Victor I

pope from 185 to 197, or from 187 to about 200, was an African by birth and a hot-blooded character. He is noted for the part he took in the dispute with the Quartodecimanians of Asia Minor about the observance of Easter. He wrote a letter to Polycrates of Ephesus demanding that he should conform to the Occidental rule respecting Easter, on pain of excommunication in case of refusal; and when Polycrates declined, he severed ecclesiastical relations with that bishop and the churches of Asia Minor by which Polycrates was supported. The opposition of many Western ecclesiastics to such measures, however, compelled Victor to recede from his arbitrary position. The eventual result of the whole dispute was the prevalence of the Western theory of Easter. SEE EASTER CONTROVERSIES. Victor participated also in the beginnings of the Monarchian controversy by expelling from the Church the Dynamistic Monarchian Theodotus the Tanner (ὁ σκυτεύς), who denied the deity of Christ. This step gave rise to the sect of Theodotianists; which existed for a time in Rome. Certain expressions used by Tertullian (Adv. Praxeam, c. 1; App. ad Libr. de Praescript. c. 53) would seem to indicate that Victor was disposed to favor the views of Praxeas (q.v.) and the Patripassians (q.v.),. which were the direct opposite of the notions entertained by the Ebionizing Dynamists. See Eusebius, Hist. Eccles. 5, 22-28.