SAINT HILARY

 

 

Saint Hilary was brought up in idolatry, but God had other plans for him, leading the man of good will, step by step, to the knowledge of saving faith. Saint Hilary was eventually convinced that man is placed in this world for the exercise of patience, temperance, and other virtues which he came to understand are received from God rather than given to oneself. This understanding led to further reflection upon God Himself, and the realization that He is one God.  This led to an intense study of Holy Scripture. He was baptized after due preparation, and from there zealously sought the conversion of others.

 

Our Hilary, though married, lived in perpetual continency after his ordination. He composed many commentaries on Scripture though fighting the Arian heresy is what mainly occupied his time and was the cause of his exile. In this article we will have the privilege of learning from our Saint as taken from Bulter’s, “Lives of the Saints”:

 

[Hilary] earnestly recommends the practice of beginning every action and discourse by prayer, and some act of divine praise; as also to meditate on the law of God day and night, to pray without ceasing, by performing all our actions with a view to God their ultimate end, and to his glory. He breathes a sincere and ardent desire of martyrdom, and discovers a soul fearless of death and torments. He had the greatest veneration for truth, sparing no pains in its pursuit, and dreading no dangers in its defence.

 

In his exile he was informed, that his daughter Apra, whom he had left in Gaul, had thoughts of embracing the married state; upon which he implored Christ, with many tears, to bestow on her the precious Jєωel of virginity. He sent her a letter that is still extant, in which he acquaints her, that if she contemned all earthly things, spouse, sumptuous garments, and riches, Christ had prepared for her, and had shown unto him, at his prayers and tears, an inestimable never-fading diamond, infinitely more precious than she was able to frame to herself an idea of. He conjures her by the God of heaven, and entreats her not to make void his anxiety for her, nor to deprive herself of so incomparable a good. Fortunatus assures us, that the original letter was kept with veneration in the church of Poictiers, in the sixth century, when he wrote, and that Apra followed his advice, and died happily at his feet after his return.

 

St. Hilary, who had withdrawn from Seleucia to Constantinople, presented to the emperor a request, called, his second book to Constantius, begging the liberty of holding a public disputation about religion with Saturninus, the author of his banishment. He presses him to receive the unchangeable apostolic faith, injured by the late innovations, and smartly rallies the fickle humour of the heretics, who were perpetually making new creeds, and condemning their old ones, having made four within the compass of the foregoing year; so that faith was become that of the times, not that of the gospels, and that there were as many faiths as men, as great a variety of doctrine as of manners, and as many blasphemies as vices. He complains that they had their yearly and monthly faiths; that they made creeds to condemn and repent of them; and that they formed new ones to anathematize those that adhered to their old ones. He adds, that every one had scripture texts, and the words Apostolic Faith, in their mouths, for no other end than to impose on weak minds: for by attempting to change faith, which is unchangeable, faith is lost; they correct and amend, till weary of all, they condemn all. He therefore exhorts them to return to the haven, from which the gusts of their party spirit and prejudice had driven them, as the only means to be delivered out of their tempestuous and perilous confusion. The issue of this challenge was, that the Arians, dreading such a trial, persuaded the emperor to rid the East of a man, that never ceased to disturb its peace, by sending him back into Gaul; which he did, but without reversing the sentence of his banishment, in 360. (Lives of the Saints)

 

