Hilary - the Councils 114

114 We must first premise that Christ’s work as our Example as well as our Saviour is fully recognised. Many of his deeds on earth were done by way of dispensation, in order to set us a pattern of life and thought403 . Christian life has, of course, its beginning in the free gift of Baptism, with the new life and the new faculties then bestowed, which render possible the illumination of the soul404 . Hilary, as was natural at a time when Baptism was often deferred by professed Christians, and there were many converts from paganism, seems to contemplate that of adults as the rule; and he feels it necessary to warn them that their Baptism will not restore them to perfect innocence. In fact, by a strange conjecture tentatively made, he once suggests that our Baptism is that wherewith Jn baptized our Lord, and that the Baptism of the Holy Ghost awaits us hereafter, in cleansing fires beyond the grave or in the purification of martyrdom405 . Hilary nowhere says in so many words that while Baptism abolishes sins previously committed, alms and other good deeds perform a similar office for later offences, but his view, which will be presently stated, concerning good works shews that he agreed in this respect with St. Cyprian; neither, however, would hold that the good works were sufficient in ordinary cases without the further purification. Martyrdoms had, of course, ceased in Hilary’s (lay throughout the Roman empire, but it is interesting to observe that the old opinion, which had such power in the third century, still survived. The Christian, then, has need for fear, but he has a good hope, for all the baptized while in this world are still in the land of the living, and can only forfeit their citizenship by wilful and persistent unworthiness406 . The means for maintaining the new life of effort is the Eucharist, which is equally necessary with Baptism407 . But the Eucharist is one of the many matters of practical importance on which Hilary is almost silent, having nothing new to say, and being able to assume that his readers and hearers were well informed and of one mind with himself. His reticence is never a proof that he regarded them with indifference.

The Christian life is thus a life of hope and of high possibilities. But Hilary frankly and often recognises the serious short-comings of the average believers of his day408 . Sometimes, in his zeal for their improvement and in the wish to encourage his flock, he even seems to condone their faults, venturing to ascribe to God what may almost be styled mere good-nature, as when he speaks of God, Himself immutable, as no stern Judge of our changefulness, but rather appeased by the wish on our part for better things than angry because we cannot perform impossibilities. But in this very passage409 he holds up for our example the high attainment of the Saints, explaining that thePsalmist’s words, ’There is none that doeth good, no not one,’ refer only to those who are altogether gone out of the way and become abominable, and not to all mankind. Indeed, holding as he does that all Christians may have as much grace from God as they will take410 , and that the conduct which is therefore possible is also necessary to salvation, he could not consistently maintain the lower position. In fact, the standard of life which Hilary sets in the Homilies on the Psalms is very high. Cleanness of hand and heart is the first object at which we must aim411 , and the Law of God must be our delight. This is the lesson inculcated throughout his discourses on Psalm 119,He recognises the complexity of life, with its various duties and difficulties, which are, however, a privilege inasmuch as there is honour to be won by victory over them412 ; and he takes a common-sense view of our powers and responsibilities413 . But though his tone is buoyant and life in his eyes is well worth living for the Christian414 , he insists not merely upon a general purity of life, but upon renunciation of worldly pleasures. Like Cyprian, he would apparently have the wealthy believer dispose of his capital and spend his income in works of charity, without thought of economy415 . Like Cyprian, again, he denounces the wearing of gold and jewellery416 , and the attendance at public places of amusement. Higher interests, spiritual and intellectual, must take the place of such dissipation. Sacred melody will be more attractive than the immodest dialogue of the theater, and study of the course of the stars a more pleasing pursuit than a visit to the racecourse417 . Yet strictly and even sternly Christian as Hilary is, he does not allow us altogether to forget that his is an age with another code than ours. Vengeance with him is a Christian motive. He takes with absolute literalness the Psalmist’s imprecations418 . Like every other emotion which he expresses, that of delight at the punishment of evil doers ought to have a place in the Christian soul. This was an inheritance from the days of persecution, which were still within the memory of living men. Cyprian often encourages the confessors to patience by the prospect of seeing the wrath of God upon their enemies; but he never gives so strong expression to the feeling as Hilary does, when he enforces obedience to our Lord’s command to turn the other cheek by the consideration that fuller satisfaction will be gained if the wrong be stored up against the Day of Judgement419 . There is something hard and Puritan in the tone which Hilary has caught from the men of the times of persecution; and his conflict with heretics gave him ample opportunity for indulgence in the thought of vengeance upon them. This was no mere pardonable excitement of feeling; it was a Christian duty and privilege to rejoice in the future destruction of his opponents. But there is an even stranger difference between his standard and ours. Among the difficulties of keeping in the strait and narrow way he reckons that of truthfulness. A lie, he says, is often necessary, and deliberate falsehood sometimes useful420 . We may mislead an assassin, and so enable his intended victim to escape; our testimony may save a defendant who is in peril in the courts; we may have to cheer a sick man by making light of his ailment. Such are the cases in which the Apostle says that our speech is to be ’seasoned with salt.’ It is not the lie that is wrong; the point of conscience is whether or no it will inflict injury upon another. Hilary is not alone in taking falsehood lightly421 , and allowance must be made for the age in which he lived. And his words cast light upon the history of the time. The constant accusations made against the character and conduct of theologicalopponents, which are so painful a feature of the controversies of the early centuries, find their justification in the principle which Hilary has stated. No harm was done, rather a benefit was conferred upon mankind, if a false teacher could be discredited in a summary and effective manner; such was certainly a thought which presented itself to the minds of combatants, both orthodox and heterodox. Apart from these exceptions, which, however, Hilary would not have regarded as such, his standard of life, as has been said, is a high one both in faith and in practice, and his exhortation is full of strong common sense. It is, however, a standard set for educated people; there is little attention paid to those who are safe from n the dangers of intellect and wealth. The worldliness which he rebukes is that of the rich and influential; and his arguments are addressed to the reading class, as are his numerous appeals to his audience in the Homilies on the Psalms to study Scripture for themselves. Indeed, his advice to them seems to imply that they have abundant leisure for spiritual exercises and for reflection. But he does not simply ignore the illiterate, still mostly pagans, for the work of St. Martin of Tours only began, as we saw, in Hilary’s last days; in one passage at least he speaks with the scorn of an ancient philosopher of ’the rustic mind,’ which will fail to find the meaning of the Psalms422 .

Hilary is not content with setting a standard which his flock must strive to reach. He would have them attain to a higher level than is commanded, and at the same time constantly remember that they are failing to perform their duty to God. This higher life is set before his whole audience as their aim. He recognises the peculiar honour of the widow and the virgin423 , but has singularly little to say about these classes of the Christian community, or about the clergy, and no special counsel for them. The works of supererogation-the word is not his-which he preaches are within the reach of all Christians. They consist in the more perfect practice of the ordinary virtues. King David ’was not content henceforth to be confined to the express commands of the Law, nor to be subject to a mere necessity of obedience.’ ’The Prophet prays that these free-will offerings may be acceptable to God, because the deeds done in compliance to the Law’s edict are performed under the actual compulsion of servitude424 . As an instance he gives the character of David. His duty was to be humble; he made himself humble exceedingly, thus doing more than he was legally bound to do. He spared his enemies so far as in him lay, and bewailed their death; this was a free service to which he was bound by no compulsion. Such conduct places those who practice it on the same level with those whose lives are formally consecrated; the state of the latter being regarded, as always in early times, as admirable in itself, and not as a means towards higher things. Vigils and fasts and acts of mercy are the methods advocated by Hilary for such attainment. But they must not stand alone, nor must the Christian put his trust in them. Humility must have faith for its principle, and fasting be combined with charity425 And the Christian must never forget that though he may in some respects be doing more than he need, yet in others he is certainly falling short. For the conflict is unceasing; the devil, typified by the mountains in the Psalm, has been touched by God and is smoking, but is not yet burning and powerless for mischief426 . Hence there is constant danger lest the Christian fall into unbelief or unfruitfulness, sins equally fatal427 ; he must not trust in himself, either that he can deserve forgiveness for the past or resist future temptations428 . Nor may he dismiss his past offences from his memory. It can never cease to be good for us to confess our former sins, even though we have become righteousSt. Paul did not allow himself to forget that he had persecuted the Church of God429 . But there is a further need than that of penitence. Like Cyprian before him and Augustine after him, Hilary insists upon the value of alms in the sight of God. The clothing of the naked, the release of the captive plead with God for the remission of our sins430 ; and the man who redeems his faults by alms is classed among those who win His favour, with the perfect in love and the blameless in faith431 .

