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.

On Anticipation

The Third Sunday in Advent

O LORD Jesu Christ, who at thy first coming didst send thy messenger to prepare thy way before thee: Grant that the ministers and stewards of thy mysteries may likewise so prepare and make ready thy way, by turning the hearts of the disobedient to the wisdom of the just, that at thy second coming to judge the world we may be found an acceptable people in thy sight; who livest and reignest with the Father and the Holy Spirit, ever one God, world without end. Amen.

Advent

ALMIGHTY God, give us grace that we may cast away the works of darkness, and put upon us the armour of light, now in the time of this mortal life, in which thy Son Jesus Christ came to visit us in great humility; that in the last day, when he shall come again in his glorious Majesty, to judge both the quick and the dead, we may rise to the life immortal; through him who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, now and ever. Amen.

 For many people, even Christians, this is not the season of Advent, but rather Christmas. This is a cultural rather than Christian influence. It is a season of peace and joy. That peace and joy are often found not in reflecting upon Holy Scripture, but rather in the gathering of family, sharing veritable feats with friends and family and the exchange of gifts. This is understandable, because even those who try to oppose the secularization and commercialization of the Christmas do so from the perspective that, “the reason for the season,” is exclusively found in the birth of Christ.

If you ask most Christians why that is important, they would probably focus on the atonement. The logic effectively becomes we celebrate Christ’s birth so that he can die for our sins and bring us repentance. This is entirely understandable.  In the Nicene Creed, it describes the incarnation thus, “For us men and for our salvation he came down from heaven...” There is nothing untrue in the logic that the reason for the incarnation is salvation, though it perhaps misses the point. “The reason for the season,” argument doesn’t fully express the issue because it points to the wrong season. We aren’t yet in the season of Christmas, but in Advent.

Advent is derived from Latin and means coming. It is the season prior to Christmas in which we anticipate Christ’s coming. That can be a confusing statement and leads to another issue. It is simple for many people to say they are anticipating Christmas, but that is not really what we are meant to anticipate, even though the fact that we think of the Nativity in terms of a past historical event, which is therefore hard to anticipate. This leads to the anticipation of Christmas as a holiday rather than Christmas as a holy day.

When we say Christ’s coming, though, there is a three-fold meaning to it. It means first and foremost his coming in history, celebrated at Christ’s mass, the feast of the Nativity. It also refers to our anticipation of how he continues to come in the sacrament of the Eucharist. Finally, it reminds us to anticipate his coming again on the last day.

When looking at Advent in this traditional three-fold lens, it is much easier to see how we are called to anticipate Christ’s coming. It still is not the complete picture, however!

We anticipate his coming in history in and of itself, and not simply for its final victory in Christ’s crucifixion. His incarnation in and of itself is worthy to be recognized for the change it brought to our understanding of God.

St Athanasius the Great wrote, “For the Son of God became man so that we might become God.”   This statement requires a little bit of unpacking. Perhaps a bit lengthier way of expressing this sentiment, that more clearly articulates its meaning, would be to say, “The Son of God, fully God, became Man, fully man apart from sin, in order to make clear the nature of God to Man, that Man might become more God-like.” In other words, St Athanasius is not referring to some kind of apotheosis but rather is suggesting that it is through the incarnation that we become more like we were meant to be, having been created originally in the image and likeness  of God.

Anyone who is familiar with the Old Testament would recognize the biographical elements of it. Through different authors, we are given a picture of God’s nature. His mercy, his judgement, his love for mankind and particularly for his chosen people. We see times in which God was close to particular people. Great saints of the Old Testament like Abraham and Moses were counted as friends of God. In Exodus, Moses spends so much time conversing with God that his face glows (Ex 34. 29) and yet through this friendship, Moses continues to refer to God using the same style as any other Jew would. God also tells Moses that no man may see God’s face for they would die (Ex 33. 20). Moses was a friend to God but there were limits to how well Moses could know God.

Yet today, almost every Christian recites the Lord’s Prayer in which God is given the far more intimate address of Father. It is through Christ’s incarnation that we have come to know God. Colossians tells us that Christ, “is the image of the invisible God,” (Col 1. 15) and through him we can now see not just the Lord, but our Father. Whereas the Old Testament might be an objective historical account of God’s nature, the New Testament presents us with an intimate and personal portrait of who God is and his love for us. Indeed, to paraphrase CS Lewis, it is through the incarnation that we go from being creatures of God, looking upon him from afar, to being children of God, adopted into his family.

