WHO IS ST. VICTOR?
Victor, son of Felix (not Flynn, hehe), was born of Roman parents living in the imperial province of Africa, in the city of Leptis (Lepcis) Magna in Tripolitana. This ancient city, founded sometime between 1100-600 BC, is well-preserved and is one of the outstanding surviving archaeological sites of the Roman Empire. It is situated on the Mediterranean Sea about 6 miles east of modern Tripoli, the capital of Libya.
The area came under the influence of the Roman Republic after c. 100 BC and at the time of the birth of Victor was inhabited by a mix of peoples; the indigenous Punics and Berbers, as well as Latin (Roman) colonists, most of whom were apparently military veterans and their families.
One modern historian estimates that such colonists were at least one-third of the entire population of the province of Africa. St. Victor’s evidently came from the Roman population given that Latin was his native tongue and the names of he and his father were Latin.
Today, we think of Libyans as Arabs, but the Arabs did not arrive for several centuries after Victor’s death. Likewise, while we tend to think of modern Libya as a desert, in the time of the Roman Empire it was a major agrarian region specializing in olive oil.
Even today the deserts of Libya grow crops when water is provided. Through the riches brought by agriculture, a notable pottery industry, and trade with sub-Sahara Africa in such goods as gold and ivory the city few in prosperity during the first two Christian centuries (which were also the first two centuries of the Roman Empire).
This was especially true during the end of the pope’s life and in the immediate years afterward. The reason for the burst of prosperity in the era 198-21 AD is political: St. Victor was not the only famous native son of Leptis Magna.
The Roman Emperor Septimus Severus (reigned 193-211 AD) was also from the city. The Emperor was of Latin ancestry on his mother’s side but Punic ancestry on his father’s side. He and his sisters were noted to speak with a pronounced local accent.
After seizing the imperial throne, the emperor enriched his native city to the point that it because the third most-important Roman city on the continent, after Alexandria and Carthage, with an estimated population of 100,000. However, in one of the ironies of history, these two men from the same provincial city reigned simultaneously in Rome, one as pope and one as emperor, and Pope Victor was martyred during the rule of Septimus Severus.
History does not know when Victor moved from Africa to Rome. It is also unclear if he was Bishop of Leptis Manga. The earliest recorded date of a bishop there is 258 AD, long after Victor had been killed, but in a ruined city sacked multiple times throughout history, records are far from complete. Presumably Victor would have arrived in Rome up to that point had died of natural causes. When Victor was elected Pope, he was in essence dooming himself to a martyr’s death.
St. Victor succeeded St. Eleutherius as Pope, about the year 189. He opposed the heresies of that time and excommunicated those who taught that Jesus Christ was only a man and not god. He was involved in the controversy regarding the date of Easter and confirmed the decree of Pope Pius I, which ordspecial veneration in Scotland for having sent missionaries there. While we know little about him, we may reflect that it was through such people as St. Victor, that Christianity took root and has survived to be cherished by us some twenty centuries later.ered the Feast of Easter to be celebrated on a Sunday. He ruled the church for ten years.
His energy and zeal exposed him to persecutions for which also he deserves the honor of a martyr, which are accorded him liturgically. The pope is named in the canon of the Ambrosian Mass and is said by St. Jerome to have been the first in Rome to celebrate the Mysteries in Latin. He was formerly held in
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