Page:Dictionary of Christian Biography and Literature (1911).djvu/492

474, lib. viii. (5) St. Gregory of Tours, de Gloriâ Confessorum, c. 2. (6) Fortunatus, whose identification is uncertain. [ (17) and (18).] (7) Cassiodorus, ''Institut. Divin.'' lib. i. c. 16.

Life.—Hilary is believed to have been born of illustrious stock in Poictiers. St. Jerome (in Gal.) distinctly asserts this, but some authorities name more vaguely the province of Aquitaine, rather than the capital. He enjoyed a good education in the Latin classics, and evidently was specially fond of the writings of Quintilian.

About 150, Hilary, then a married man but, it would seem, still young, appears to have become a Christian. He depicts himself as gradually rising first above the attractions of ease and plenty; then aiming at knowledge of truth and the practice of virtue. The books of Moses and the Psalms gave him abundant help in his desire to know God; in his consciousness of weakness the writings of apostles and evangelists aided him, more especially the Gospel of St. John, with its clear and emphatic teaching on the incarnation of the co-eternal Son. His conversion was essentially due to the study of Holy Scripture.

After his baptism he became an edifying example of a good Christian layman. He must have remained a layman for some few years. His wife's name is unknown, but a daughter, his only child, was called Abra (al. Apra seu Afra). About 353 the see of Poictiers became vacant by death. The popular voice fixed upon Hilary as the new bishop, and he was raised per saltum to the episcopate. He amply justified the choice.

Two years after his consecration a visit from St. Martin, which was regarded as a compliment to the orthodoxy and zeal of Hilary, proved a prelude to an active struggle against the Arian party in Gaul, then headed by Ursacius, Valens, and Saturninus, of whom Saturninus occupies, in the writings of the orthodox, an evil pre-eminence, being represented as immoral, violent, and apt to seek the aid of the civil power against the defenders of the creed of Nicaea. Hilary unites with Sulpicius Severus in censuring Saturninus more than his comrades. The course pursued by Ursacius and Valens, though less violent, was extremely fitful and uncertain, and a majority of the bishops of Gaul, led by Hilary, formally separated themselves from the communion of all three. Many even of those who had leant towards Arianism now threw in their lot with Hilary, who received them on condition that they should be approved by the confessors then suffering exile. At a council at Béziers, in Languedoc, Saturninus probably presiding, Hilary (with some other orthodox bishops) was present, but declares that he was refused a hearing. The emperor Constantius received from Saturninus an account of this gathering, and at once resolved to banish to Phrygia Hilary and one of his allies, St. Rhodanus, bp. of Toulouse. Hilary believed that the accusation laid against him before the emperor involved a charge of gross impropriety of conduct. As this event occurred soon after the council of Béziers and before that of Seleucia, its date is assigned to the middle of 356. During this exile of somewhat more than three years Hilary had a good deal of liberty and much enforced leisure. He employed it in examining the condition of religion in Asia Minor, forming an exceedingly unfavourable impression, especially as regarded his episcopate, and in composition and an attempt to remove misunderstandings, especially between the bishops of the East and those of Gaul; for the Gallicans imagined all in Asia to be sheer Arians, while the Orientals supposed their brethren in Gaul to be lapsing into Sabellianism. Hilary's treatise de Synodis belongs to this period (358 or 359) and also his great work de Trinitate.

The fourth year (359) of Hilary's exile witnessed the council of Rimini in the West and that of Seleucia in the East. The emperor apparently intended the decisions of these two assemblies, if accordant, to be conjointly regarded as the decree of one oecumenical council. Hilary was compelled by the secular authorities to attend that of Seleucia, Constantius himself having convoked it. He found there three sections: the orthodox, semi-Arian, and ultra-Arian or Anomoean. Although his presence was of great service in explaining the true state of things in Gaul, the language of the Acacians so shocked him that he retired from the assembly. These Anomoeans were nevertheless condemned there.

From Seleucia Hilary went to Constantinople and was granted an interview with the emperor. Here the Arians, having joined the Anomoeans, were in great force, and, having gathered another council in the Eastern capital, tried to reverse their failure at Seleucia. A challenge from Hilary to discuss the questions at issue publicly, in presence of the emperor, on the evidence of Holy Scripture, was, as he informs us, declined; and Constantius sent his prisoner back to Gaul, without formally annulling the sentence of banishment or allowing him perfect liberty. The energies of Hilary in Gaul were chiefly concerned with the Arians, but his acts (though by no means all his writings) in Phrygia with the semi-Arians. His attitude towards these two forms of error was by no means identical. Arianism he regarded as a deadly heresy, with which anything like compromise was impossible. But with semi-Arianism, or at any rate with certain leading semi-Arians, he thought it quite possible to come to an understanding; and it will be seen in the account of his works how earnestly he strove to act as a peacemaker between them and the supporters of the creed of Nicaea. The three succeeding years ( 360–362) were partly occupied by his rather dilatory journey homeward, and after his return by efforts which, though of a conciliatory character, all aimed at the restoration of the faith as set forth at Nicaea. His joy at reaching Poictiers (where he was warmly welcomed) and at finding in health his wife, his daughter, and his disciple St. Martin, was dashed by the, scenes witnessed during his progress. Constantius had banished all bishops who had refused to accept the formula promulgated at Rimini (Socr. H. E. ii. 37; confirmed by Soz. iv. 19, and by St. Jerome in his treatise adv. Luciferianos). Hilary and his more ardent