Thus the thought of salvation by works greatly preponderates over that of salvation by grace. Hilary is fearful of weakening man’s sense of moral responsibility by dwelling too much upon God’s work which, however, he does not fail to recognise. Of the two great dangers, that of faith and that of life, the former seemed to him the more serious. God’s requirements in that respect were easy of fulfilment; He had stated the truth and He expected it to be unhesitatingly accepted. But if belief, being an exertion of the will, was easy, misbelief must be peculiarly and fatally wicked. The confession of St. Peter, the foundation upon which the Church is built, is that Christ is God432 ; the sin against the Holy Ghost is denial of this truth433 . These are the highest glory and the deepest shame of man. It does not seem that Hilary regarded any man, however depraved, as beyond hope so long as he did not dispute this truth; he has no code of mortal sins. But heresy concerning Christ, whatever the conduct and character of the heretic, excludes all possibility of salvation, for it necessarily cuts him off from the one Faith and the one Church which are the condition and the sphere of growth towards perfection; and the severance is just, because misbelief is a wilful sin. Since, then, compliance or non-compliance with one of God’s demands, that for faith in His revelation, depends upon the will, it was natural that Hilary should lay stress upon the importance of the will in regard to God’s other demand, that for a Christian life. This was, in a sense, a lighter requirement, for various degrees of obedience were possible. Conduct could neither give nor deny faith, but only affect its growth, while without the frank recognition of the facts of religion no conduct could be acceptable to God. Life presents to the will a constantly changing series of choices between good and evil, while the Faith must be accepted or rejected at once and as a whole. It is clear from Hilary’s insistence upon this that the difficulties, apart from heresy, with which he had to contend resembled those of Mission work in modern India. There were many who would accept Christianity as a revelation, yet had not the moral strength to live in conformity with their belief. Of such persons Hilary will not despair They have the first essential of salvation, a clear and definite acceptance of doctrinal truth; they have also the offer of sufficient grace, and the free will and power to use it. And time and opportunity are granted, for the vicissitudes of life form a progressive education; they are, if taken aright, the school, the training-ground for iimmortality434 . This is because all Christians are in Christ, by virtue of His Incarnation. They are, as St. Paul says, complete in Him, furnished with the faith and hope they need. But this is only a preparatory completeness; hereafter they shall be complete in themselves, when the perfect harmony is attained and they are conformed to his glory435 . Thus to the end the dignity and responsibility of mankind is maintained. But it is obvious that Hilary has failed to correlate the work of Christ with the work of the Christian. The necessity of His guidance and aid, and the manner in which these are bestowed, is sufficiently stated, and the duty of the Christian man is copiously and eloquently enforced. But the importance of Christ’s work within Himself, in harmonising the twonatures, has withdrawn most of Hilary’s attention from His work within the believing soul; and the impression which Hilary’s writings leave upon the mind concerning the Saviour and redeemed mankind is that of allied forces seeking the same end but acting independently, each in a sphere of its own.

There still remains to be considered Hilary’s account of the future state. The human soul, being created after the image of God, is imperishable; resurrection is as inevitable as death436 . And the resurrection will be in the body, for good and bad alike. The body of the good will be glorified, like that of Christ; its substance will be the same as in the present life, its glory such that it will be in all other respects a new body437 . Indeed, the true life of man only begins when this transformation takes place438 . No such change awaits the wicked; we shall all rise, but we shall not all be changed, as St. Paul says439 . They remain as they are, or rather are subjected to a ceaseless ptocess of deterioration, whereby the soul is degraded to the level of the body, while this in the case of others is raised, either instantly or by a course of purification, to the level of the soul440 . Their last state is vividly described in language which recalls that of Virgil; crushed to powder and dried to dust they will fly for ever before the wind of God’s wrath441 . For the thoroughly good and the thoroughly bad the final state begins at the moment of death. There is no judgment for either class, but only for those whose character contains elements of both good and evil442 . But perfect goodness is only a theoretical possibility, and Hilary is not certain of the condemnation of any except wilful unbelievers. Evil is mingled in varying proportions with good in the character of men at large; God can detect it in the very best. All therefore need to be purified after death, if they are to excape condemnation on the Day of Judgment. Even the Mother of our Lord needs the purification of pain; this is the sword which should pierce through her soul443 . All who are infected by sin, the heretic who has erred in ignorance among them444 , must pass through cleansing fires after death. Then comes the general Resurrection. To the good it brings the final change to perfect glory; the bad will rise only to return to their former place445 . The multitude of men will be judged, and after the education and purification of suffering to which, by God’s mercy, they have been submitted, will be accepted by Him. Hilary’s writings contain no hint that any who are allowed to present themselves on the Day of judgment will then be rejected.

We have now completed the survey of Hilary’s thoughts. Many of these were strange and new to his contemporaries, and his originality’ we may be sure, deprived him of some of the influence he wished to exert in the controversies of his day. Yet he shared the spirit and entered heartily into the interests and conflicts of his age, and therefore his thoughts in many ways were different from our own. To this we owe, no doubt, the preservation of his works; writings which anticipated modern opinion would have been powerless for good in that day, and would not have survived to ours. Thus from his own century to ours Hilary has been somewhat isolated and neglected, and even misunderstood. Yet he is one of the most notable figures in the history of the early Church, and must be numbered among those who have done most to make Christian thought richer and more exact. If we would appreciate him aright as one of the builders of the dogmatic structure of the Faith, we must omit from the materials of our estimate a great part of trig writings, and a part which has had a wider influence than any other. His interpretation of the letter, though not of the spirit, of Scripture must be dismissed; interesting asit always is, and often suggestive, it was not his own and was a hindrance, though he did not see it, to the freedom of his thought. Yet his exegesis in detail is often admirable. For instance, it would not be easy to overpraise his insight and courage in resisting the conventional orthodoxy, sanctioned by Athanasius in his own generation and by Augustine in the next, which interpreted St. Paul’s ’ first-bom of every creature’ as signifying the Incarnation of Christ, and not His eternal generation446 . We must omit also much that Hilary borrowed without question from current opinion; it is his glory that he concentrated his attention upon some few questions of supreme importance, and his strength, not his weakness, that he was ready to adopt in other matters the best and wisest judgments to which he had access. An intelligent, and perhaps ineffective, curiosity may keep itself abreast of the thought of the time, to quote a popular phrase; Hilary was content to survey wide regions of doctrine and discipline with the eyes of Origen and of Cyprian. This limitation of the interests of a powerful mind has enabled him to penetrate further into the mysteries of the Faith than any of his predecessors; to points, in fact, where his successors have failed to establish themselves. We cannot blame him that later theologians, starting where he left off, have in some directions advanced further still. The writings of Hilary are the quarry whence many of the best thoughts of Ambrose and of Leo are hewn. Eminent and successful as these men were, we cannot rank them with Hilary as intellectually his equals; we may even wonder how many of their conclusions they would halve drawn had not Hilary supplied the premisses. It is a greater honour that the unrivalled genius of Augustine is deeply indebted to him. Nor may we blame him, save lightly, for some rashness and error in his speculations. He set out, unwillingly, as we know, but not half-heartedly, upon his novel journey of exploration. He had not, as we have, centuries of criticism behind him, and could not know that some of the avenues he followed would lead him astray. It may be that we are sober because we are, in a sense, disillusioned; that modern Christian thought which starts from the old premisses tends to excess of circumspection. And certainly Hilary would not have earned his fame as one of the most original and profound of teachers, whose view of Christology is one of the most interesting in the whole of Christian antiquity447 , had he not been inspired by a sense of freedom and of hope in his quest. Yet great as was his genius and reverent the spirit in which he worked, the errors into which he fell, though few, were serious. There are instances in which he neglects his habitual balancing of corresponding infinities; as when he shuts his eyes to half the revelation, and asserts that Christ could not be ignorant and could not feel pain. And there is that whole system of dispensations which he has built up in explanation of Christ’s life on earth; a system against which our conscience and our common sense rebel, for it contradicts the plain words of Scripture and attributes to God ’a ptocess of Divine reserve which is in fact deception448 .’ We may compare Hilary’s method in such cases to the architecture of Gloucester and of Sherborne, where the ingenuity of a later age has connected and adorned the massive and isolated columns of Norman date by its own light and graceful drapery of stonework. We cannot but admire the result; yet there is a certain concealment of the original design, and perhaps a perilous cutting away of the solid structure. But, in justice to Hilary, we must remember that in these speculations he is venturing away from the established standards of doctrine. When he is enunciating revealed truths, or arguing onward from them to conclusions towards which they point, he has the company of the Creeds, or at least they indicate the way he must go. But in explaining the connectionbetween doctrine and doctrine he is left to his own guidance. It is as though a traveller, not content to acquaint himself with the highroads, should make his way over hedge and ditch from one of them to another; he will not always hit upon the best and straightest course. But at least Hilary’s conclusions, though sometimes erroneous, were reached by honest and reverent reasoning, and neither ancient nor modern theology can afford to reproach him. The tendency of the former, especially offer the rise of Nestorius, was to exaggerate some of his errors; and the latter has failed to develope and enforce some of his highest teaching.

This is, indeed, worthy of all admiration. On the moral side of Christianity we see him insisting upon the voluntary character of Christ’s work; upon His acts of will, which are a satisfaction to God and an appeal to us449 . On the intellectual side we find the Unity in Trinity so luminously declared that Bishop French of Lahore, one of the greatest of missionaries, had the works of Hilary constantly in his hands, and contemplated a translation of the De Trinitate into Arabic for the benefit of Mohammedans450 . This was not because Hilary’s explanation of our Lord’s sufferings might seem to commend the Gospel to their prejudices; such a concession would have been repugnant to French’s whole mode of thought. It was because in the central argument on behalf of the Godhead of Christ, where he had least scope for originality of thought, Hilary has never suffered himself to become a mere mechanical compiler. The light which he has cast Upon his subject, though clear, is never hard; and the doctrine which, because it was attractive to himself, he has made attractive to his readers, is that of the unity of God, the very doctrine which is of supreme importance in Mohammedan eyes451 .

But, above all, it is Hilary’s doctrine concerning the Incarnation as the eternal purpose of God for the union of the creature with the Creator, that must excite our interest and awaken our thoughts. He renders it, on the one hand, impossible to rate too highly the dignity of man, created to share the nature and the life of God; impossible, on the other hand, to estimate highly enough the condescension of Christ in assuming humanity. It is by His humiliation that we are saved; by the fact that the nature of man was taken by his Maker, not by the fact that Christ, being man, remained sinless. For sin began against God’s will and after His counsel was formed; it might deflect the march of His purpose towards fulfilment, but could no more impede its consummation than it could cause its inception. The true salvation of man is not that which rescues him, when corrupt, from sin and its consequences, but that which raises him, corruptible, because free, even though he had not become corrupt, into the safety of union with the nature of God. Human life, though pure from actual sin, would have been aimless and hopeless without the Incarnation. And the human body would have had no glory, for its glory is that Christ has taken it, worn it awhile in its imperfect state, laid it aside and finally resumed it in its perfection. All this He must have done, in accordance with God’s purpose, even though the Fall had never occurred. Hence the Incarnation and the Resurrection are the facts of paramount interest; the death of Christ, corresponding as it does to the hypothetical laying aside of the unglorified flesh, loses something of its usual prominence in Christian thought. It is represented as being primarily for Christ the moment of transition, for the Christian the act which enables him to profit by the Incarnation; but it is the Incarnation itself whereby, in Hilary’s words, we are saved into the nature and the name of God. But though we may feel that this great truth is not stated in its full impressiveness, we must allow that the thought which has taken the foremost place is no mere academic speculation. And, after all, sin and the Atonement are copiouslytreated in his writings, though they do not control his exposition of the Incarnation. Yet even in this there are large spaces of his argument where these considerations have a place, though only to give local colour, so to speak, and a sense of reality to the description of a purpose formed and a work done for man because he is man, not because he is fallen. But if Hilary has somewhat erred in placing the Cross in the background, he is not in error in magnifying the scope of the reconciliation452 which includes it as in a wider horizon. Man has in Christ the nature of God; the infinite Mind is intelligible to the finite. The Creeds are no dry statement of facts which do not touch our life; the truths they contain are the revelation of God’s self to us. Not for the pleasure of weaving theories, but in the interests of practical piety, Hilary has fused belief and conduct into the unity of that knowledge which Isaiah foresaw and St. Jn possessed; the knowledge which is not a means towards life, but life itself).


