| Saint Hilary | |
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The Ordination of Saint Hilary. From a 14th century manuscript. |
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| "Malleus Arianorum" and the "Athanasius of the West;" Bishop, Confessor and Doctor of the Church | |
| Born | c. 300 AD Pictavium, Gaul (modern-day Poitiers, France) |
| Died | c. 368 Poitiers |
| Honored in | Roman Catholic Church Eastern Orthodox Churches Anglican Communion Lutheran Church Oriental Orthodoxy |
| Canonized | Pre-Congregation |
| Feast | January 13 January 14 (in some local calendars and pre-1970 General Roman Calendar) |
Hilary of Poitiers (c. 300 – c. 368[1]) was Bishop of Poitiers and is a Doctor of the Church. He was sometimes referred to as the "Hammer of the Arians" (Latin: Malleus Arianorum) and the "Athanasius of the West." His name comes from the Latin word for happy or cheerful. His optional memorial in the Roman Catholic calendar of saints is 13 January. In the past, when this date was occupied by the Octave Day of the Epiphany, his feast day was moved to 14 January.[2]
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Hilary was born at Poitiers about the end of the 3rd century A.D. His parents were pagans of distinction. He received a good education, including what had even then become somewhat rare in the West, some knowledge of Greek. He studied, later on, the Old and New Testament writings, with the result that he abandoned his Neo-Platonism for Christianity, and with his wife and his daughter (traditionally named Saint Abra) were baptized and received into the Catholic Church .
So great was the respect in which he was held by the citizens of Poitiers that about 353, although still a married man, he was unanimously elected bishop. At that time Arianism was threatening to overrun the Western Church; to repel the disruption was the great task which Hilary undertook. One of his first steps was to secure the excommunication, by those of the Gallican hierarchy who still remained orthodox, of Saturninus, the Arian Bishop of Arles, and of Ursacius and Valens, two of his prominent supporters.
About the same time, he wrote to Emperor Constantius II a remonstrance against the persecutions by which the Arians had sought to crush their opponents (Ad Constantium Augustum liber primus, of which the most probable date is 355). His efforts were not at first successful, for at the synod of Biterrae (Béziers), summoned in 356 by the Emperor Constantius with the professed purpose of settling the longstanding disputes, Hilary was, by an imperial rescript, banished with Rhodanus of Toulouse to Phrygia, where he spent nearly four years in exile.
Thence, however, he continued to govern his diocese, while he found leisure for the preparation of two of the most important of his contributions to dogmatic and polemical theology: the De synodis or De fide Orientalium, an epistle addressed in 358 to the Semi-Arian bishops in Gaul, Germany and Britain, expounding the true views (sometimes veiled in ambiguous words) of the Eastern bishops on the Nicene controversy; and the De trinitate libri XII, composed in 359 and 360, in which, for the first time, a successful attempt was made to express in Latin the theological subtleties elaborated in the original Greek. The former of these works was not entirely approved by some members of his own party, who thought he had shown too great a forbearance towards the Arians; he replied to their criticisms in the Apologetica ad reprehensores libri de synodis responsa.
His urgent and repeated request for a public discussion with his opponents, especially with Ursacius and Valens, proved at last so inconvenient that he was sent back to his diocese, which he appears to have reached about 361, within a very short time of the accession of Emperor Julian.
He was occupied for two or three years in combating Arianism within his diocese, but in 364, extending his efforts once more beyond Gaul, he impeached Auxentius, bishop of Milan, and a man high in the imperial favour, as heterodox. Summoned to appear before Emperor Valentinian I at Milan and there maintain his charges, Hilary was mortified to hear the supposed heretic give satisfactory answers to all the questions proposed. His denunciation of Auxentius as a hypocrite did not save him from an ignominious expulsion from Milan.
In 365, he published the Contra Arianos vel Auxentium Mediolanensem liber, in connection with the controversy; and also (but perhaps at a somewhat earlier date) the Contra Constantium Augustum liber, in which he pronounced that lately deceased emperor to have been the Antichrist, a rebel against God, "a tyrant whose sole object had been to make a gift to the devil of that world for which Christ had suffered."
Hilary is sometimes regarded as the first Latin Christian hymn writer, but none of the compositions assigned to him is indisputable.
The later years of his life were spent in comparative quiet, devoted in part to the preparation of his expositions of the Psalms (Tractatus super Psalmos), for which he was largely indebted to Origen; of his Commentarius in Evangelium Matthaei, an allegorical exegesis of the first Gospel; and of his no longer extant translation of Origen's commentary on Job.
While he thus closely followed the two great Alexandrians, Origen and Athanasius, in exegesis and Christology respectively, his work shows many traces of vigorous independent thought.
Towards the end of his episcopate and with his encouragement Martin, the future bishop of Tours, founded a monastery at Ligugé in his diocese.
He died in 368; no more exact date is trustworthy.
Among 4th-century Latin writers earlier than Ambrose, Hilary holds first place. Augustine of Hippo called him "the illustrious doctor of the churches", and his works continued to be highly influential in later centuries. Pope Pius IX formally recognized him as Universae Ecclesiae Doctor in 1851.
In the Roman calendar of saints, Hilary's feast day is on 13 January, 14 January in the pre-1970 form of the calendar. The name Hilary term is given in Oxford University to the term, beginning on 7 January, that includes his feast.
Recent research has distinguished between Hilary's thought before his period of exile in Phrygia under Constantius and the quality of his later major works. Because Augustine cites part of the commentary on Romans as by "Sanctus Hilarius" it has been ascribed by various critics at different times to almost every known Hilary. A vita of Hilary was written by Venantius Fortunatus c. 550 but is not considered reliable. More trustworthy are the notices in Saint Jerome (De vir. illus. 100), Sulpicius Severus (Chron. ii. 39-45) and in Hilary's own writings.
The following of Saint Hilary developed in association with that of St. Martin of Tours as a result of Sulpicius Severus' Vita Sancti Martini and spread early to western Britain. The villages of St Hilary in Cornwall and Glamorgan and that of Llanilar in Ceredigion bear his name.
In France the majority of dedications to Saint Hilary are to be found to the west (and north) of the Massif Central from which areas the cult eventually extended to Canada.
In northwest Italy the church of Sant’Ilario at Casale Monferrato was dedicated to him as early as 380.
In the context of English educational and legal institutions, Saint Hilary's festival lies at the start of the Hilary Term which begins in January.
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