St. Hilary observes, that singleness of heart is the most necessary condition of faith and true virtue, “For Christ teaches that only those who become again as it were little children, and by the simplicity of that age cut off the inordinate affections of vice, can enter the kingdom of heaven. These follow and obey their father, love their mother; are strangers to covetousness, ill-will, hatred, arrogance, and lying, and are inclined easily to believe what they hear. (...) This, in the language of the Holy Ghost, is called the foolishness of the cross of Christ, in which consists true wisdom. That prudence of the flesh and worldly wisdom, which is the mother of self-sufficiency, pride, avarice, and vicious curiosity, the source of infidelity, and the declared enemy of the spirit of Christ, is banished by this holy simplicity; and in its stead are obtained true wisdom, which can only be found in a heart freed from the clouds of the passions, perfect prudence, which, as St. Thomas shows, is the fruit of the assemblage of all virtues, and a divine light which grace fails not to infuse. The simplicity, which is the mother of Christian discretion, is a stranger to all artifice, design, and dissimulation, to all views or desires of self-interest, and to all undue respect or consideration of creatures. All its desires and views are reduced to this alone, of attaining to the perfect union with God. (...) Among the fathers of the church we admire men the most learned of their age, the most penetrating and most judicious, and at the same time, the most holy and sincere; who, being endowed with true simplicity of heart, discovered in the mysteries of the cross the secrets of infinite wisdom, which they made their study, and the rule of their actions.

 

The true sense of the holy scriptures he teaches, only to be opened to us by the spirit of assiduous prayer. The fatal and opposite errors, which the overweening spirit and study of a false criticism have produced in every age, justify this general remark of the fathers, that though the succour of reasonable criticism ought by no means to be neglected, a spirit of prayer is the only key which can open to us the sacred treasures of the divine truths, by the light which it obtains of the Holy Ghost, and the spirit of simplicity, piety, and humility, which it infuses. (...) Saint Hilary remarks, that the first lesson we are to study in them [the Holy Scriptures – JG] is that of humility, in which “Christ has taught, that all the titles and prizes of our faith are comprised. (...) This holy father hesitates not to say, humility is the greatest work of our faith, our best sacrifice to God; but true humility is accompanied with an invincible courage, and a firmness and constancy in virtue, which no fear of worldly power is ever able to shake. Saint Hilary laments, that even several pastors of the church thought it a part of piety to flatter princes. But true religion teaches us only to fear things which are justly to be feared; that is, to fear God, to fear sin, or what can hurt our souls: for what threatens only our bodies is to be despised, when the interest of God and our souls is concerned. We indeed study, out of charity, to give offence to no one, but desire only to please men for God, not by contemning him. (...) That prayer is despised by God, which is slothful and lukewarm, accompanied with distrust, distracted with unprofitable thoughts, weakened by worldly anxiety and desires of earthly goods, or fruitless, for want of the support of good works. (...) The world is to be shunned, at least in spirit; first, because it is filled on every side with snares and dangers; secondly, that our souls may more freely soar above it, always thinking on God; hence, he says, our souls must be, as it were, spiritual birds of heaven, always raised high on the wing; and he cries out, “Thou art instructed in heavenly science: what hast thou to do with anxious worldly cares? thou hast renounced the world, what hast thou to do with its superfluous concerns? Why dost thou complain if thou art taken in a snare, by wandering in a strange land, who oughtest to restrain thy affections from straying from home? Say rather, Who will give me wings as of a dove, and I will fly, and will be at rest?”

 

To build a house for God, that is, to prepare a dwelling for him in our souls, we must begin by banishing sin, and all earthly affections; for Christ, who is wisdom, sanctity, and truth, cannot establish his reign in the breast of a fool, hypocrite, or sinner. It is easy for God, by penance, to repair his work, howsoever it may have been defaced by vice, as a potter can restore or improve the form of a vessel, while the clay is yet moist, but he often inculcates that repentance, or the confession of sin, is a solemn profession of sinning no more. Every thing that is inordinate in the affections must be cut off. “The prophet gave himself entirely to God, according to the tenor of his consecration of himself. Whatever lives in him, lives to God. His whole heart, his whole soul is fixed on God alone, and occupied in him, and he never loses sight of him. In all his works and thoughts, God is before his eyes.” Upon these words, I am thy servant, he observes, that every Christian frequently repeats this, but most deny by their actions what they profess in words: “It is the privilege of the prophet to call himself the servant of God in every affection of his heart, in every circuмstance and action of his life,” &c. He teaches that the angels, patriarchs, and prophets are as it were mountains protecting the church, and that holy angels attend and succour the faithful, assist them in time of combat against the devils, carry up their prayers to their heavenly Father with an eager zeal; and looking upon this ministry as an honour. That the church of Christ is one, out of which, as out of the ark of Noah, no one can be saved. He mentions fast days of precept, the violation of which renders a Christian a slave of the devil, a vessel of death, and fuel of hell. This crime he joins with pride and fornication, as sins at the sight of which every good Christian ought to pine away with grief and zeal, according to the words of Ps. 118: 139. (...) St. Hilary, in this [his first work – JG] commentary on St. Matthew, excellently inculcates in few words the maxims of Christian virtue, especially fraternal charity and meekness, by which our souls pass to divine charity and peace, and the conditions of fasting and prayer, though for the exposition of our Lord’s prayer, he refers to that of St. Cyprian; adding that Tertullian has left us also a very suitable work upon it; but that his subsequent error has weakened the authority of his former writings which may deserve approbation.