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1 An actual dependence on Gregory of Nyssa has sometimes been ascribed to Hilary. But Gregory was surely too yong for this. He may himself have borrowed from Hilary; But more probably both derived their common element from Eastern writers like Basil of Ancyra.
2 This is certainly the best translation of Tractatus; the word is discussed on a later page).
3 The latest date which I have seen assigned for his birth is 320, by Fechtrup, in Wetzer-Welte’s Encyclopaedia. But this is surely inconsistent with his styling Ursacius and Valens, in his first Epistle to Constantine, ‘ignorant and unprincipled youths.0’ This was written about the year 355 before Hilary knew much of the Arian controversy or the combatants, and was ludicrously inappropriate, for Ursacius and Valens were elderly men. He had found the words either in some of Athanasius’ writings or in the records of the Council of Sardica, and borrowed them without enquiry. He could not have done so had he been only some thirty-five years of age; at fifty-five they are natural enough.
4 It is impossible to agree with Zingerle (Comment. Wolfflin. p.218) that Hilary was under the necessity of using a Greek and Latin Glossary. Such a passage as Tract. in Ps cxxxviii. 43, to which he appeals, shows rather the extent than the smallness of Hilary’s knowledge of Greek. What he frankly confesses, there as elsewhere, is ignorance of Hebrew. The words of Jerome (
Ep 34,3 f). about Hilary’s friend, the presbyter Heliodorus, to whom he used to refer for explanations of Origen on the Psalms, are equally incapable of being employed to prove H ilary’s defective Greek. Heliodorus knew Hebrew, and Hilary for want of Hebrew found Origen’s notes on the Hebrew text difficult to understand, and for this reason, according to Jerome, used to consult his friend; not because he was unfamiliar with Greek.
5 His vocabulary is very poorly treated in the dictionaries; one of the many Signs of the neglect into which he has fallen. There are at least twenty-four words in the Tractatus super Psalmos which are omitted in the last edition of George’s’ lexicon, and these good Latin words, not technical terms invented for purposes of argument. Among the most interesting is quotiensque for quotienscumque; an unnoticed use is the frequent cum quando for quandoquidem. Of Hilary’s other writings there is as yet no trustworthy text; from them the list of new words could at least be doubled).
6 Ep. 70,5, ad Magnum.
7 Ep. 58, 10, ad Paulinum.
8 Comm. in Gall. 2,pref.
9 Cf). Tract. in Ps. 13,I, Trin. I. 38
10 Yet he strangely reproaches his Old Latin Bible with the use of nimis for ualde, Tract. in Ps.cxxxviii. 38. This employment of relative for positive terms had been common in literature for at least a century and a half).
11 E.g. Trin. 5,II, 7,14, 9,4.
12 Trin. 2,22.
13 Trin. 10,14. This is a very remarkable allusion. Celsus, 7,prae., confidently assumes that all surgical operation must be painful.
14 Comm. in Matt. 21,8.
15 Trin. 11,15.
16 Tract. in Ps 118,Ain. 16; it is from Plin. N.H. 37, 32.
17 Tract. in Ps. 57,3. It suggests virgil, Ovid, Silius, and others.
18 Trin.vii. 3.
19 F.p. 70, 5, Vir. Ill. 100).
20 Tract. in Ps. 1,7, 61,2, Ixiii. 5, &c. As usual, Hilary does not name his opponents.
21 Hilary’s legendary daughter Abra., to whom he is said to have written a letter printed in the editions of his works, is now generally abandoned by the best authorities, e.g. by Fechtrup, the writer, in Wetzer-Welte’s Encyclopaedia, of the best short life of Hilary.
22 De Doctr. Chr. 2,40.
23 Trin.viii. 13–17).
24 This is on the assumption, which seems probable, that Irenaeus was not yet translated from the Greek. He certainly influenced Tertullian, and through him Hilary; and his doctrine of the recapitulation of mankind in Christ, reappearing as it does in Hilary, though not in Tertullian, suggests that our writer had made an independent study of Irenaeus. Even if the present wretched translation existed, he would certainly read the Greek).
25 Dr. Bigg’s Bampton Lectures upon them are full of hints for the student of Hilary.
26 Vir. Ill. 100.
27 E.g). Tract. in Ps. cxxix. 4 f.
28 E.g). Trin. 9,6).
29 Comm. in Mt 5,I. It may be mentioned that the chapters of the Commentary do not coincide with those of the Gospel.
30 Comm. in Mt 16,4, theotetam quam deitatem Latini nuncupant, 26,5, theotetam quam deitatem nuncupamus. The strange accusative theotetam makes it the more probable that we have here a specimen of the primitive Greek vocabulary of Latin Christendom of which so few examples, e.g. Baptism and Eucharist, have survived. Cyprian had probably the chief share in destroying it; but the subject has never been examined as it deserves.
31 (So especially 12,18. There is similarly a possible allusion to Marcellus’ teaching in 11,9, which, however, may equally well be a reminiscence of some cognate earlier heresy.
32 Maffei’s Introduction, §15.
33 xxxi. 3, penes quem erat antequam nasceretur.
34 See Ebert, Litteratur des Mittelalters, I. 139).
35 Syn. 91; regeneratus pridem et in episcopatu aliquantisper manens. The renderings ‘long ago0’ and ‘for some time0’ in this translation seem rather too strong.
36 E.g). Trin. 8,I. The bishop is a prince of the Church.
37 Sacerdos in Hilary, as in all writers till near the end of the fourth century, means ‘bishop0’ always).
38 By Dr. Robertson of King’s College, London. This, and Professor Gwatkin’s Studies of Arianism, are the best English accounts.
39 Syn.91.
40 The Apologia contra Arianos, p. 100 ff. in Dr. Robertson’s translation).
41 Origines du culte chretien, p. 88.
42 Gwatkin, Studies of Arianism, p. 134.
43 Ib., p.28).
44 Trin. 7,3.
45 There is much more evidence to this effect in Reuter, Augustinische Studien, p. 182 f. It was probably due to jealousy between West and East; cf. the way in which Jn of Jerusalem ignored the African decision in Pelagius’ case. But the West was ignorant, as well as jealous, of the East. Even in his last years, after his sojourn in Asia Minor, Hilary believed that Jerusalem was, as had been prophesied, an uninhabited ruin; Tr. in Ps cxxiv. ?2, 131,??18, 23, 146,?I).
46 I Chron. 2,39).
47 Syn. 91.
48 This sparing of Marcellus in the cave of a Western like Hilary, may have been a concession to the incapacity of the West, e g. Julius of Tome and the Council of Sardica, to see his error. But this is not so likely as that it was a falling in with the general policy of Athanasius, as was the rare mention or the homoousion; cf. Gwatkin, op. cit. 42. n. Hilary was singularly independent of Western opinion, and his whole aim was to win the East.
49 No such examination seems to have been made as that to which Reuter in his admirable Augustinische Studien has subjected some of the thoughts of St. Augustine.
50 Harnack, Dogmengeschichte, ii. p. 243 n, (ed. 3). Hilary is, ‘making all allowance for dependence on Athanasius, an independent thinker, who has, indeed, excelled the bishop of Alexandria as a theologian.0’
51 Hort, Two Dissertations, p. 27.
52 Trin. 8,40.
53 Cf. Gwatkin, Studies of Arianism, p. 130.
54 Ib., p. 159. It would not be fair to judge Hilary by the de Synodis alone. The would-be diplomatist, in his eagerness to bring about a reconciliation, is not quite just either to the facts or to his own feelings.
55 1 Chron 2,39.  
56 Syn. 32.
57 Ib. 78).
58 Gwatkin, Studies of Arianism, p. 163.
59 Sulp. Sev. Chton. 2,42.
60 Sulp. Sev. 2,42, iuxta ea, quae Nicaeae erant a patribus conscripta).
61 Sulpicius Severus, Chron. 2,45, says that he addressed at this time three petitions to the Emperor. This is, of course, not impossible; but it is more likely that he had in his mind the two appeals, that before the exile and the present one, and the invective).
62 Cf). Trin. 2,13 ff).
63 Reading habet for habeo, but the text is obscure.
64 It is true that the Nicene Council is not named here, the allusion is obvious. The Conservatives had actually objected to the novelty of the Creed; and the Arians had, as Hilary goes on to say, used the pretext of novelty to destroy the Gospel. The Council of Nicaea was thirty-five years before, and is very accurately described as a ‘Synod of our fathers.0’
65 Cf. Gwatkin, Studies of Arianism, p. 182).
66 ‘Bodies lifted up without support, women hanging by the feet without their garments falling about their face.0’ The other references which the Benedictine editor gives for this curious statement are evidently borrowed from this of Hilary. From the time of the first Apologists exorcism is, of course, constantly appealed to as an evidence of the truth of Christianity, but usually, in somewhat perfunctory language, and without the assertion that the writer has himself seen what he records. Hilary himself does not profess to be an eye-witness.
