Saint Hilary of Poitiers

“ When the king came to the neighborhood of Poitiers and was encamped some distance off, he saw a ball of fire come out of the church of Saint Hilarius and pass, as it were, over him, to show that, aided by the light of the blessed confessor Hilarius, he should more boldly conquer the heretic armies, against which the same bishop had often fought for the faith. And he made it known to all the army that neither there nor on the way should they spoil any one or take any one’s property. ”

“ It is, perhaps, only natural that there is little allegorism in the De Trinitate. Such a hot-house growth could not thrive in the keen air of controversy. As for the Commentary on St. Matthew, its chief influence has been indirect, in that St. Ambrose made large use of it in his own work upon the same Gospel. The consideration of Hilary’s use of Scripture and of the place which it held in his system of theology is reserved for the next chapter, where illustrations from this Commentary are given.
About the year 350 Hilary was consecrated Bishop of Poitiers. ”

“ Hilary, [1] a bishop of Poitiers in Aquitania, was a member of the party of Saturninus bishop of Arles. Banished into Phrygia by the Synod of Beziérs he composed twelve books Against the Arians and another book On Councils written to the Gallican bishops, and Commentaries on the Psalms that is on the first and second, from the fifty-first to the sixty-second, and from the one hundred and eighteenth to the end of the book. ”

“ The increase in Christian education is indicated by the fact that there are only four inscriptions dating from the fourth century and fifty-four from the fifth.
How constantly the Church Fathers strove to check the rhetorical tendency in themselves and in the clergy may be seen from their frequent protests. Jerome remarked reprovingly of Hilary of Poitiers that he was affected by the tragic and turgid vein in the Gallic character, and too much adorned with the ‘flowers of Greece’, so that his long periods were not understood by the simple friars. ”

“ Hilary was the mildest of men, full of condescension and affability to all: yet seeing this behavior ineffectual, he composed an invective against Constantius, in which he employed severity, and the harshest terms; and for which undoubtedly he had reasons that are unknown to us. This piece did not appear abroad till after the death of that emperor. Our saint undertook a journey to Milan, in 364, against Auxentius, the Arian usurper of that see, and in a public disputation obliged him to confess Christ to be true God, of the same substance and divinity with the Father. ”

“ We have seen the resistance offered to the Pope in the case of the wretched Apiarius by the African Church, and now the Church of Gaul furnishes a defender of the rights of Metropolitans against Pope Leo in one of the holiest and most apostolical of its ancient Bishops.
St. Hilary of Arles, of noble birth, of splendid ability, having in the world the highest prospects, was converted to God by the prayers of St. Honoratus. Thereupon he sold his large possessions, and bestowed them on the poor, and retired to the desert of Lerins. ”

“ Now as soon as the saint of God fell sick at the village of Candes, as we have related, the people of Poitiers came to be present at his death, as did also the people of Tours. And when he died, a great dispute arose between the two peoples. For the people of Poitiers said: “As a monk, he is ours; as an abbot, he belonged to us; we demand that he be given to us. Let it be enough for you that when he was a bishop on earth you enjoyed his conversation, ate with him, were strengthened by his blessings and cheered by his miracles. ”

“ His birth was illustrious, and he is usually said to have been the son of a king, but Balther merely says he was a person of distinguished piety. Having embraced the ecclesiastical state, he was raised to the priesthood, and preached with great zeal for some time in various parts of Ireland. Wishing to visit foreign countries, he passed over to France, and after preaching there, became a member of S. Hilary's monastery at Poitiers, where he remained for a considerable time, and was so much esteemed by the community, and the bishop and clergy, that he was elected abbot. ”

“ Some he appointed to live in community; others, who seemed more perfect, in separate cells, as anchorets. His rule was chiefly borrowed from that of St. Pachomius. Nothing can be more amiable than the description St. Hilary has given of the excellent virtues of this company of saints, especially of the charity, concord, humility, compunction, and devotion which reigned among them, under the conduct of our holy abbot. He was, by compulsion, consecrated archbishop of Arles in 426, and died, exhausted with austerities and apostolical labors, in 429. ”