This concept that we have become adopted into God’s family is at the heart of the connection between Christ’s historic coming and how he continues to come. It is in that adoption that we now do not simply look into God from afar, but intimately participate in life with God. In his first epistle, St John tells us that he testifies to Christ’s life, in which the Father was made manifest, so that we might share in this intimate fellowship and participation with our fellow believers and with the Father (I St Jn 1. 1-3)! St Paul then uses the same language of intimate fellowship, communion and participation when he asks of the Eucharist, “The cup of blessing that we bless, is it not a participation in the blood of Christ? The bread that we break, is it not a participation in the body of Christ?” (I Cor 10. 16).

We continue to anticipate his coming because just as the incarnation was a sign promised by the Father (Isa 7. 14) for Christ’s incarnation, the sign of his grace reminds us that he continues to love and support us and he seeks to prepare us for his coming again on the last day. It is by grace that we will be judged righteous on that last day, and so again that same sign which he gives to us in the Eucharist is a reminder of is coming for us in the future. Joy in advent is reflection that by his continued coming, by the grace he imparts, we are able to anticipate his coming again with joy and not with dread.

That is the true reason for the season.

On Artillery

The Seventeenth Sunday after Trinity

LORD we pray thee that thy grace may always prevent and follow us, and make us continually to be given to all good works; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

While there aren't really any cannons in the Anglican Church, there are multiple canons. Canon is an honorary title awarded to both clergy and laity for recognition of service to the church. Canons may also refer to rules of the Church. In the Anglican Church of Canada, there is currently a great deal of debate over proposed amendments to Canon XXI of the Church which governs the rules for the sacrament of Holy Matrimony. Canons of this type exist dating back to the earliest days of the Church. When the Ecumenical Councils gathered, the decisions they reached were released in the form of Canons, lists of numbered rules that had been agreed upon.

There is a third form of canon, however, which is the Canon of Scripture. The Canon of Scripture refers to the list of accepted books of the Bible in both the old and new testaments. To be canonical is to be accepted as authoritative, while being non-canonical indicates that the book is not authoritative as Scripture, though it does not necessarily mean that the rejected text contains false teachings.

The Canon of Scripture speaks to a seemingly simple question: where does the Bible come from, and how do we know it is the authoritative word of God?

We have two testaments, so the answer to these questions becomes two-fold.

In the time of Christ, references are made to the Scriptures, but of course these would have been to what we now consider the Old Testament. The Scriptures given to the Jews over the centuries. While the early heresy of Marcionism sought to reject the Old Testament, suggesting it described another god, separate from God the Father revealed by Jesus Christ, all Christians accepted the authority of the Old Testament books of the Bible, in continuity and interpreted through the lens of revelation in Jesus Christ.

While in general the Old Testament was universally accepted by orthodox Christians, there are a few points of division. The most substantive change comes from the two histories of the texts, the Septuagint Greek Old Testament and the Masoretic Hebrew Old Testament. By the time of Christ, the majority of Jews were Jews of Diaspora living outside of ancient Israel and most often speaking the lingua franca of the ancient world, Greek. Because they spoke and read Greek, the Scriptures were written down in Greek and read in Greek. It would not have been unusual for many Jewish communities to not contain a single person capable of reading the Hebrew texts.

For the first few decades after the Resurrection, Christianity was viewed by many as being simply a subset of Judaism. Over time, however, and especially after the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem by the Romans in 70 AD, they became viewed as separate. Partly because of the fact that Christians were using the Septuagint text and that they wanted to distinguish themselves as “proper” Jews, the Jewish authorities developed the Masoretic Hebrew text of the Hebrew Scriptures. In doing this, they adjusted their canon of Scripture, removing a few books which had previously been considered canonical and authoritative. The organization of some books was also adjusted.

This initially had a limited impact on Christianity and the Canon of the Old Testament until the time of Continental Reformation in the 16th century.  Between that time, Christian translations of the Bible would sometimes use both the Masoretic and Septuagint sources, with the canon remaining fixed by the Septuagint tradition. By the time of the Reformation, however, a number of reformers suggested that because the Jews had removed some of the books of the Old Testament from their canon, we ought to as well. Today, most Protestant Bibles continue to exclude those books.