67 This is a telling point. Constantius had been notoriously unsuccessful in his Persian Wars.
68 The text is corrupt, but it is not probable that Hilary means that Paulinus was first relegated to Phlygia and then to some pagan frontier district, if such there was. It is quite in Hilary’s present vein to assume that because the Montanists were usually called after the province of their origin, in which they were still numerous, therefore all Phrygians were heretics and outside the pale Christendom. If hordeo be read for horreo the passage is improved. Paulinus had either to be satisfied with rations of barley bread, the food of slaves, or else to beg from the heretics. Such treatment is very improbable, when we remember Hilary’s own comfort in exile. But passions were excited, and men believed the worst of their opponents. We may compare the falsehoods in Walker’s Sufferings of the Clergy, and in Neal’s Puritans, which were eagerly believed in and after our own Civil War).
69 Hilary had previously (§ 27) asserted that ‘the Apostle has taught us to communicate with the tombs of the saints.0’ This is an allusion to Rm 12,13, with the strange reading ‘tombs0’ for ‘necessities0’ (mneivaiz for creivaiz), which has, in fact, considerable authority in the mss. of the New Testament and in the Latin Christian writers. How far this reading may have been the cause, how far the effect, of the custom of celebrating the Eucharist at the tombs of Martyrs, it is impossible to say. The custom was by this time more than a century old, and one of its purposes was to maintain the sense of unity with the saints of the past. Constantius, by denying their doctrine, had made himself their enemy.
70 Gwatkin, Studies of Arianism, p. 244).
70
71 Rufinus, Hist. Eccel. 1,30, 31, and, dependent on him, Socrates 3,10 and Sozomen 5,13).
72 Cf. Dr. Bright, Waymarks, p. 217. n.
73 Hist. Qo 1,30, 31.
74 Op. cit. I. 31. The recantation of Liberius and of the Italian bishops may be read in Hlilary’s 12th Fragment).
75 E.g). Trin. 1,17.
76 Similarly in 4,2 he alludes to the first book, meaning that which we call first, though, as we saw, in 5,3 he speaks of our fifth as his second).
77 i.e. in the passage introduced as a connecting link with the books which now precede it, when the whole work was put into its present shape).
78 E.g. 9,31 to 3,12, 9,43 to vii. 7.
79 E.g. 10,54 in.
80 viii. I, 10,4.
81 This heresy is not even mentioned in xii. 6, where the opening was obvious.
82 Dr. Gwatkin, Studies of Arianism, p. 226).
83 Cf. Gore’s Dissertations, p. 134.
84 St. Lc 22,32, where ejdehvqhn is translated as a passive. Christ is entreated for Peter. There seems to be no parallel in Latin theology.
85 E.g. the cento from the De Trinitate attached to the Invective against Counstantius.
86 ii. I.
87 Newman, Arians of the Fourth Century, 2,v. 2).
88 v. 6.
89 E.g. bk. 3,is largely reproduced in ix.; 2,9 f.==xi. 46
90 E.g. 1,19, 2,2, 3,I, 4,2, viii. 53, 11,46f.
91 Cf. 5,I (beginning of column 130 in Migne), 10,4.
92 E.g. 5,3 fin.
93 Cf). Ad Const. 2,8, in writing which his own words in the De Trinitate must have come into his mind. He had probably borrowed the thought from Origen, contra Celsum, i. 62. Similar apostrophes are in 5,19, 6,I9 f., 33).
94 Cf. 10,57 in.
95 All instance is 11,24 in.
96 E.g. in his masterly treatment, from his point of view, of the Old Testament Theophanies, 4,15 f.
97 Cf. 8,26 f. 9,41).
98 Orosius, Apol. 1.
99 E.g. 4,42, fin.
100 E.g. i 17).
101 Cf Kruger, Lucifer Bischof von Calaris, p. 39).
102 Fragment xi.
103 Chron. 2,45.
104 Jerome, Apol. adv. Rufinum, i, 2 says that the total length of the Commentaries on Jb and the Psalms was about 40,000 lines, i.e. Virgilian hexameters. The latter, at a tough estimate, must be nearly 35,000 lines in its present state. But Jerome, as we shall see, was not acquainted with so many Homilies as have come down to us; we must deduct about 5,000 lines, and this will leave l0,000 for the Commentary on Job, making it two sevenths of the length of the other. Jerome, however, is not careful in his statements of lengths; he calls the short De Synodis ‘a very long book0’ Ep. 5,2.
105 Tractatus ought to be translated thus. It is the term, and the only term. Used so early as this for the bishop’s address to the congregation; in fact, one might almost say that tractare, tractatus in Christian language had no other meaning. It is an anachtonism in the fourth century to render praedicare ‘preach ;0’ cf. Duchesne, Liber Pontificalis, 1,126).
106 E.g). fundamen, Tr. in Ps. cxxviii. 10, germen, cxxxiv. 1, revolubilis, 2,23 peccamen, ii. 9 fin., and often. The shape of sentences though simple is always good; to take one test word, saepe, which was almost if not quite extinct in common use, occurs fairly often near the end of a period, where it was needed for rhythm, which frequenter would have spoiled. Some Psalms, e.g. xiii., xiv., are treated more rhetorically than others.
107 Psalm 51,is the only exception, due, no doubt, to careless transcription. The Homilies on the titles of Psalms ix. and 91,do not count; they are probably spurious, and in any case are incomplete, as the text of the Psalms is not discussed.
108 (So Zingerle, Preface, p. xiv, to whom we owe the excellent Vienna Edition of the Homilies, the only part of Hilary’s writing which has as yet appeared in a critical text. The writer of the former of these two Homilies, in § 2, says that the title of a Psalm always corresponds to the contents. This is quite contrary to Hilary’s teaching, who frequently points out and ingeniously explains what seem to him, to be discrepancies).
109 E.g. in the Instruction or discourse preparatory to the Homilies, and in the introductory sections of that on Ps 118 (119).
110 E.g). Instr. in Ps., § 12, the fifty days of rejoicing during which Christians must not prostrate themselves in prayer, nor fast.
111 (Ps 118, Ain., § 16.
112 The account of exorcism given on Ps 64, § 10, suggests Cyptian, Ad. Don. 5, but the subject is such a commonplace that nothing definite can be said).
113 (He is here cited by the volume and page of the edition by Lommatzsch. His system of interpretation is admirably described in the fourth of Dr. Bigg’s Bampton Lectures, The Christian Platonists of Alexandria.
114 Hil. Tr. in Ps 13, § 3, his igitur ita grassantibus, sq. = Origen (ed. Lommatzsch) xii. 38.
115 E.g. Instr. in Ps., § 15 = Origen in Eusebius, H. E. 6,25 (Philocalia 3), Hilary on Ps 51, §§ 3, 7 = Origen xii. 353, 354, and very often on Ps 118 (119), e.g. the Introduction = Or. xiii. 67 f. Aleph, § 12 = ib. 70. Beth, § 6 = ib. 71, Caph, §§ 4, 9 = ib. 82, 83, &c
116 Hares. 64, 12 f.
117 Origen 13,134, Hilary has omitted this from his Homily on Ps 134, § 12.
118 Instances of such independence are Ps 118, Daleth, § 6 (xiii. 74), 119, § 15 (IB 108), 122, § 2 (IB 112), 133, § 3 (IB 131). The references to Origen are in brackets.
119 E.g. Ps 118, Heth, § 10, 121, § 1; Origen 13,80, 111.
120 (Ps 118, Gimel, § 21.
121 Origen 13,72; Hilary, Ps 118, Gimel, § 1.
122 Cf. also Ps 118, Heth, § 7, Koph, § 4, with Origen 13,79, 98. Here again the spirit of independence manifests itself towards the end of the work.
123 Cf. Ps 118, Samech, § 6 Origen xiii. 92).
124 (Ps 143, § 4; Origen 13,149.
125 Vir. Ill. 100.
126 J. F. Gamurrini, S. Hilarii Tractatus de Mysteriis et Hymni, etc., 4to., Rome, 1887. The De Mysteriis occupies pp 3 - 28).
127 Ed. Gamurrini, p. 5.
128 ib. p. 17.
129 ib. p. 21; there is the not uncommon play on the two senses of colligere.
130 ib. p. 27.
131 It must be confessed that some authorities refuse to regard this work as the De Mysteriis of Hilary. Among these is Ebert, Litteratur des Mittelaiters, p. 142, who admits that the matter might be Hilary’s, but denies that the manner and style are his.
132 Comm. in Ep. ad Ga 2,pref.: Hilarius in hymnorum carmine Gallos indociles vocat. This may mean that Hilary actually used the words ‘stubborn Gauls0’ in one of his hymns. There would be nothing extraordinary in this; the early efforts, and especially those of the Arians which Hilary imitated for a better purpose, often departed widely from the propriety of later compositions, as we shall see in one of those attributed to Hilary himself.
133 It is true that the Fourth Council of Toledo (a.d. 633) in its 13th canon couples Hilary with Ambrose as the writer of hymns in actual use. But these canons are verbose productions, and this may be a mere literary flourish, natural enough in countrymen and contemporaries of Isidore of Seville, who knew, no doubt from Jerome’s Viri Illustres, that Hilary was the first Latin hymn writer).
134 Two of the simplest stanzas are as follows:- Extra qualm caper potent Flex quid potuit fidemens humana res tantas penitusmanet Filius in Patre, credulus assequi,rursus quem penes sit Pater ut incorporeo ex Deodignus, qui genitus est profectus fueritFilius in Deum. primogenitus Dei.It is written in stanzas of six lines in the ms.; the metre is the second Asclepiad. Gammurrini, the discoverer, and Fechtrup (in Wetzer Welte’s Encyclopaedia) regard it as the work of Hilary. but the weight of opinion is against them).