“ They were heretics, who taught that Our Lord was only a man and not God, and as the Church turned them out on account of their false teaching, they did nothing but fight against her. Of course, Martin, the brave soldier of Christ, stood up for what he believed, so that one day he was seized by the Arians, beaten, and banished from his own country. He began to make his way back to St. Hilary, but when he reached Milan he learned that his friend had been banished from Poitiers, and that an Arian Bishop ruled in his place. So Martin stayed at Milan ”

“ La Rocheposay, the warlike Bishop, his lieutenant Saint-Cyran, and Richelieu’s faithful Bouthillier, smoothed the way for his uncontested election as one of the two deputies of the clergy of Poitiers. The old city, so lately in a stage of siege, rang joy-bells on August 10, the appointed day. All over Poitou, all over France, the bells were ringing, for every estate in the kingdom hoped much from the States-General. It may at once be said that rich and poor, great and small, were disappointed. ”

“ He acted upon it at once, and in the summer of the same year, 356, Hilary was exiled to the diocese, or civil district comprising several provinces, of Asia.
We now come to the most important period of Hilary’s life. He was already, as we have seen, a Greek scholar and a follower of Greek theology. He was now to come into immediate contact with the great problems of the day in the field on which they were being constantly debated. And he was well prepared to take his part. He had formed his own convictions before he was acquainted with homoousion, homoiousion or the Nicene Creed [47] . ”

“ In the Inns of Court, Hilary is one of the four dining terms; it begins on the 11th of January and ends on the 1st of February. It is also the name of one of the terms at the universities of Oxford (more usually “Lent term”) and Dublin.
HILARIUS, or Hilarus (Hilary) , bishop of Rome from 461 to 468, is known to have been a deacon and to have acted as legate of Leo the Great at the “robber” synod of Ephesus in 449. There he so vigorously defended the conduct of Flavian in deposing Eutyches that he was thrown into prison, whence he had great difficulty in making his escape to Rome. ”

“ Saint Hilary, bishop of Aquileja, in Northern Italy, had a deacon named Tatian, whom he appointed to be his archdeacon. In the reign of Numerian, during which they flourished, there was at Aquileja a heathen priest, named Monofantus, who went before the governor Beronius, and obtained from him authority to hale the bishop before his tribunal. Then Monofantus went to the house of Hilary, and found him engaged in reading, together with his deacon Tatian. ”

“ Yet he, and all whose position in any way resembled his—all, indeed, except some few incorrigible ringleaders—were in the Church; their deflection was, in Hilary’s words, an ‘inward evil.’ And Hilary was no Lucifer; his desire was to unite all who could be united in defence of the truth. This was the plan dictated by policy as well as by charity, and in the case of Liberius, if, as is probable, they met, it was certainly rewarded with success. Indeed, according to Rufinus, Hilary was successful at every stage of his journey. ”

“ Hilary, after he had been three years in banishment, and was still in Asia, published his book On Synods, to inform the Catholics in Gaul, Britain, and Germany, what judgment they ought to form of several synods, held lately in the East, chiefly by the Arians and Semi-Arians: a work of great use in the history of those times, and in which St. Hilary's prudence, humility, modesty, greatness of soul, constancy, invincible meekness, and love of peace, shine forth. ”

“ This is the knowledge of God, the hope of eternity; it is the duty of a Christian to acquire such knowledge as shall enable him to form and to maintain his own conclusions. The excerpts from the work have evidently been made by some one who was interested in Italy and Illyricum rather than in Gaul, and thought that the documents were more important than the narrative. Hence Hilary’s character is as little illustrated as the events of his life. ”

“ There, however, Hilary bishop of Poictiers (a city of Aquitania Secunda) had anticipated him, having previously confirmed the bishops of Italy and Gaul in the doctrines of the orthodox faith; for he first had returned from exile to these countries. Both therefore nobly combined their energies in defense of the faith: and Hilary being a very eloquent man, maintained with great power the doctrine of the homoousion in books which he wrote in Latin. In these he gave sufficient support [to the doctrine] and unanswerably confuted the Arian tenets. ”

