The work is a longer, more methodical, and more consecutive anti-Arian argument than Athanasius himself found time to indite. Viewed intellectually, it must perhaps be ranked above Hilary's commentary on Scripture. Its recognition of the rights of reason as well as of faith, combined with its sense of human ignorance and of our need of humility, its explanation of many difficulties and of the meaning of the terms employed; the endeavour (though not always successful) to adapt to his subject the imperfect medium of Latin, its many felicitous descriptions, both of the temper in which we ought, and the spirit in which we ought not, to approach the study of these mysteries; the mode of his appeals to Holy Scripture,—all form very striking features. The book evidently produced a great impression. A high compliment is paid it by the historian Socrates: "Both [i.e. Hilary and Eusebius of Vercelli] nobly contended side by side for the faith. Hilary, who was an eloquent man, set forth in his book the dogmas of the Homoousion in the Latin tongue . . . and powerfully confuted the Arian dogmas" (H . E. iii. 10). It marks an epoch in the history of dogmatic theology in the Western church. Its influence declined in the next century and throughout the earlier and later middle ages. About 416, some 56 years after its publication, the 15 books de Trinitate of the great bp. of Hippo appeared. St. Augustine became the doctor par excellence of the West, and the labours of Hilary, most effective at their appearance, became somewhat neglected and obscured. The errors of Pelagianism, perhaps some anticipations of Nestorianism, had certainly by the time of Augustine tended to bring into clearer relief some particular phases and elements of Christian doctrine. Development in this sense is fully recognized by the Lutheran Dorner and by the Anglican Prof. Hussey. Nor can it be called a novel theory. "By the very events," writes the historian Evagrius, "by which the members of the church have been rent asunder have the true and faultless dogmas (τὰ ὀρθὰ καὶ ἀμώμητα δόγματα) been the more fully polished and set forth, and the Catholic and apostolic church of God hath gone on to increase and to a heavenward ascent" (H. E. i. 11). "Many things," says Augustine himself, "pertaining to the Catholic faith, while in course of agitation by the hot restlessness of heretics, are, with a view to defence against them, weighed more carefully, 'understood more clearly, and preached more earnestly; and the question mooted by the adversary hath become an occasion of our learning."[1] The intentions of Hilary were so thoroughly good that both his studies of Holy Scripture and the influence of the three later oecumenical councils would doubtless have saved him from some serious mistakes, if he had lived to hear of their decisions. It is true, as the Benedictine editor points out, that Hilary's note upon Ps. liii. 8 condemns not only Apollinaris, but (by anticipation) Nestorius and Eutyches as well. Nevertheless, such mistakes as Hilary did make are all connected with the subject, which has been summed up in so masterly a manner by Hooker (E. P. bk. v. cc. lii.–liv., esp. § 10 of liv.), viz. the union of the two natures in the one divine personality of Christ. The chief of these mistakes are as follows: In de Trinitate, bk. x., Hilary seems to approach to a denial of the truth that the Incarnate Lord took man's nature from His Virgin Mother, of her substance. This is probably only an incautious over-statement of the article, "He was conceived of the Holy Ghost." For the language in other passages of this book and on Pss. cxxxviii. and lxv. implies a complete acceptance of the Homo ex substantiâ Matris. Some laxity of usage appears in regard to the terms Verbum and Spiritus. Certainly the former word seems necessary instead of the latter in the phrase (bk. x.) "Spiritus sanctus desuper veniens naturae se humanae carne immiscuit." Dom Coutant points out similar confusion of language in Tertullian and Lactantius, and even in St. Irenaeus and St. Cyprian. St. Gregory and St. Athanasius seem inclined to palliate it.
A more serious error is Hilary's apparent want of grasp of the truth of our Lord's humanity in all things, sin alone excepted. At times he seems to speak of our Lord's natural body as if endued with impossibility (indolentia), and of His soul as if not obnoxious to the human affections of fear, grief, and the like. This and the other mistakes of Hilary are more or less palliated by Lanfranc, by the two great schoolmen Peter Lombard and Aquinas, and by Bonaventure. Hilary also meets with indulgence from Natalis Alexander; and, above all, is defended by his Benedictine editor, Dom Coutant, who, as Cave justly remarks, "naevos explicare, emollire et vindicare satagit." A sort of tradition was handed down to Bonaventure by a schoolman, William of Paris, that Hilary had made a formal retractation of his error concerning the indolentia, which he had ascribed to our Lord. This seems very doubtful; nevertheless, the language of his later books, e.g. on the Pss., appears to recognize the reality of both the mental and bodily sufferings of Christ.
III. POLEMICAL.—(1) Ad Constantium Augustum Liber Primus.—This address, probably Hilary's earliest extant composition, is a petition to the emperor—evidently written before Hilary's exile, at the close of 355 or early in 356—for toleration for the orthodox in Gaul against the persecution of Arian bishops and laymen. These assaults Hilary represents as both coarse and cruel. He names some supporters of Arianism, both in the East and in Gaul. Among the latter, Ursacius and Valens occupy a painful prominence. He urges that it is even on political grounds a mistake for the emperor to allow such proceedings; among his Catholic subjects will be found the best defenders of the realm against internal sedition and barbarian invasion. The excellent tone of this address is admitted on all sides.
(2) Ad Constantium Augustum Liber Secundus.—This second address is subsequent to Hilary's exile, having been presented to the
- ↑ Dean Hook, in his University Sermons preached before 1838, called attention to this as a favourite opinion of St. Augustine's. Bp. Moberly, in his Discourses on the Great Forty Days (preface and discourse iv.) shewed the difference between this view and the modern Roman theory of development.