135 By Gamurrini in Studi e documenti, 1884, p. 83 f.
136 Printed in full by Mai, Patrum Nova Bibliotheca, p. 490. He suspends judgment, and will not say that it is unworthy of Hilary. The Benedictine editor, Coustant, gives a few stanzas as specimens, and summarily rejects it.
137 The four quarters of the universe are ortus, occasus, aquilo, septentrio; one of these last must mean the south. This would point to some German land as the home of the author; in no country of Romance tongue could such an error have been perpetrated). Perire is used for perdere, but this is not unparalleled.
138 In Mai’s Patrum Nova Bibliotheca, vol. i., is a short treatise on the Genealogies of Christ. The method of interpretation is the same as Hilary’s, but the language is not his; and the terms used of the Virgin in §§ 11, 12, are not as early as the fourth century. In the same volume is an exposition of the beginning of St. John’s Gospel in an anti-Arian sense. In spite of some difference of vocabulary, there is no strong reason why this should not be by Hilary; cf. especially, §§ 5–7. Mai also prints in the same volume a short fragment on the Paralytic (St. Mt ix.2), too brief for a judgment to be formed. In Pitra’s Spicilegium Solesmense, vol. i., is a brief discussion on the first chapters of Genesis, dealing chiefly with the Fall. It appears, like the Homilies on the Psalms, to be the report of some extemporary addresses, and is more likely than any of the preceding to be the work of Hilary. It is quite in his style, but the contents are unimportant. But we must remember that the scribes were rarely content to confess that they were ignorant of the name author whom they transcribed; and that, being as ill-furnished with scruples as with imagination, they assigned everything that came to hand to a few fandliar names. Two further works ascribed to Hilary are obviously not his. Pitra, in the volunme of an already cited. has printed considerable remains of a Commentary on the Pauline Epistles, which really belongs to Theodore of Mopsuestia; and a Commentary on the seven Canonical Epistles, recently published in the Spicilegium Casinense, vol iii., is there attributed,with much reason,to his namesake of Arles).
139 Contra Auxentium, §7.
140 It is clear from Hilary’s account (Contra Auxentium. §7) that the decision lay with the laymen. Auxentius, in his account of the matter, does not even mention the bishops).
141 This was a gross exaggeration. They cannot have been more than 400, and probably were less and we must remember that the Homoean decision was only obtained by fraud, as Auxentius well knew).
142 §4).
143 There are fifteen in the collection, but the second and third which are as long as the rest together, and are obviously extracts from the same work, are not by Hilary. He expressly (Fragm. 1,§6) that he commence with the council of Arles and the exile of Paulinus. These documents narrate at great length events which began six years earlier, and with which Hilary and his province had no direct concern. This proves that the fragments are not a portion of the Liber adversus Ursacium et Valentem. Internal evidence proves not less clearly that they cannot be excerpts from some other work of Hilary. In Fragm. ii. §21 we are told that apparently in the year 349 Athanasius excommunicated Marcellus of Aneyra. It is of course, notorious that he never did so; the mistake is one which Hilary could not possibly have made. None the less, these fragments are both in themselves and in the documents which they embody, one of our most important authorities for the transactions they narrate, and are indisputably contemporary and authentic nor is there any reasonable doubt as to the genuineness of the thirteen. Those of them which reveal the inconstancy of Liberius have been assailed by some Roman Catholic writers, though they are accepted by others. The same suspicion has extended to others among the fragments, because they are found in company with these revelations concerning Liberius. But the doubts have been suggested by the wish to disbelieve).
144 This correspondence which Hilary has preserved (Fragm.xiii-xv)is interesting as shewing how difficult it must have been for the laity to determine who was, and who was not, a heretic, when all parties used the same Scriptural terms in commendation themselves and condemnation of their opponents. It begins with a public letter in which Germinius makes a declaration of faith in Homoeousion terms, without any mention of the reasons which had induced him to depart from the Homoean position. This is followed by a reproachful letter, also intended for publicity, from Valens, Ursacius, and others. They had refused to attend to the rumour of his defection: but now are compelled, by his own published letter, to ask the plain question, whether or not he adheres to ‘the Catholic Faith set forth and confirmed by the Holy Council at Rimini.0’ If he had added to the Homoean formula, which was that the Son is ‘like the Father,0’ the words ‘in substance0’ or ‘in all things,0’ he had fallen into the justly condemned heresy of Basil of Ancyra. They demand an explicit statement that he never had said, and never would say, anything of the kind; and warn him that he is gravely suspected, complaints of his teaching having been made by certain of his clergy to neighbouring bishops, which they trust will be proved groundless. Germinius made no direct reply to this letter, but addressed a manifesto to a number of more sympathetic bishops, containing the scriptural proofs of the divinity of Christ and recalling the fact that the Homoean leaders, before their own victory, had acquiesced in the Homoeousian confession. Any teaching to the contrary is the work, not of God, but of the spirit of this world, and he entreats those whom he addresses to circulate his letter as widely as possible, lest any should fall through ignorance into the snares of the devil. Germinius was assured of safety in writing thus. Valentinian’s support of Auxentius had proved that bishops might hold what opinions they would on the great question provided they were not avowed Arians. Germinius had been a leader of the Homoean party, and it is at least possible that his change of front was due to his knowledge that the Emperor, though he would not eject Homoeans, had no sympathy with them and would allow them no influence. In fact, the smaller the share of conscience, the greater the historical interest of Germinius’ action as shewing the decline of Homoean influence in the West).
145 Chron. 2,45).
146 Those which have been in constant use in the preparation of this chapter have been an excellent article by Th. Forster in the Theologische studien und Kritiken for 1888, p 645 ff., and two full and valuable papers by Dr. Baltzer on the Theologie and Christology of Hilary in the programm of the Rottweil Gymnasium for 1879 and 1889 respectively. I have unfortunately not had access to Wirthmuller’s work, Die Lehre d. hl. Hil. uber die Selbstenausserung Christi, but the citations in Baltzer and Schwane give some clue to its contents. The Introduction to the Benedictine edition is useful, though its value is lessened by an evident desire to make Hilary confirm to the accepted opinions of a later age. Dorners great work on the Doctrine of the person of Christ, in the English translation, with the Dogmengeschichte of Schwane (ed.2, 1895) and that of Harnack(ed 3, 1894) have also been constantly and profitably consulted. Indebttedness to other works is from time to time acknowledged in the notes).
147 Tr. in Ps 17,2, 4.
148 As e.g). Trin. 6,45.
149 St. Jn 5,44 in Trin. 9,22
150 Thus the Book of Baruch, regarded as part of Jeremiah, is cited with the same confidence as Isaiah and the other prophets in Trin. 5,39.
151 E.g). Tr. in Ps 118,Aleph. i, cxxviii. 12. 118,8. It must be confessed that Hilary’s illustrations of the principle are not always fourtunate).
152 Thus in Trin. 11,15, in commenting on Ps 22,6, he puts forward two alternative theories of the generation of worms, only one of which can be true, while both may be false. But he uses both, to illustrate two truths concerbning our Lord.
162 Similar arguments are often used: cf). Tr. in Ps 145,I.
163 Tr. in Ps 120,4
164 lb. 146,II.
165 Comm. in Mt 5,II.
166 E.g). Comm. in Mt 18,2; Tr. in Ps cxix, 20, cxxxiv. 12, cxxxvi. 6, 7: Trin. i.6,.
167 E.g). Trin. 1,6.
168 The unhesitating use of the Theophanies of the Old Testament.as direct evidence for the divinity of Christ is noteworthy, Similar to the usual proof. for the distinction of Persons within the ’Trinity, from the altcrnate use of plural and singular, are the arguments in Tr. in Ps cxviii., Iod, 5, cxvii. 4.
169 It is worth notice that he makes no use of Origen’s mystical interpretation of the Canticles. Silence in such a case is itself a criticism.
170 Compare such a passage as Trin. x. 24 with his use of the proof-texts against Arianism).
171 Tr. in Ps. 127,10.
172 E.g). Tr. in Ps. 91,to, cxviii. Iod, x5, cxxxiv. 1, cxxxv. I.
173 E g. Trin. vii’ 13; and cf. the argument which is also Athanasian of 7,31.
174 Beside the passages menentioned on p. xxx., it only occurs in Instructio Psalmorum §13
175 The translation of the De Trinitate in this volume may give a somewhat false impressionin this respect. For the sake of concicseness the word Person has been often in the English where it is absent, and absent designedly in the Latin. The word occurs Trin. iii . 23 in.,iv .42,v. 10,26,vii. 39,40 and in a few other places.
176 Concorporatio, Comm. in Matt, 6,I ; corporatio, Tr. in Ps, i, 14, 2,3, and often; corporalitas Deus, Comm, in Matt. iv, 14, Tr. in Ps. 51,16; corporalitas, Comm. in Matt. 4,14 (twice), Instr. Ps.vi. In the De Trinitate he usually prefers a periphrasis ; - assumpta caro, assumpsit carnem). Corporatio is used of man’s dwelling in a body in Trin. xi, 15 and De Mysteriis, ed. Gamurrini, p. 5.
177 It occurrs. in the De Synodis.69, but in that work Hilary is writing as an advocate in defence of Ianguage used by others, not as the exponent of his own thoughts. It also occurs once or twice in translations from the Greek, probably by another hand than Hilary’s; but from his own authorship it is completely absent.
178 Trin. 5,to, Syn. 69, ‘God is One not in Person, but in nature, 0’Trin. 4,42, ‘Not by oneness of Person but by unity of substance;0’ 6,35, ‘the birth of a living Nature from a living Nature0’ of God or Christ. is simply a periphrasis. The two natures in the Incarnate Christ are also mentioned, though, as we shall see, Hilary here aIso avoids a precise nomenclature.).
