Primary source · Latin
The Commentary on the Apocalypse
Victorinus of Pettau · c. AD 260–303
What this text is
The first Latin Bible commentary that survives — a martyr-bishop's millenarian reading of John's visions, later reissued by Jerome with the chiliasm sanded off.
Profile of Victorinus of Pettau →
Public-domain translations
Robert Ernest Wallis (ANF, 1886)
The seven stars are the churches; the seven candlesticks of gold the same… The four living creatures are the four Gospels — the lion, the man, the calf, and the eagle flying.
Manuscript witnesses
Vatican, Ottobonianus lat. 3288A
15th c. copy of ancient exemplarThe commentary in its pre-Hieronymian form; most manuscripts carry Jerome's revision instead.
Provenance
Poetovio, c. AD 260 — the first Latin Bible commentary
Editions & scholarship
Critical editions and standard translations behind the text above.
- Victorin de Poetovio: Sur l'Apocalypse (SC 423)Martine Dulaey, 1997Critical edition with French translation.
- Victorini episcopi Petavionensis opera (CSEL 49)Johannes Haussleiter, 1916The older critical edition of both recensions.