The Eastern Orthodox Church, which has tended to stick to the Septuagint only as the source of its Old Testament books maintains the original numbering and order.

In the West, the Roman Catholic Church determined that the books removed from the Hebrew text would be deemed deuterocanonical, which means secondary canon. They still hold some form of authority, but they tend to be organized into a separate section either at the end of the Bible or between the Old and New Testaments, and held to a lower level of authority (in contrast to the East where no distinction is made between them and other accepted books of the Old Testament).

In Anglicanism, the Thirty-Nine Articles of Religion follow the Roman practice of organizing these books into a secondary canon called either the deuterocanon or Apocrypha, saying, “And the other Books (as Hierome saith) the Church doth read for example of life and instruction of manners; but yet doth it not apply them to establish any doctrine.” The term deuterocanonical is often preferred to avoid misunderstandings with apocryphal books of the New Testament which contain false teachings. The deuterocanonical books are variously viewed as being the lowest level of Scripture, or by some as being the highest and most authoritative non-Scriptural books of the Bible.

The Canon of the New Testament is a bit more of an interesting story, though obviously parallels earlier developments in the canon of the Old Testament as it was assembled over the centuries by the Jews. The books of the New Testament were written roughly twenty to sixty years after Christ’s crucifixion and resurrection. Over the course of the next few hundred years, the exact Canon of Scripture was not fixed and in different places you might have a smaller Canon of Scripture, set by the local bishop, which rejected some books which are now canonical, while other bishops might have a more expansive Canon, which might include books such as I Clement, which was extremely popular in the early Church.

St Athanasius the Great writing in the mid fourth century has the honour of writing the first canon of Scripture which articulates the Canon as we hold it today, more than three hundred years after the time of Christ. The reality is that until the legalization of Christianity in the 4th century, many of these matters were not resolved because they simply weren’t of sufficiently pressing concern.

When they were resolved, the general test for whether or not a book would be accepted in the Canon was whether or not it was Apostolic, meaning written either by an Apostle or in their name. This rule would account for the rejection of I Clement from the Canon, despite the fact that it remains to this day well-regarded and expounds no theological error and was written in the Apostolic Age (c. 95AD), but Clement was writing in his own name and was not an Apostle, but only a Bishop or Priest.

By the end of the fourth century in the West and the fifth century in the East (there remained there controversy over the book of Revelation, not because its authority was in question but because of concerns that it might be misinterpreted by future Christians), the Canon of the New Testament was universally accepted by councils of the Church, and fixed for all time as it remains to this day.

While there may not be cannons in Anglicanism, surely the authority and teachings of Holy Scripture represent an invaluable armoury to the Christian against the snares of the devil.

Wisdom of the Saints: St Athanasius of Alexandria

Feast of Athanasius, Doctor, Bishop of Alexandria, 373

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 Athanasius, and we pray that thy Church may never be destitute of the same; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

St Athanasius is another of the Doctor's of the Church who lived in an age of significant schism within the Church, but who lived out his calling to teach right doctrine and rebuke heresy. He is sometimes regarded as the “Father of Orthodoxy” and is viewed as a great champion of orthodox Nicene Christianity during an age when heresy threatened to split the Church in half.

St Athanasius was born into a pagan family in 298. Not much is known of his family, but based on his writings, it would appear St Athanasius came from a moderately wealthy family that enabled him to have a traditional Greek education.

The historian Rufinus records in his Historia Ecclesiastica that one day Athanasius found some young Christians re-enacting the liturgy of Baptism on the beach. He joined in, ultimately playing the part of the bishop. The Patriarch of Alexandria, Pope St Alexander of Alexandria, was hosting a meeting of bishops nearby and witnessed the event. He called the boys to him to inquire about what they were doing, and ultimately decided to validate the baptisms. He further predicted that Athanasius would one day hold great position within the Church, and determined to encourage all of the boys into clerical vocations.