179 Tr. in Ps 131,6, ‘The supreme achievement of Christ was to render man, instructed in the knowledge of God, worthy to be God’s dwelling-place ;0’ cf. ib §23
180 Tr. in Ps cxviii, Aleph., §I
185 Deus Verbum often; Verbum alone rarely, if ever. Dorner with his iteration of ‘Logos,0’ gives an altogether false impression of Hilary’s vocabulary.
186 Trin. I. 17 and often.
187 Doctrine of the Person of Christ, 1. 2,p. 302, English translation. The passages to which he refers are Comm. in Mt 11,12; Tr. in Ps 91,6 ; Trin. 2,3. 9,69. There is a good, though brief, statement of this view in Mason’s Faith of the Gospel, p. 56).
188 Trin, 12,21, ‘the birth is in the generation and the generation in the birth, 0’
189 Discourses against the Arians, iii. 58ff ; see Robertson’s notes in the Athanasius volume of this series. p.426
190 E.g. Syn. 35, 37, 59, Trin. 3,4, vi. 21, viii . 54
191 Cf. Baltzer, Theologie d. hl. Hil. p, 19 f.
192 Hort, Two Dissertations, p. 21, and cf. p. xvi., above.
193 It constantly appears, though with all due safeguards, in the De Synodis, where sympathy as well as policy impelled him to approximate the language used by his friends. Similarly in Trin.iii. 23, he argues, from the admitted likeness, that there can be no difference. But, as we saw, this part of the De Trinitate is probably an early work, and does not represent Hilary’s later thought
194 Trin, v . 38).
195 Trin. 8,13 ff,
196 Cf). Sulp Sev., Chron. 2,42 for the Eastern suspicion that the West held a trionyma unio ;-one Person under three names, the citations in Westcott’s Gospel of St. John, additional note to 14,28
197 This was the doctrine of all the earlier theologians, soon to be displaced in the stress of controversy by the opinion that theinferiority concerns the Son only as united with man. See the citations in Wescot’s Gospel of St. John, additional note to xiv, 28.
198 Tr. in Ps cxxxviii. 17.
199 lb. 141,6.
200 Trin. 11,21 ff., on 1Co 15,21 ff).
201 Trin. 9,58 ff .
202 Bardenhewer, Patrologie, p. 377.
203 This is one of Hilary’s many reminiscences of Origen. Athanasius brought the father into direct connection with the world ; cf. Harnack, Dogmengesch. 2,206 (ed.3)
204 Trin. 12,35 ff. The passage is treated at much greater length in Athanasius’ Discourses against the Arians, 2,18fi where see Robertson’s notes.
205 Trin. 12,45; at the Incarnation Christ is ‘created in the body,0’ and this is connected with His creation for the begining of the ways of God).
206 Westcott, essay on ‘The Gospel of creation,0’ in his edition of St John’s Epistles, Where, however Hilary is not mentioned.
207 Cf). Trin. 11,49.
208 Trin.ii. 6, xii.4, &c. He is also often named Jesus Christ in this connection, e.g). Trin. 4,6
209 According to Eusebius’ computation, which Hilary would probably accept without dispute, there were 5,228 years from the creation to our Lord’s commencement of his mission in the 15th year of Tiberius, a.d. 29.
210 E.g). Trin. iv . 27; Tr. in Ps, lxviii, 19
211 Trin. iii.9 ; cf. St. Jn 17,3).
212 Trin.ii. 25 and often.
213 Trin. 2,27. The sarne conclusion is constantly drawn in the Comm. in Matt.
214 E g. Trin. 9,4, 14, 51; Tr. in Ps 2,11, 25.
215 Trin.ii. 25, 12,6, &c
216 E.g). Tr. in Ps. cxxxviii. 3.
217 This, in contrast with God, Who is Life, is proved by the fact that certain bodily growths can be removed without our being conscious of the operation ; Trin. 7,28.
218 Cf). Trin. 7,23, x 15, 16. Similarly in the Eumenides 637, Aechylus Makes Apollo excuse Orestes’ murder of Clytae nnestra on the go and that the mother is not the parent, but only the nurse of the germ. This is contrary to Aristotle’s teaching; Aeschylus and Hilary evidently represent a rival current of ancient opinion..
219 Trin.x. 20. In Tr. in Ps cxviii., Iod, 6, 7, this thought is developed. Man has a double origin. First, he is made after the likeness of God. This is the soul, which is immaterial and has no resemblance and owes no debt, as of effect to cause, to any other nature (i.e. substance) than God. It is not His likeness, but is after His likeness. Secondly, there is the body, cornposed of earthly matter.
220 Trin. 2,3of., 8,23f ).
221 Trin.x. 16, caro non aliunde originem sumpserat quam Verbo, and ib. 15,18,25. Dorner, I. ii., p.403, n.i points out that this is exactly the teaching of Gregory of Nyssa.
222 This view that the conception by the Holy Ghost means conception by the Son is consistently held by Hilary throughout his writings. It appears in the earliest of them; in Comm. in Matt. ii. 5, Christ is ‘born of a woman; . . . Made flesh through the Word.0’ So in Trin.ii. 24 He is ‘born of the Virgin and of the Holy Ghost, Himself ministering Himself in this operation.... By His own, that is God’s., overshadowing power He sowed for Himself the beginings of His body ordained that His flesh should commence to exist ; 0’and Trin. x 16
223 Trin.x. 16; cf. ib. 17. 1n the Instructio. Pslamorum,§6, he speaks in more usual language;-adventus Domini ex virgine in hominem. procreandi, and also in some other passage. Dorners view (1. ii 403 f. and note 74, p. 533) differs from that here taken. But he is influenced (see (especially p. 404) by the desire to save Hilary’s consistency rather than to state his Actutal opinion on. And Hilary was too early in the field, too anxiously employed in feeling his way past the pitfalls of heresy, to escape the danger of occasional inconsistency.
224 Trin.iii. I9, perfectum ipsa de suis non imminuta generavit. So ib, 2,25, uigenitus Deus...). Virginis utero insertus acc rescit. He grew there, but nothing more. In Virginem exactly corresponds to ex Virgine.
225 Trin.xii. 50; it would be a watering of the sense to regard commixtio in this passage as simply equivalent to coitio.
226 Trin, x. 16.
227 Irenxus, 1,I, 13.
228 (He often and emphatically repudiates the use which the Monarchians made of them, e.g. Trin.iv, 4).
229 E.g). Trin. 10,22 in The human soul is clearly intended. Schwane, ii, 268, justly praises Hilary for greater accuracy than his contemporaries in laying stress upon each of the constituent elements of Christ’s humanity, and especially upon the soul ; in this respect following Tertullian and Origen
230 In Trin. 10,21 f. is an argument analogous to that of the De Synodis concerning the Godhead. Christ is Man because He is perfectly like man, just as in the Homoeusian argument He is God because He is perfectly like God.
231 E.g). Comm. in Matt. I. ; Tr. in Ps. 68,19.
232 Trin.ii, 26.
233 Ib, viii, 45, 47, 9,14, &c.
234 This ‘evacuation0’ or ‘exinauition0’ is represented in Tr. in Ps. lxvii. 4 by the more precise metaphor of a vessel drained of its liquid contents.
235 Hilary has devoted his Homily on Psalm 68,to this subject. In §25 he asks, ‘How could He exist in the form of God?0’ There are many equally emphatic statements throughout his writings).
236 Baltzer and Schwane have been followed in this matter, in opposition to Dorner.
237 Trin. 9,38 habitus demutatio, and similarly Ib. 14.
238 Tr. in Ps. Ixviii. 25.
239 E.g). Trin. 8,45.
240 Trin 9,14, concursus utriusque formae.
241 It is very characteristic that it lies outside Cyprian’s vocabulary and range of ideas.
242 Trin,. 9,38 in., and especially Ib. 39. The unity of glory departed through His obedience in the Dispensation.
243 Trin. 11,48; cf. the end of this section and 12,6.
244 Cf Baltzer, Christologie, p. 10f., Schwane, p. 272 f. Other explanations which have been suggested are quite inadmissible Dorner p. 407, takes the passage cited above about ‘substance0’ too seriously, and wavers bettween the equally impossible interpretations of ‘countenance0’ and ‘personality.0’ Forster (l.c. p. 659) understands the word to mean ‘mode of existence.0’ Wirthmuller, cited by Schwane, p. 273, has the courage to regard ‘form of God0’ and ‘form of a servant0’ as equivalent to Divinity and humanity.
245 Trin. 12,6, decedere ex Deo in hominem. Perhaps it should be decidere, as in Tr. in Ps. Ixviii. 4.
246 Tr. in Ps Ixviii. 25).
247 Trin. 11,48, ‘emptying Himself0’ might have been a single act; ‘hiding Himself within Himself 0’was a sustained course of conduct.
248 Genus is fairly common, though much rarer than natura; pars occurs in Trin. 11,14, 15, and cf. ib’. 40). Elementa is, I think, somewhat more frequent.
249 Trin.xi. 40). Natura assumpti corporis nostri natura paterna divintatis invecta. Conversly, Trin. ix, 54, nova natura in Deum illata. But such expressions are rare; hominem ad sumpsit is the normal phrase. In Tr. in Ps.Ixviii 4, he speaks as if the two natures had been forced to coalesce by a Power higher than either. But, as we have seen. in this part of the Homily Hilary’s language is destitute of theological exactness.
250 Tr. in Ps. 54,2.
251 E.g). Trin. 9,Il, 39 10,16. The expression utriusque,natura persona in Trin. ix. 14 is susceptible of another interpretation.
252 E.g). Trin. 10,22.
253 Trin. 10,22, quia totus hominis filius totus Dei filius sit.
254 Cf. Gore’s Dissertation’s, p. 138 f. But, Hilary, though he shares and even exaggerates the general tendency of his time, has also a strong sense of the danger of Apollinarianism
255 Homo assumptus is constantly used, and similarly homo noster for our manhood, e.g). Trin. 9,7. This often leads to an awkwardness of which Hilary must hae been fully conscious, though he regarded it as a less evil than the use of an abstract term.
