTOR OF ANTIOCH: Presbyter and exegete of the middle of the sixth century. The numerous scholia ascribed to him and scattered through the entire catena to Jeremiah show that the author of that catena must have excerpted from the complete commentary on the prophet by Victor (ed. M. Ghislerius in his commentary on Jeremiah, 3 vats., Lyons, 1623). His commentary on Mark (ed. P. Possinus, Rome, 1673; F. C. Matthai, Moscow, 1775; J. A. Cramer, Catence Greecorum patrum, i. 259-447, Oxford, 1840) exists in three recensions, all of which may be traced to a single source. Victor states in the prologue to tnis work that he endeavored to collect interpretations of the best expounders, and his commentary on Jeremiah con-

tains verbal repetitions from Chrysostom, Jerome, and the scholia of Severus and Olympiodorus. His exegetical method is that of the Antiochian school, primarily grammatical and historical, so that his tendency is practical and ethical, although allegory is not absolutely excluded.

N. Bonwetsch.

Bibliography: M. Faulhaber, Die Propheten-Catenen each römischen Handschriften, pp. 107 sqq., 133, Freiburg, 1899; H. von Soden, Die Schriften dea N. Ts. in ilerer erreichbaren rfZteaten TextgeataTt, i. 574 sqq., 828 sqq.,. 888 sqq., Berlin, 1902.

VICTOR OF CAPUA: Bishop of Capua and harmonist of the Gospels; d. Apr. 2, 554. The only detail known concerning his life is that he was consecrated bishop Feb. 24, 541. On July 27, 1480, his bones were found beneath the high altar of the church of the monastery of Mons Virginia. Of his writings only scanty fragments survive. Bede, in his De ratione temporum, xlix., cites from his De pascha, directed against the Curses paschalis of Yictorius. This must have been written early in 550 .to prove that in that year Easter should be celebrated on Apr. 24, not Apr. 17. A number of scholia apparently translated by Victor from a Greek catena., and concerned with Polycarp, Origen, Diodorus of Tarsus, Severianus of Gabala, and a certain Geronticum, have been edited by J. B. Pitra (Spieilegium Solesmense, i. 265 sqq., Paris, 1852) from a Paris manuscript which also contains fragments from a work Reticules see de aree Noe (ib., pp. 287 sqq.). The Capitula de resurredione Domini, apparently extant in the ninth century, is now lost. A catena on the four Gospels which F. Feuardent (Irencei, quinque libri, pp. 240-241, Paris, 1639) found in an ancient Verdun manuscript under the name of Victor of Capua is probably identical with the work from which Pitra edited his scholia, which in the Paris manuscript bears the name of Johannes Diaconus.

Far more important than these writings were Victor's endeavors to prepare a Latin harmony, of the Gospels. The oldest manuscript of this work is preserved at Fulda, ordered from Victor himself and completed at Capua before Apr. 12, 546. This manuscript (ed. E. Ranke, Codex Fuldensis, Marburg, 1868) contains a harmony of the Gospels, the Pauline epistles, including Hebrews, Acts, the canonical epistles, and the Apocalypse. Of these the first is the most important, since through it the West gained its first knowledge of Tataan's Diateasaron (see Harmony of the Gospels, I., §§ 1-4). It is clear, moreover, that the anonymous harmony which Victor says, in his preface, that he found by chance, and which proved to be by Tatian, must have been in Greek, and that Victor translated or revised it. His work consisted essentially in reproducing the Greek original through the Latin translation of Jerome, a task demanding great patience as well as a thorough knowledge of the Bible. But though he termed his work a translation, he actually divided the Vulgate Gospels into portions which he then rearranged according to the model before him. His work was most valuable, and the Germans first learned the Gospel in their own tongue from the Old High German translation of the har-

mony of Victor.

(Erwin Preuschen.)

180

Bibliography: ASB. Oct., viii. 81-83; F. Ughelli, Italia sacra, vi. 306-307, Venice. 1720; J. B. Pitra, Spicilegium Solesmense, pp. l.-liv., 285-277, 296-301, Paris, 1852; J. L. Jacobi, in Zeitschrift Jür christliche Wissenschaft and christliches Leben, pp. 248 sqq., Berlin, 1854; T. Zahn, in Patrum apostolicorum opera, ii., pp, xlvii. sqq., ib. 1578; idem, Forachuugen zur Geschichte des neutestamentlichen ICarwres, i. 1 sqq., Erlangen, 1881; idem, Geschichte des neutestamentlichen Kanons, ii. 535 sqq., Leipsic, 1891; F. Piper, in ZKG, i (1877), 239-240; DCB, iv. 1123-28.