The truthfulness of that account has been debated through the ages, but what is known is that shortly after embarking on his ecclesiastical career, Poke Alexander invited the well-educated Athanasius to be his secretary. Many around him seemed impressed with his intelligence, ability and faith. Around the age of 20 and while he was still a deacon, he wrote his first treatise entitled On the Incarnation, exploring the dual nature of Christ as both God and man. His treatise concludes with these thoughtful words that the reader should test his arguments against Scripture:

This will give you a beginning, and you must go on to prove its truth by the study of the Scriptures. They were written and inspired by God; and we, who have learned from inspired teachers who read the Scriptures and became martyrs for the Godhead of Christ, make further contribution to your eagerness to learn… But for the searching and right understanding of the Scriptures there is need of a good life and a pure soul, and for Christian virtue to guide the mind to grasp, so far as human nature can, the truth concerning God the Word. One cannot possibly understand the teaching of the saints unless one has a pure mind and is trying to imitate their life. [9: 56, 57]

His early writings show fidelity to the patristic principles of prima scriptura, Christian orthodoxy and prescience that would become all too clear shortly after the treatise was first published.

Around 319, an Alexandrian presbyter named Arius began teaching that God the Son was not eternal, and the Son was part of the created order. Pope Alexander condemned Arius’s teachings as anti-Trinitarian, but Arius persisted in his teachings. He lent his name to the doctrine, known as Arianism, which was supported and developed by many other theologians from around the Christian world. He was condemned as a heretic by a council of Alexandrian bishops in 321 and excommunicated from the Church. He fled to Palestine and then Bithynia, and earned the protection and support of Bishop Eusebius of Nicomedia who supported these teachings. Despite his excommunication from Alexandria, Arius and his teachings grew in prominence.

In 325, the controversy between Trinitarian Christians and Arians was becoming so great that the Emperor Constantine called for a Council of all Christian bishops to be held at Nicaea to resolve the matter once and for all. Pope St Alexander led the anti-Arians, with his deacon and secretary Athanasius at his side. After great debate, the Trinitarian Christians, who would then become known as Nicene Christians, were victorious, and Arianism was declared anathema and heresy throughout Christendom. Despite this, however, the controversy would not be laid to rest.

Shortly after the Council, Pope St Alexander died, and Athanasius was declared his successor. As Patriarch of Alexandria, St Athanasius would be a continued staunch foe of Arian heresy and defender of Nicene orthodoxy. After being appointed as Bishop while still quite young, he would ultimately serve for the next 46 years, though of those some 16 were spent in exile due to the rising influence of Arianism, particularly among some of the Imperial family. During his periodic exiles, he would spend most of his time among the Desert Fathers and also in writing some of his many prolific works.

St Athanasius was exiled so many times by so many different Emperors due to his absolute and unwavering commitment to Christian orthodoxy. Some of the lasting works of his writings include his Statement of Faith, probably written around the time of accession to the Episcopate, in which he writes:

We believe in one Unbegotten God, Father Almighty, maker of all things both visible and invisible, that hath His being from Himself. And in one Only-begotten Word, Wisdom, Son, begotten of the Father without beginning and eternally; word not pronounced nor mental, nor an effluence of the Perfect, nor a dividing of the impassible Essence, nor an issue; but absolutely perfect Son, living and powerful, the true Image of the Father, equal in honour and glory. For this, he says, ‘is the will of the Father, that as they honour the Father, so they may honour the Son also’: very God of very God, as John says in his general Epistles, ‘And we are in Him that is true, even in His Son Jesus Christ: this is the true God and everlasting life’: Almighty of Almighty…  He is then by nature an Offspring, perfect from the Perfect, begotten before all the hills, that is before every rational and intelligent essence, as Paul also in another place calls Him ‘first-born of all creation’. But by calling Him First-born, He shews that He is not a Creature, but Offspring of the Father. For it would be inconsistent with His deity for Him to be called a creature. For all things were created by the Father through the Son, but the Son alone was eternally begotten from the Father, whence God the Word is ‘first-born of all creation,’ unchangeable from unchangeable… The Father, possessing His existence from Himself, begat the Son, as we said, and did not create Him, as a river from a well and as a branch from a root, and as brightness from a light, things which nature knows to be indivisible; through whom to the Father be glory and power and greatness before all ages, and unto all the ages of the ages. Amen.

The Athanasian Creed remains one of the three traditional creeds of the Anglican Church, though now modern Scholars recognize that it was likely not written by St Athanasius himself, but rather attributed to him by virtue of his own reputation as such a staunch defender of Christian Orthodoxy. The creed is available in the Book of Common Prayer, where it is permitted to be used instead of the Apostle’s Creed as a confession of the Christian faith.