Early Life. His Commentary on Matthew

1. Early Life. His Commentary on Matthew

Hilary, who has been called the Athanasius of the Western Church, comes into clear historical light only after the Synod of Milan (355), and then not for long, since he died at Poitiers in 367. Of his early life we know little. He was born of pagan and probably well-to-do parents at Poitiers, was well educated there, married apparently while still a heathen, was led by his study of philosophy to the Christian faith, was baptized, and, some time before 355, was made bishop of Poitiers. At the time of the Synod of Milan he can not have been more than forty. He tells that at this time he did not know the Nicene Creed, and had not heard of the strife over the dis His tinction between homoousion and ho Commen- moiouaion. In view of the paucity of tary on evidences as to Western orthodoxy of Matthew. the period before 356, when Greek influence became strong, the historical interest of Hilary's commentary on Matthew is very great. Though it lacks the beginning and end, its genuineness is beyond dispute. Its date is probably between 350 and 353. The Christology of this work is the old Western Christology of Novatian (and Tertullian), without the least trace of influence from Nicaea or of the Eastern catchwords of the time. Another specifically Western trait is the strong Pauline influence-the antithesis of law and gospel, the emphasis laid upon justifying faith. It is difficult to decide exactly what were the sources of the theological learning set forth in this, the oldest of Hilary's works; but it will not suffice to say that he gained his knowledge of the orthodox belief, as it was set forth in the homoousion, from Scripture alone. He seldom names authorities; but he does mention Tertullian and Cyprian as the authors of expositions of the Lord's Prayer known to him, and he seems to have read Novatian's De trinitate under the name of one of these two. That he knew Irenaeus is possible from the parallelism of certain lines of thought, but there are things which tell in a contrary direction. Greek influences are improbable from the complete absence of any reference to the Greek text of the Bible. In fact, it is unlikely that Hilary's youthful education included a "good knowledge" of Greek. It was his being drawn into the Arian controversy that made him "the Athanasius of the West," and his exile in the Orient that turned him into a Greeizing Western theologian.

After Paulinus of Treves had been exiled in 353

283

and Eusebius of Vercelli, Lucifer of Calaris, and Dionysius of Milan in 355, the Arian controversy began to affect Hilary, who had been present neither at Arles nor at Milan. With other 2. Exile in Gallic bishops, he renounced the East. communion with Ursacius and Valens, who had dominated the situation at Milan, and their partizan, Saturninus of Arles. At the same time (355 or early in 356) he wrote his first address to the Emperor Constantius. In it, with out discussing dogmatic problems, he complains of the behavior of the Arians and appeals for a cessation of the persecution and the recall of the banished bishops. He now evidently knows what Arianism means, and takes his stand on the Nicene side because it represents what he has always be lieved. The Arianizing party knew what his in fluence was worth, and made every effort to have him also banished. They succeeded soon after the synod held in 356 at Biterrse, the modern BSziers, where he made fruitless efforts to win over his op ponents. Envoys from the synod to the emperor procured a decree of banishment against him. The place of his exile was at first kept secret; after a long journey he reached the civil province of Asia, where (principally in Phrygia) he remained until after the Synod of Seleucia, spending his time in study and writing. The result of his studies was his most important work, the De trinitate, called by Jerome Contra Arianos, by Rufinus, Cassian, and others De fade. It was written before he came in contact with homoiousianism, and thus before the Synod of Ancyra in the spring of 358. The pecul iar western Christological tradition still appears in it; in spite of the expression trinitas, which nat urally occurs more than once, binitarian views make themselves decidedly felt. But he has now come to know Greek theology. The homoouaion is acknowledged; in place of the Novatian conception of the eternity of the Son are clear expressions as to his eternal generation; instead of speaking only of the human corpus of Christ, as before, he now speaks also of an anima created through the Logos together with the body formed in Mary; and in spite of all his use of the phrase susceptus homo, he guards carefully the identity of the Logos-subject in the incarnate Logos.