Wisdom of Saints: St Hilary of Poitiers

The Feast of Hilary of Poitiers, Doctor, Bishop of Poitiers, France, 368

O GOD, who by thy Holy Spirit hast given unto one man a word of wisdom, and to another a word of knowledge, and to another the gift of tongues: We praise thy Name for the gifts of grace manifested in thy servant N., and we pray that thy Church may never be destitute of the same; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

The Octave Day of the The Epiphany of our Lord

O GOD, who by the leading of a star didst manifest thy only-begotten Son to the Gentiles: Mercifully grant, that we, who know thee now by faith, may be led onward through this earthly life, until we see the vision of thy heavenly glory; through the same thy Son Jesus Christ, who with thee and the Holy Ghost liveth and reigneth, one God, world without end. Amen.

St Hilary of Poitiers was an influential Christian and bishop of the 4th century who was among many prominent Christians of the age who opposed the Arian heresy which swept throughout the Christian world. While St Athanasius the Great is considered the foremost opponent of Arianism and defender of Nicene Christian orthodoxy, St Hilary is widely viewed as the most prominent defender of orthodoxy in the Christian West.

He was born at the start of the 4th century in the city of Poitiers in France, then a Roman province. His parents were noble and while his exact date of birth is unknown, it is likely he was born prior to the 313 Edict of Milan which legalized Christianity throughout the Empire, and was thus raised a pagan. Due to his family’s prominence, he was able to receive a strong education. Over the course his early life he ultimately chose to study the Holy Scriptures. St Hilary had been searching throughout his studies

He was convinced of their truth and abandoned his pagan upbringing, was Baptised and ultimately admitted to Holy Orders in the late 340s. By 353 he was elected Bishop of Poitiers with unanimous support.

St Hilary became bishop at a difficult time for the Church in France, however. Arianism had taken firm root there, and the Emperor, Constantius II, was himself Arian. St Hilary immediately took to defending orthodoxy, both in writing on orthodox belief and challenging the power of Arian bishops in Gaul. The key to St Hilary’s downfall, at least in the minds of his Arian opponents, came when he refused to sign a condemnation of Athanasius the Great in 356. He himself was ordered into exile by the Emperor, and sent to Phrygia in modern day Turkey.

He participated in the Council of Seleucia in 359 which had been called between disputing Arian factions, the Semi-Arians, who favoured reconciliation with Nicene Christians, and the Anomeans, who, with the support of the Emperor, sought to persecute and repress Nicene Christianity completely. St Hilary found limited support among the semi-Arians who thought he might perhaps be a bridge between them and Nicene Christianity, however St Hilary stood firm in his orthodoxy, even leaving Phrygia for Constantinople and the heart of Arianism in the East. Tiring of his constant challenging of their doctrine, the more extreme Arians petitioned the Emperor to have St Hilary restored to his diocese in the West, if for no other reason than to remove him and his ideas from their presence in the East.

St Hilary, the, “sower of discord and disturber of the Orient,” as Sulpicius Severus records it, was ordered home and he made the best of his journey preaching against Arianism in Greece and Italy before finally returning in triumph to Poitiers in 361. In that same year, the Emperor died, ending the persecution of Nicene Christians.

St Hilary remained in Poitiers for the remainder of his life, but continued to fight against Arianism and made a number of other lasting contributions to Christianity. Also in 361, with the encouragement of St Hilary, St Martin of Tours founded Liguge Abbey within the diocese of Poitiers. One notable exception to his remanining in Potiers was in 364  when he travelled to Milan where he attacked the Arian bishop Auxentius, predecessor to St Ambrose of Milan. Auxentius was defended by Emperor Valentinian, however, who ordered St Hilary to leave Milan and return to Poitiers, where he eventually died in 368.

St Hilary had many notable writings, but one of the most important is his treatise on the Trinity, which, much like St Athanasius in the East, was an anti-Arian defence of Nicene, trinitarian Christianity. Written shortly before his return to Poitiers in 361, On the Trinity contains many notable passages.

St Hilary expounded greatly on the majesty and infiniteness of God, saying:

We are well aware that neither the speech of men nor the 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; that which is spiritual is distinct from every class or instance of bodily things. Yet, since our subject is that of heavenly natures, we must employ ordinary natures and ordinary speech as our means of expressing what our mind apprehends; a means no doubt unworthy of the majesty of God, but forced upon us by feebleness of our intellect, which can use only our own circumstances and our own words to convey to others our perceptions and our conclusions. [4:2]

For all that, St Hilary had already referenced his own spiritual development, and how sublime he found the description of God in Exodus, something which drew him towards Christianity when he first stumbled upon it, and he writes, “For such an indication of God’s infinity the words ‘I Am that I Am’ were clearly adequate.” [1:6]

For St Hilary, Holy Scripture was the root of all Christian belief. Indeed, some of his desire to reconcile Arians to true faith was due to his firm belief that their error was not of faith or piety, but of interpretation, and if they could be convinced of the error of their understanding of the Scriptures they could be restored to orthodox belief. In his first book, he explains,

“My prime object is by the clear assertions of prophets and evangelists to refute the insanity and ignorance of men who use the unity of God (in itself a pious and profitable confession) as a cloak for their denial either that in Christ God was born, or else that He is very God.” [1:17]

It is his supreme dedication to the Word of God, his unfailing commitment to orthodoxy, even in the face of exile, that make St Hilary a Saint of the Church worthy of commemoration, just as the orthodoxy of his own writings make him worthy of study to this day.