[79] E.g. x. 54 in.
[80] viii. 1, x. 4.
[81] This heresy is not even mentioned in xii. 6, where the opening was obvious.
[82] Dr. Gwatkin, Studies of Arianism, p. 226.
[83] Cf. Gore's Dissertations, p. 134.
[84] St. Luke xxii. 32, where edeethen is translated as a passive. Christ is entreated for Peter. There seems to be no parallel in Latin theology.
[85] E.g. the cento from the De Trinitate attached to the Invective against Constantius.
[86] ii. I.
[87] Newman, Arians of the Fourth Century, ii. v. 2.
[88] v. 6.
[89] E.g. bk. iii. is largely reproduced in ix.; ii. 9 f. = xi. 46 f.
[90] E.g. i. 19, ii. 2, iii. 1, iv. 2, viii. 53, xi. 46 f.
[91] Cf. v. 1 (beginning of column 130 in Migne), x. 4.
[92] E.g. v. 3 fin.
[93] Cf. Ad Const. ii. 8, in writing which his own words in the De Trinitate must have come into his mind. He had probably borrowed the thought from Origen, contra Celsum, i. 62. Similar apostrophes are in v. 19, vi. 19 f., 33.
[94] Cf. x. 57 in.
[95] All instance is xi. 24 in.
[96] E.g. in his masterly treatment, from his point of view, of the Old Testament Theophanies, iv. 15 f.
[97] Cf. viii. 26 f., ix. 41.
[98] Orosius, Apol. 1.
[99] E.g. iv. 42, fin.
[100] E.g. i. 17.
[101] Cf. Krüger, Lucifer Bischof von Calaris, p. 39.
[102] Fragment xi.
[103] Chron. ii. 45.
[104] Jerome, Apol. adv. Rufinum, i. 2, says that the total length of the Commentaries on Job and the Psalms was about 40,000 lines, i.e. Virgilian hexameters. The latter, at a tough estimate, must be nearly 35,000 lines in its present state. But Jerome, as we shall see, was not acquainted with so many Homilies as have come down to us; we must deduct about 5,000 lines, and this will leave l0,000 for the Commentary on Job, making it two sevenths of the length of the other. Jerome, however, is not careful in his statements of lengths; he calls the short De Synodis a very long book,' Ep. v. 2.
[105] Tractatusought to be translated thus. It is the term, and the only term, used so early as this for the bishop's address to the congregation; in fact, one might almost say that tractare, tractatus in Christian language had no other meaning. It is an anachronism in the fourth century to render prædicare by preach;' cf. Duchesne, Liber Pontificalis, i. 126.
[106] E.g. fundamen, Tr. in Ps. cxxviii. 10, germen, cxxxiv. 1, revolubilis, ii. 23, peccamen, ii. 9 fin. and often. The shape of sentences, though simple, is always good; to take one test word, sæpe, which was almost if not quite extinct in common use, occurs fairly often near the end of a period, where it was needed for rhythm, which frequenter would have spoiled. Some Psalms, e.g. xiii., xiv., are treated more rhetorically than others.
[107] Psalm li. is the only exception, due, no doubt, to careless transcription. The Homilies on the titles of Psalms ix. and xci. do not count; they are probably spurious, and in any case are incomplete, as the text of the Psalms is not discussed.
[108] So Zingerle, Preface, p. xiv, to whom we owe the excellent Vienna Edition of the Homilies, the only part of Hilary's writing which has as yet appeared in a critical text. The writer of the former of these two Homilies, in § 2, says that the title of a Psalm always corresponds to the contents. This is quite contrary to Hilary's teaching, who frequently points out and ingeniously explains what seem to him, to be discrepancies.
[109] E.g. in the Instruction or discourse preparatory to the Homilies, and in the introductory sections of that on Ps. 118 (119).
[110] E.g. Instr. in Ps., § 12, the fifty days of rejoicing during which Christians must not prostrate themselves in prayer, nor fast.
[111] Ps. 118, Ain., § 16.
[112] The account of exorcism given on Ps. 64, § 10, suggests Cyprian, Ad. Don. 5, but the subject is such a commonplace that nothing definite can be said.
[113] He is here cited by the volume and page of the edition by Lommatzsch. His system of interpretation is admirably described in the fourth of Dr. Bigg's Bampton Lectures, The Christian Platonists of Alexandria.
