VITTOR IV, POPE, saint. – An African and son of Felix, according to the Liber Pontificalis, he was the thirteenth bishop of Rome after St Peter, successor of Eleutherius. The Liberian Catalogue assigns him a reign of about 9 years (c. 186–97?); Eusebius, followed by St Jerome, gives 10 years (180–201?; Hist. eccl., V, 22, 28). He died on 28 July and was buried in the Vatican. The Roman Martyrology commemorates him on that day as a martyr.
During the pontificate of Victor the Latin element, hitherto subordinate to the Greco-Oriental, gained strength in Rome; St Jerome (De viris ill., 34) considers Victor to have been the first Latin writer. To him Marcia, the favourite of Commodus, appealed for the list of Christians deported to Sardinia who were freed by the priest Hyacinth (Hippolytus, Philosoph., IX, 12). Of energetic and resolute character, fully conscious of his authority, Victor was the vigilant guardian of traditional doctrine and liturgical practice threatened by heretics and recalcitrant bishops who were fomenting schisms and confusion even within Rome. He did not hesitate to excommunicate Theodotus the Tanner, author of the Adoptionist error (Eusebius, Hist. eccl., VI, 28). He addressed the question of the celebration of Easter: the Churches of Asia, following the example of the apostles