256 Corpus carleste, 10,18.
257 Tr. in Ps. 2,11, from St. Jn 3,13.
258 Trin. 10,47 f.; Tr. in Ps cxxxviii. 3.
259 Trin. 10,25).
260 Trin. 10,24. The purpose of the Old Testament Theophanies, it will be remembered, was the same. God appeared as man, In order to make men familiar with the future reality and so more ready to believe. See Trin. V. 17.
261 Trin. 10,14, 15.
262 Trin. 2,26 f., 3,18f. and often, especially in the Comm. in Matt.
263 E.g). Trin. 9,4, 11,48.
264 Ib, 10,11, 61).
265 Trin.x. 14.
266 Comm. in Matt. 3,2; Trin. 10,45;. The freedom of Christian martyrs from pain is frequently noticed in early writers.
267 Cf. p. lxvi.
268 Hilary was undoubtedly influenced more than he knew by the Latin words, pati and dolere, the one purely objective, the other subjective. By a line of thought which recalls that of Mozley concerning Miracles he refuses to argue from our experience to that of Christ. That He suffered, in the sense of having wounds, and death inflicted upon Him, is a fact; that He was conscious of suffering is an inference, a supposition (putatur dolere quia patitur, Tr. in Ps. cxxxviii. 3, fallitur ergo humaneastimationis opinio putans hunc dolere quod patitur, Trin. x.47, and one which we are not entitled to make. In fact, the passage last citied states that He has no natura dolendi; so also x, 23, 35, and cf). Tr. in Ps 53,12. Or as Hilary puts it, Trin. 10,24, He is subject to the nature passionum not to their iniurie.
269 Tr. in Ps. cxxxviii. 26.
270 Trin.x. 24.
271 Ib. 28.
272 Ib. 29.
273 Ib. 27.
274 Ib. 11.
275 Ib. 23. These instances of His power are used as a direct proof of Christ’s incapacity of pain. Hilary is willing to confess that He could feel it, if it be shewn that we can follow Him in these respects.
276 loc. cit.
277 Tr.in Ps. Iiv. 6).
278 Comm. in Matt. 3,2,
279 Ib, 31,I-7. These were not immature speculations, abandoned by a riper judgment. The explanation of ‘even unto death0’ is repeated, and that concerning the cup implied, in Trin. x. 36, 37
280 Trin. 10,41. Westcott and Hort insert it within brackets. Even if the passage be retained, Hilary has an explanation which agrees with his theory.
281 Ib. 24
282 loc. cit., Tr. in Ps. 53,7
283 In Tr. in Ps 53,7, there is also the moral purpose. He prays humbly. His prayer expresses no need of His own, but is meant to teach us the lesson of meekness.
284 Trin.x. 45. Yet Hilary himself is not always consistent. In the purely homiletical writing of Tr. in Ps. 68,1, he dwells upon Christ’s endurance of pain. His argument obliged Him to emphasize the suffering; it was natural, though not logical, that he should sometimes insist also upon the feeling.
285 Harnack, Dogmengesch. 2,30I n.
286 The words are Forster’s, op. cit. p. 662, and are accepted as representing their opinion by Bardenhewer, Patrologie, p. 382, and Blaltzer, Christologie, p. 32.
287 Strom. 6,,f 71). Bigg, Christian Platonists, p. 71, gives other sources, by which Hilary is less likely to have been influenced, from which he may have derived this teaching. This is not the only coincidence between him and Clement.
288 Trin 2,2, in vitium vitio coarctamur alieno.
289 Tr. in Ps Ixviii. 4. The unity is also strongly put in Trin. 8,13 10,6I.
290 Trin.x. 34. This was Hilary’s deliberate belief. But in earlier life he had written rashly of the Holy Spirit (i.e. God the Son) surrendering His humanity to be tempted, and Of the cry upon the Cross ‘testifying the departure of God the Word from Him0’ (Comm. in Matt.iii, 33,6). This, if it had represented Hilary’s teaching in that treatise would have proved it heretical ; but the whole tenour of the commentary proves that this was simply carelessness. In the Homilies on the Psalms he also writes somewhat loosely on occasion; e.g. 53,4 fin., where he mentions Christ’s former nature, i.e. the Divinity, and ib. 5, where he speaks of ‘Him Who after being God (ex Deo) had died as man.0’ But only malevolence could give an evil interpretation to these passages, delivered as they were for the edification of Hilary’s flock, and with no thought of theological accuracy. It is, indeed, quite possible that they were never revised, or even intended, for publication by him).
291 E.g). Trin. 9,6, and often in the Homilies on the Psalms, as cxxxviii. 13.
292 Tr. in Ps. Iiii. 12.
293 loc. cit
294 Tr. in Ps. 139,15.
295 Trin.x. 63. Similarly in Tr. in Ps. Ixvii. 2l, he speaks of ‘the passion, the cross, the death, the burial of God.0’
296 Trin Ps.liii.4.
297 Trin.ix. 3.
298 Tr. in Ps 141,4. There is no evidence that the text is corrupt, though the words as they stand are rank Appololinarianism and the more significant as dating from the maturity of Hilary’s thought. But here, as often, we must remember that the Homilies are familiar addresses.
299 Trin.x. 52. We must remember not only that heretical distinctions had been made, but that Christ is the name of the Son in pretemporal relation to the world (see (p. Ixvii)., as well as in the world.
300 Ib. 22, 52.
301 Cf. Gore, Dissertations, p. 211.It is in relation to the self emptying that Hilary uses such definite language : Trin. 11,48, intra suam ipse vacuefactus potestatem.... Se ipsum intra se vacnefaciens Continuit; 12,6, se evacuavit in sese).
302 Offensio, Trin. 9,38.
303 Trin. ix 22, A se dividuus
304 E.g Trin. 9,38.
305 Trin. 9,6, 0n earth Christ is Deus and homo; in glory He is totus Deus and totus homo.
306 E.g). Discourses against the Arians, 3,53, p.422 of the translation in this series.
307 Bp. Westcott on Cyril of Alexandria in St. John’s Gospel (Speaker’s Commentary), p. xcv).
308 Dorner, I. 2,415. The liberty has been taken of putting ‘Himself0’ for ‘itself0’ On the same page Dorner speaks of ‘ever increasing return of the Logos into equality with Himself.0’ This is a contradiction of his own explanation. God has become God-man. He could not again become simply the Logos. The key to Hilary’s position is the double nature of Christ. The Godhead and the Manhood are aspects in revelation, abstractions in argument. That which connects them and gives them reality is the one Person, the object of thought and faith.
309 Tr. in Ps. cxviii., Iod, 6, cxxix. 5.
310 Ib. cxxix. 5.
311 Isai. 45,12, the Old Latin, translated from the LXX., having the singular. This characteristic piece of exegesis is in Tr. in Ps. cxviii., Iod, 5; cf. ib. 7, 8.
312 Ib. Iod, I..
313 Tr. in Ps. cxviii., Koph, 8.
314 Ib. Ii. 16). naturam in se universa carnis adsumpsit, ib. Iiv. 9, universitatis nostrae caro’ est factus ; so also Trin. 11,16 in., and often.
315 This latter is the argument of Trin.viii. 73f.
316 Trin 2,24; in Him there is the universi generis humani corpus because He is homo factus ex virgine.
317 Tr. in Ps. cxxv. 6.
318 Comm. in Mt 4,12 ; habitatio, as is often the case in late Latin with abstracts, is collective. Hilary also speaks of Christ as gerens nos, Trin 10,25, which recalls the gestans of Tertullian and the portans of Cyprian).
319 Tr. in Ps 2,16, Ivii. 3, Ixii. 3, and often.
320 Trin. 11,40–42.
321 Tr. in Ps 2,27.
324 Dorner, 1. 2,417. Dorner overlooks the birth in Baptism.
325 Tr. in Ps 2,27, 1iii. 14
326 Ib. cxxxviii. I9.
327 Ib. 53,14.
328 lb. Iv. 12.
329 Trin. 11,40, 49.
330 Ib. 40). habens in sacramento subiectionis esse ac manere cuod non est).
331 Trin. 11,42, incrementum glorificati in eo Dei
332 E.g). Trin. 9,4, 10,7.
333 Trin. in Ps 62,3; of Comm in Matt.xvi.5.
334 Tr. in. Ps 56,7, 53,5. we muat remember the importance of names in Hilary’s eyes. They are not arbitrary symbols, but belong essentially to the objects which they signify. Had there been no sin, from which man needed to be saved, he would still required raising to his name and nature.
335 Ib. 118,, Aleph, 1, cxxx. 6.
336 Ib. 131,23.
337 Trin. 3,9.
338 Forster, op. cit).
339 Cf Harnack, Dogmengesch. 2,281.But Harnack is unjust in saying that Had not quite made up his own mind.
340 Gwatkin, Studies of Arianism, p. 206 n. ‘Hilary’s belief in the deity of the Holy Spirit is hardly more doubtful than St. John’s: yet he nowhere states it in so many words.0’
341 If the word may be admitted for the sake of clearness. Hilary never calls the Spirit a Person.
342 §§23, 25, 30; so also 9,69 and notably in 10,16. Similarly in Comm in Mt 3,I, the Spirit means Christ.
343 Trin. Viii. 20, 9,73 fin., and especially 2,4. This last is not a reference to the Macedonian heresy, but to the logical result of Arianism.
344 T’rin. 1,l7, 5,I, 35, 7,8, 31, 8,31, 36, 10,6.&c.
345 Balzer, Theologie des hl. Hilarius, p. 51.
346 Trin. 8,21, 12,55.
347 The work by Tertullian in which the doctrine of the Spirit is most fully brought out; in which, in fact, He is first expressly named God, is the Adversus Praxean. It was written after his secession from the Church, and Hilary, upon whom it had more influence than any other of Tertullian’s writings, may have suspected that this teaching was the expression of his Montanism rather than a legitimate deduction from Scripture, and so have been misled by over caution. He may also have been infuenced by such Biblical passages as Ap xiv. I, where the Spirit is unnamed).
