12.5.2013 CHURCH FATHERS 11 - hilary of poitiers, b 300-20; bishop of poitiers 353-368

what athanasius did in the defence of orthodoxy for the whole Church, but especially the east,
that hilary did for the west, but more especially gaul.
in fact he was the great catholic champion of the west against arianism.
athanasius and hilary never met,
yet the former must have been well aware of the work of the latter
and hilary recognized A as his chief.
hilary was both a man of action and theologian,
but he is best known to us in the latter capacity..
he was converted in350, consecrated, while still a layman, in 353..
five years of his episcopate were also passed in exile,
although they were actively employed.

hilary was born in or near poitiers,  but whether he was by origin a gaul or a roman, we do not know,
nor the exact time of his birth.
his parents were in a good position and he had an excellent education
and was trained for the profession of rhetoric, or in modern words, for the bar.
here it must be observed, that the civilization of gaul at this date was of a very high order.
no sooner was gaul finally conquered by rome and brought within the empire,
than the gauls at once rose to their position at roman citizens.
their advance was very rapid and by this time they were at least
on a level in point of culture with the romans themselves,
the chief centre of that culture being bordeaux.
about the christianity of gaul we have heard nothing since the time of irenaeus
and it will be remembered that, when he was consecrated to the see of lyons,
he was the only bishop in the province.
by this time there were of course many bishops,
but even now they were much fewer and farther between than in the east,
but owing to distances, exercised less personal influence, except in his cathedral city.
thus when H was exiled to asia minor, he continued to administer his diocese from afar.
no one thought of intruding another bishop.

...his exile was providential.
it bought him into direct touch with the eastern arians,
whose teaching he was better able to examine and refute
and with the semi arians, for whom he had much sympathy,
believing them to be heretics only from a misunderstanding of terms,
and not from any intellectual depravity.
..towards the extreme party, however, he adopted quite another attitude;
for them no words were bad enough.
he was summoned during his exile to the council of seleucia (359)
as a leading western authority who was in the neighbourhood,
although it was supposed to be an exclusively eastern council
and discovered to his horror ..that the Homoion(the likeness of Father and Son),
which the Homoean party were introducing as a watchword
that should bind all parties, meant no more than a likeness of will.

...it is admitted on all sides that gaul was freed from the guilt of heresy
solely by the good work of hilary...and the council of paris which he called (361)
had already made the first decided step towards the purification of the western church when it
excommunicated saturninus and proclaimed the Homo-ousion.

...in spite of the importance of knowledge as a guide to conduct, hilary showed, like athanasius,
a true catholic reluctance to the multiplication of dogmas,
or to scientific explanations of the traditional faith.
such explanations were forced by heretic quibbles.
-'in simplicity is faith; God does not call us to the blessed life through the investigation of difficult questions.
 -'the errors of heretics and blasphemers force us to deal with unlawful matters,
to scale perilous heights, to speak unutterable words, to trespass on forbidden ground.
faith ought in silence to fulfill the commandments,
worshipping the Father, reverencing with Him the Son, abounding in the Holy Ghost,
but we strain the poor resources of our language to express thoughts too great for words.
the error of others compels us to embody in human terms truths
which ought to be hidden in the silent veneration of the heart.
and again, after writing of the Father, he says,
-it is easier for me to feel this concerning the Father than to say it.
i am well aware that no words are adequate to describe His attributes.
-again, 'neither speech of man nor analogy of human nature can give us a full insight into the things of God.
the ineffable cannot submit to the bounds and limits of definition.
-and, 'God cannot be known except by devotion.'

..hilary is quoted by the 'catholic dictionary' as
one of the chief patristic authorities or the catholic view of the eucharist.
there is not much allusion to it in his works, but in Trin. viii.13 he says,
'for if in truth the word has been made flesh,
and we in very truth receive the word made flesh as food from the Lord,
are we not bound to believe that he abides in us naturally, 
who, born as a man, has assumed the nature of our flesh now inseparable from Himself,
and has conjoined the nature of His own flesh to the nature of the eternal Godhead
in the sacrament by which His flesh is communicated to us?...
whoever then denies that the Father175