“ Hilary to Gwennap in peace of mind, and meditated most of the way on Romans viii. I again devoted myself to the Lord, and with more of my will than last night. I was much disposed to think of subjects entirely placed beyond the world, and had strong desires, though with heavy opposition from my corrupt nature, after that entire deadness to the world which David Brainerd manifested. At night I found myself to have backslidden a long way from the life of godliness, to have declined very much since my coming into Cornwall, but especially since I went to St. Hilary. ”

“ S. Hilary replied, "From my childhood I have learnt to sacrifice to the living God, and to worship Jesus Christ with pure heart; I cannot worship demons." The governor said, "Christ, whom thou sayest that thou worshippest, was crucified by the Jews." Hilary replied, "If thou knewest the virtue of His cross, thou wouldest leave the error of idols, and adore Him who would heal the wounds of thy soul." "Come," exclaimed the governor, "do as I bid, or I will have thy tongue cut out." "Sir," answered the bishop, "do so, instead of threatening me." ”

“ Three of them, Montanus, Manichæus and Marcion, were heretics in the eyes of an Arian as much as of a Catholic; the other three, Marcellus, Photinus and Sabellius, were those with whom the Arians were constantly taunting their adversaries. Hilary avoids, deliberately as we may be sure, the use of any name which could wound his opponents. But bold and eloquent and true as the appeal of Hilary was, it was still less likely that his petition for a hearing in Council should be granted than that he should be allowed to disprove the accusations which had led to his exile. ”

“ Hilary, a man endowed with all virtues and graces, and famous for his life as well as for his eloquence, who also, as a teacher of the churches and a priest, advanced not only by his own merits but also by the progress of others, and remained so steadfast during the storms of persecution that through the fortitude of his unconquered faith he attained the dignity of being a Confessor, [1] —he testifies in the First book on the faith that the Lord Jesus Christ, Very God of Very God, was both begotten before the world, and afterwards born as man. ”

“ If his horizon had been limited to his neighbours in Gaul, he would have found little encouragement and less assistance. The oral teaching which prevailed in the West furnished, no doubt, safe guidance in doctrine, but could not supply reasons for the Faith. And reasons were the one great interest of Hilary. The whole practical side of Christianity as a system of life is ignored, or rather taken for granted and therefore not discussed, in his writings, which are ample enough to be a mirror of his thought. ”

“ Hilary accuses the Arian Constantius of being a worse enemy to the church then Nero, Decius, or Diocletian, for he seduced her prelates by favors, instead of enabling them to acquire glory in openly dying for the faith.
The civil power can never uproot Catholicity by slaying Catholics, or robbing the church of her temporalities. Impoverish the church as you will, you cannot make her poorer than she was {62} in our Lord himself, who had not where to lay his head, nor than she was in the twelve apostles when they went forth from that "upper room" in Jerusalem to conquer the world. ”

“ These monks, who had sought happiness by renouncing secular life, felt and proclaimed that they had found it; to see their serene and modest joy, their union, their gentleness, and their firm hope, one would have believed one's self, says S. Eucher, in the presence of a battalion of angels at rest. [59] How S. Honoratus converted S. Hilary by his prayers, as told by S. Hilary himself, shall be related when we speak of that Saint. Honoratus was, by compulsion, made to assume the direction of the see of Arles, and was consecrated Bishop in 426. ”

“ He tried to raise the question of the Faith, challenging the doctrine of his opponents. But though a large majority of a council of Gallic bishops would certainly be in sympathy with him, he had no success. Their position was not threatened; Hilary, like Paulinus, was accused of no doctrinal error, and these victims of Constantius, if they had raised no questions concerning their neighbours’ faith and made no objections to the Emperor’s tyranny, might also have passed their days in peace. The tone of the episcopate in Gaul was, in fact, by no means heroic. ”