348 E.g). Tr. in Ps 2,l6, 1I. 23.
349 Ib. Ivii 3.
350 lb. cxviii., Teth, 4, Ixiv. 5.
351 Ib. cxviii., Gimel, 3, 4.
352 Ib., Daleth, 1.
353 Ib. cxix. 19 (12).
354 Ib. cxix. 68,9
355 E.g. ib cxviii., Aleph, 8, lii. 12). Natura infirmitalis is a favourite phrase.
356 E.g. ib. Iii. 9 cxviii., Gimel, 12,Vau, 6.
357 Ib. 118,Daleth, 8: cf. He, 16.
358 Ib. Iii. 12.
359 Ib. Ixviii. 22, based on St. Matt. x. 15.
360 Ib. 1ii. 1l. I2.
361 E.g. ib. cxviii., Prolog. 2, Alph, 12, Phe, 8).
362 Tr. in Ps cxviii., He 12, Nun 20. But in the former passage the perseverance also depends upon the Christian.
363 Trin. 2,35.
364 Tr. in Ps cxviii., Nun II f.
365 Forster, loc cit.
366 (So also the Sin against the Holy Ghost is primarily intellectual, not ethical; Comm. Mt 5,15, 12,17.
367 Ib. 10,23.
368 Trin. 4,21; Tr. in Ps Ixvi. 2; Comm. in Mt 18,6.
369 Tr. in Ps cxviii., He, 16.
370 Tr in Ps Iix. 4 in.
371 Ib. cxlii. 6, cxviii., Ioa, 2. In regard to the latter passage we must remember once more what importance Hilary attaches to names.
372 Comm. in Mt sx. 24, originis nostra pecata ; Tr. in ps. cxviii, Tau, 6, scit sub peccati lege se esse natum. Other passages must be cited from quotations in St. Augustine, but Forster, p. 676, has given reason for doubting Hilary’s authorship.
373 E.g. Comm, in Mt 10,24).
374 Tr. in Ps cxviii., Vau, 4, Lamed, I; cf. Nun, 20.
375 E.g. Trin. 9,10; Tr. in Ps. cxxix. 9.
376 Tr. in. ps. 53,13 fin.
377 Comm. in Mt xxxiii.6.
378 Ib. iii.2
379 Ib. 3,3.
380 Tr.in.ps lxviii.8.
381 Tr.in ps. lxi.2.
382 Trin. 9,7.
383 E.g. Trin. x.23,47 in.
384 E.g. Ib. 10,11.
385 Comm. in Mt iii.2
386 E.g. Tr. in Ps 53,12,13 (translated in this volume) 64,4).
387 Cf. Harnack, 2,177; Schwane, ii. 271.
388 E.g. Tr. in Ps 53,4.
389 Cf. p. Ixxxv. fin. In Tr. in Ps. cxviii., Nun, 20, Hilary says ‘the reward of the consummation attained depends upon the initiative of the will ;0’ so also Trin. 1,11.
390 Tr. in ps. 2,40.
391 Hilary is commenting on the words, ‘I know, O Lord, that Thy judgments are right.0’
392 (1Co 12,8 1Co 12,
393 Tr. in ps. cxviii., Iod, 12.
394 E.g). Trin. 10,70, 11,1).
395 Tr. in Ps cxviii., prolog. 4.
396 Ib. cxxxv. 3; cofessio is paraphrased by professa cognitio.Similar language is used in cxxxvii. 2 f.
397 Ib. 2,38; cf 52,I2in., cxix. 11(4).
398 It is always confession to God directly. There is no hint of public or ceremonial confession, or of absolution. But Hilary’s aabstinence from allusion to the practical system of the Church is so complete that no argurnent can ever be drawn from his silence as to the existence, or the importance in his eyes, of her instiyutions.
399 Tr. in Ps Ixvi. 2, Ivi. 3.
400 Ib. cxviiii koph, 6.
401 Trin. 1,12.
402 Comm. in Mt 9,9.
403 E.g). Tr. in Ps Iiii. 7.
404 E.g). Trin. I. 18.
405 Tr. in Ps cxviii., Gimel. 5. Hilary never mentions Confirmation).
406 Tr. in Ps Ii. 16, 17.
407 E.g. ib. 131,23; Trin. viii. 13. The latter is the only passage in Hilary s writings in which the subject is discussed at length: and even here it is not introduced for its own sake.
408 E.g). Tr. in Ps 1,9 f., cxviii., Koph, 6. Conduct in church was not more exemplary than outside. The most innocent employment which he attributes to many of his people during the reading of the lessons is the casting up of their business accounts, Tr. in Ps cxxxv. I.
409 Tr. in Ps Iii. 9-I2.
410 Trin. 2,35.
411 Tr. in Ps cxviii., Aleph, 1.
412 Ib. Phe, 9.
413 Ib. I 12.
414 E.g). Trin. 1,14, 6,I9.
415 Ib. 1i. 21.
416 Ib. cxviii., Ain, 16, 17.
417 Ib., He, 14.
418 E.g. ib. Iiii. 10).
419 Tr. in Ps cxxxvii. 16. Cf). Trin. 10,55, where he refuses to believe that it was with real sorrow that our Lord wept over Jerusalem, that godless and murdetous city. His tears were a dispensa-tion.
420 Tr. in ps. 14,10, est enirn necessariurn plerumque mendacium, et nonnunquam falsitas utilis est. The latter apparently refers to his second example.
421 Hermas, Mand. 3,3, confesses to wholesale Iying; he had never heard that it was wrong. But the writer of the Shepherd does not represent his mouthpiece as a model of virtue. It is more significant that Tertullian, Pud. 19, classes breach of trust and lying among slight sins which may happen to anyone any day. This was in his strictest and most censorious period. There are grave difficulties in reconciling some of Cyprian’s statements concerning his opponents with one another and with probability, but he has not ventured upon any general extenuation of the vice.
422 Tr. in Ps cxxxiv. 1.
423 Ib. 131,24, 127,7, and especially cxviii., Nun, 14).
424 Tr. in Ps cxviii., Nun, 13, 15. It is in this passage that Hilary gives his views most fully. His aneithesis is between legitima and voluntaria.
425 l.c. Nun, 14, Comm. in Matt, 5, 2. In the latter passage there is a piece of practical advice which shews that public fasts were generally recognised. Hilary tells his readers that they must not take literally our Lord’s command to anoint themselves when they fast. If they do, they will render themselves conspicuous and ridiculous. The passage, Comm. in Mt 27,5, 6, on the parables of the Virgins with their lamps and of the Talents cannot be taken, as by Forster, as evidence that Hilary rejected the later doctrine of the supererogatory righteousness of the Saints. He is speaking of the impossibility of contemporaries conveying righteousness to one another in the present life, and his words have no bearing on that doctrine.
426 Tr. in Ps 143,II.
427 Ib. Ii. 16.
428 E.g. ib. 61,6, cxviii., He, 12, Nun, 20, Koph, 6.
429 Ib. cxxxv. 4.
430 Ib. 1i. 21.
431 Ib. cxviii, Lamed, 15. Similar passages are fairly numerous; e.g. Comm. in Mt 4,26.
432 Trin. 6,36.
433 Comm. in Mt 12,17, 31,5).
434 Trin. 1,14.
435 Ib. 9,8, commenting on Col ii. 10
436 Tr. in Ps Ii. 18, Lxiii. 9,
437 Ib. 2,41.
438 Ib. cxviii, Gimel, 3.
439 Ib. Iii. 17.
440 Comm. in Mt 10,19.
441 Tr. in Ps 19.
442 Ib. I. 19ff ., translated in volume. For the good, see also ib. 57,5, Trin. vi 3).
443 Tr. in Ps cxviii., Gimel, 12.
444 Trin. 6,3.
445 Tr. in. 52,17, Ixix. 3.
446 Trin. 8,50; Tr. in ps. ii. 28. Cf. Lightfoot on Col I. 15).
447 Dorner, 1. 2,399.
448 Gore, Dissertations, p. 151.
449 Schwane, 2,271, says, ‘Though we reject that part of it which attributes a natural impassibility to the body of Christ, yet Hilary’s exposition presents one truth more clearly than the earlier Fathers had stated it, by giving to the doctrine of the representative satisfaction of Christ its reasonable explanation as a free service of satisfaction. He conceives rightly of the Lord’s whole life on earth, with all its troubles and infirmities, as a sacrifice of free love on the part of the God-Man; it is only his closer definition of this sacrifice that is inaccurate.... Hilary lays especial stress upon the freedom of the Lord s acceptance of death.0’ He quotes Trin. 10,11.
450 (He had evidently been long familiar with it (Life, 1,155), but the first mention of its use for missionary purposes is in 1862 (ib. I. 137). He began the translation into Arabic at Tunis in 1890, after his resignation of the bishopric of Lahore (ii. 333), but it seems doubtfill whether he was able to make any progress with it at Muscat. His biographer says nothing of the amount actually accomplished).
451 For Bishop French’s view of the importance of this doctrine, see his Life, I. 84.
452 Compare Bishop Lightfoot’ comprehensive words on Col I. 20 The reconciliation of mankind implies ‘a restitution to a state from which they had fallen, or for which they were destined.0’





Hilary of Poiters


Introduction to the Treatise de Synodis

Hilary had taken no part in the Synod held at Ancyra in the spring of a.d. 358, but he had been made acquainted with its decisions and even with the anathemas which thelegates of that Synod concealed at Sirmium. He saw that these decisions marked an approach. The horror which was felt at the Sirmian Blasphemia by those Eusebians whose only objection to the Nicene faith was that they did not understand it, augured well for the future. At the same time the majority of the Eastern bishops were deliberately heretical. It was natural that Hilary should be anxious about the episcopate of the West.


Hilary - the Councils 114