 

The road to heaven he shows to be exceedingly narrow, because even among Christians very few sincerely despise the world, and labour strenuously to subdue their flesh and all their passions, and to shun all the incentives of vice. St. Peter he calls the Prince of the College of the Apostles, and the Porter of Heaven, and extols the authority of the keys conferred upon him. He proves that Christ in his bloody sweat, grieved more for the danger of his disciples and other causes, than for his own death; because he had in his last supper already consecrated his blood to be poured forth for the remission of sin. His twelve books on the Trinity he compiled during his banishment in Phrygia, between the years 356 and 359, as is clear from his own express testimony, and that of St. Jerome. In the first book of this immortal monument of his admirable genius and piety, he beautifully shows that man’s felicity is only to be found in God; and that the light of reason suffices to demonstrate this, which he illustrates by an account of his own conversion to the faith. After this he takes notice, that we can learn only by God’s revelation, his nature, or what he is, he being the competent witness of himself, who is known only by himself.

 

In the second book he explains the Trinity, which we profess in the form of baptism, and says, that faith alone in believing, and sincerity and devotion in adoring, this mystery ought to suffice, without disputing or prying; and laments, that by the blasphemies of the Sabellians and Arians, who perverted the true sense of the scriptures, he was compelled to dispute of things ineffable and incomprehensible, which only necessity can excuse. He then proves the eternal generation of the Son, the procession of the Holy Ghost, and their consubstantiality in one nature. He checks their presumption in pretending to fathom the Trinity, by showing that they cannot understand many miracles of Christ or corporeal things, which yet they confess to be most certain. He detects and confutes the subtleties of the Arians, in their various confessions of faith, also of the Sabellians and Photinians; and demonstrates the divinity of Christ, from the confession of St. Peter, and of the very Jєωs, who were more sincere than the Arians, acknowledging that Christ called himself the natural Son of God. The natural unity of the Father and Son, he demonstrates from that text, “I and my Father are one,” and others, and observes that both from the testimony of Christ in the holy scriptures, and from the faith of the church, we believe without doubting the Eucharist to be the true body and blood of Christ. He answers several objections from Scripture, and shows, there was something in Christ (viz. the divine person, &c.) which did not suffer in his passion. Other objections he confutes, and in his last book defends the eternity of the Son of God.

 

Between August in 358, and May in 359, St. 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. (...) In his first book to the emperor Constantius, which he wrote in 355 or 356, he conjures that prince with tears to restore peace to the church, and leave the decision of ecclesiastical causes to its pastors. (...) He says, Constantius, by artifices and flattery, was a more dangerous persecutor than Nero and Decius: he tells him, “Thou receivest the priests with a kiss, as Christ was betrayed by one: thou bowest thy head to receive their blessing, that thou mayest trample on their faith: thou entertainest them at thy table, as Judas went from table to betray his master.” http://www.bartleby.com/210/1/141.html  (Lives of the Saints)  (Scripture verses, and titles of works, were taken out for brevity and easier reading)

 

Saint Hilary, courageous fighter against heresy, ora pro nobis.