He was a native of Africa, and succeeded St. Eleutherius in the
pontificate, in the year 192, the nineteenth of Commodus. The
practice of those virtues which had prepared him for that dignity,
rendered him a true successor of the apostles. He vigorously
opposed the rising heresies of that age. Theodotus of Byzantium,
a tanner, having apostatized from the faith to save his life in
a late persecution, afterward, to extenuate his guilt, pretended
that he had denied only a man, not God; teaching that Christ was
nothing more than a mere man, as the Socinians teach at this day;
whereas the Arians allowed him to have been before the world,
though himself a creature. Theodotus going to Rome, there drew
many into his blasphemous error; for he was well versed in polite
literature; but Victor checked his progress by excommunicating him
with Ebion, Artemon, and another Theodotus who had taught the same
blasphemy.[321] This other Theodotus, called Trapezita, or the
banker, was author of the Melchisedecian heresy, pretending that
Melchisedec was greater than Christ.
Montanus, a new convert in Mysia, near Phrygia, out of an unbounded
desire of invading the first dignities of the Church, and filled
with rage to see himself disappointed, began to preach against the
Church; and having by pride and ambition given entrance to the
devil, commenced false prophet, and sometimes losing his senses,
began in an enthusiastic strain to utter extraordinary expressions.
Prisca, or Priscilla, and Maximilla, two women of quality, but of
debauched lives, left their husbands, and being filled with the same
spirit, spoke like Montanus, void of sense, and after an extravagant
and unusual manner, pretending they succeeded the prophets among
the disciples of the apostles. Montanus placed himself above the
apostles, saying, that he had received the Paraclete, or the Holy
Ghost promised by Christ, to perfect his law. He denied that the
Church had power to forgive the sins of idolatry, murder, and
impurity, and hardly received any sinners on repentance. St. Paul had
allowed second marriages, but Montanus forbade them as inconsistent
with the perfect law of chastity; and he forbade Christians to
flee in time of persecution. The Montanists were also called from
their country Cataphryges, and Pepuzeni from Pepuzium, a little
town in Phrygia, which was their capital, and which they called
Jerusalem.[322] They boasted of their martyrs, as the Marcionites
also did; which other heretics seldom pretend to, as St. Irenæus
and Origen take notice; nor could these have any great number.
Apollonius, a Catholic writer quoted by Eusebius, confounding the
hypocrisy of the Montanists, reproached their pretended prophetesses
with infamous debaucheries, and with receiving presents, saying,
“Does a prophet color his hair, paint his eye-brows, play at dice,
or lend out money on usury? I will demonstrate that they are guilty
of these things.” The Catholics met to examine their pretended
new prophecies, and convicted them of falsehood, because the true
prophets were not beside themselves when they spoke; also the
Montanists had lied in their predictions, and opposed the doctrine
of the Church. Asterius Urbanus, a learned priest (for he calls St.
Zoticus fellow-priest), confounded them by these arguments, in a
great conference held at Ancyra about the year 188. Their prophecies
and errors being condemned as impious, the followers of Montanus were
driven out of the Church, and excommunicated. It was reported for
certain, that Montanus and Maximilla, led away by the spirit that
possessed them, afterward hanged themselves. These particulars are
related by Eusebius.
Tertullian, who fell into this heresy about the time of the death
of Pope Victor, says,[323] that this pope at first admitted to the
communion of the Church these pretended prophets. And it was easy
to be deceived in a matter of fact concerning persons at such a
distance, and who appeared under the garb of hypocrisy. But he had
no sooner answered their letters, in which he acknowledged them
brethren, but Praxeas coming from the East, brought him an ample
account of their tenets and practice: and Victor immediately recalled
his letters of communion, and condemned these innovators. This
Praxeas was a Phrygian, and being puffed up because he had suffered
imprisonment for the faith, began to sow a new heresy at Rome,
maintaining but one person in God, and attributing crucifixion to
the Father as well as to the Son; whence his followers were called
Patripassians. His errors being brought to light, he was also cut off
from the communion of the Church.
About the same time Tatian fell from the Church. He was a Syrian, a
Platonic philosopher, and a disciple of St. Justin, martyr, after
whose death he taught some time at Rome. Afterward, returning
into Syria in 171, he there broached his errors, which he durst
not advance at Rome. He borrowed several of them from Marcion,
Valentinus, and Saturninus, teaching two principles, and that
the Creator is the evil principle or God. He added several new
errors, as that Adam was damned. He condemned marriage as no less
criminal than adultery, whence his followers were called Encratitæ,
or the continent. They were likewise called Hydroparastatæ, or
Aquarii, because, in consecrating the eucharist, they used only
water, for they condemned all use of wine, and likewise the use of
flesh-meat.[324] The ancients observe that Tatian’s fall was owing to
pride, which often attends an opinion of knowledge;[325] and of this
there cannot be a more dangerous symptom in a scholar than a fondness
for novelty and singularity, especially if joined with obstinacy and
opiniativeness.
St. Victor was watchful to cut off these scandals in their root, and
every where to maintain the purity of the faith with unity. Up an
this motive, he exerted his zeal in the dispute about the time of
celebrating Easter. The churches of Lesser Asia kept it with the Jews
on the fourteenth day of the first moon after the vernal equinox, on
whatever day of the week it fell. The Roman church, and all the rest
of the world, kept Easter always on a Sunday immediately following
that fourteenth day. Pope Anicetus permitted these Asiatics to keep
their own custom, even at Rome; but Pope Soter, his successor,
obliged them to conform to the custom of places where they should
be. Several councils held at Rome, in Palestine, in Pontus, in Gaul,
at Corinth, and other places, unanimously determined the point
according to the Roman custom. Yet Polycrates, bishop of Ephesus,
wrote strenuously in defence of the Asiatic custom, which he said
was derived from St. Philip who died at Hierapolis, from St. John
Evangelist, St. Polycarp, bishop and martyr, Sagaris, bishop and
martyr, who died at Laodicea, and others. Victor seeing the Asiatics
fixed in their resolution, threatened to cut them off from the
communion of the Church; from the words of Eusebius[326] some moderns
infer with Baronius, Constant, and De Marca, that he excommunicated
them in a letter, but immediately suspended or recalled the sentence:
others with Thomassin, Natalis Alexander, and Graveson, think that
he only threatened it; which opinion best agrees with the sequel.
To reconcile the different passages of authors, F. John Philip
Monti[327] thinks pope Victor, upon receiving the refractory answer
of Polycrates, drew up a sentence of excommunication, but never sent
or published the same, being overcome by the advice of St. Irenæus.
The schism which Blastus, a priest, had lately formed at Rome, upon
the difference of this rite, for which he had been degraded by pope
Eleutherius, probably made St. Victor more severe in extirpating
a practice which became daily more dangerous to the unity of the
Church; but prudence and charity recommended a toleration some time
longer, which he was prevailed upon to grant, by a letter of St.
Irenæus, who wrote to him on that subject in his own name, and in
that of his brethren in Gaul. St. Victor died soon after this, in the
year 201, the ninth of Severus, after he had sat ten years. He is
styled a martyr by some writers of the fifth age, and in an ancient
pontifical written in 530. Though Severus only published the edicts
for his persecution in 202, several Christians had suffered in his
reign before that time, as Tillemont remarks.[328] F. Pagi thinks St.
Victor did not die by the sword, because in some Martyrologies he is
called only confessor, though his dignity and zeal exposed him to
continual persecutions, for which alone he might deserve the title of
martyr. See Eusebius Hist. l. 5, c. 23. Orsi, Berti Diss. Hist. t. 2,
p. 88.