[114] Hil. Tr. in Ps. 13, § 3, his igitur ita grassantibus, sq. = Origen (ed. Lommatzsch) xii. 38.
[115] E.g. Instr. in Ps., § 15 = Origen in Eusebius, H.E. vi. 25 (Philocalia 3), Hilary on Ps. 51, §§ 3, 7 = Origen xii. 353, 354, and very often on Ps. 118 (119), e.g. the Introduction = Or. xiii. 67 f., Aleph, § 12 = ib. 70, Beth, § 6 = ib. 71, Caph, §§ 4, 9 = ib. 82, 83, &c.
[116] Hæres. 64, 12 f.
[117] Origen xiii. 134. Hilary has omitted this from his Homily on Ps. 134, § 12.
[118] Instances of such independence are Ps. 118, Daleth, § 6 (xiii. 74), 119, § 15 (ib. 108), 122, § 2 (ib. 112), 133, § 3 (ib. 131). The references to Origen are in brackets.
[119] E.g. Ps. 118, Heth, § 10, 121, § 1; Origen xiii. 80, 111.
[120] Ps. 118, Gimel, § 21.
[121] Origen xiii. 72; Hilary, Ps. 118, Gimel, § 1.
[122] Cf. also Ps. 118, Heth, § 7, Koph, § 4, with Origen xiii. 79, 98. Here again the spirit of independence manifests itself towards the end of the work.
[123] Cf. Ps. 118, Samech, § 6; Origen xiii. 92.
[124] Ps. 143, § 4; Origen xiii. 149.
[125] Vir. Ill. 100.
[126] J. F. Gamurrini, S. Hilarii Tractatus de Mysteriis et Hymni, etc., 4to., Rome, 1887. The De Mysteriis occupies pp. 3-28.
[127] Ed. Gamurrini, p. 5.
[128] Ib. p. 17.
[129] Ib. p. 21; there is the not uncommon play on the two senses of colligere.
[130] Ib. p. 27.
[131] It must be confessed that some authorities refuse to regard this work as the De Mysteriis of Hilary. Among these is Ebert, Litteratur des Mittelalters, p. 142, who admits that the matter might be Hilary's, but denies that the manner and style are his.
[132] Comm. in Ep. ad Gal. ii. pref.: Hilarius in hymnorum carmine Gallos indociles vocat. This may mean that Hilary actually used the words stubborn Gauls' in one of his hymns. There would be nothing extraordinary in this; the early efforts, and especially those of the Arians which Hilary imitated for a better purpose, often departed widely from the propriety of later compositions, as we shall see in one of those attributed to Hilary himself.
[133] It is true that the Fourth Council of Toledo (a.d. 633) in its 13th canon couples Hilary with Ambrose as the writer of hymns in actual use. But these canons are verbose productions, and this may be a mere literary flourish, natural enough in countrymen and contemporaries of Isidore of Seville, who knew, no doubt from Jerome's Viri Illustres, that Hilary was the first Latin hymn writer.
[134] Two of the simplest stanzas are as follows:-- Extra quam caper potest mens humana manet Filius in Patre, rursus quem penes sit Pater dignus, qui genitus est Filius in Deum. Felix quid potuit fide res tantas penitus credulus assequi, ut incorporeo ex Deo profectus fuerit primogenitus Dei. It is written in stanzas of six lines in the ms.; the metre is the second Asclepiad. Gamurrini, the discoverer, and Fechtrup (in Wetzer-Welte's Encyclopædia) regard it as the work of Hilary, but the weight of opinion is against them.
[135] By Gamurrini in Studì e documenti, 1884, p. 83 f.
[136] Printed in full by Mai, Patrum Nova Bibliotheca, p. 490. He suspends judgment, and will not say that it is unworthy of Hilary. The Benedictine editor, Coustant, gives a few stanzas as specimens, and summarily rejects it.
[137] The four quarters of the universe are ortus, occasus, aquilo, septentrio; one of these last must mean the south. This would point to some German land as the home of the author; in no country of Romance tongue could such an error have been perpetrated. Perire is used for perdere, but this is not unparalleled.
[138] In Mai's Patrum Nova Bibliotheca, vol. i., is a short treatise on the Genealogies of Christ. The method of interpretation is the same as Hilary's, but the language is not his; and the terms used of the Virgin in §§ 11, 12, are not as early as the fourth century. In the same volume is an exposition of the beginning of St. John's Gospel in an anti-Arian sense. In spite of some difference of vocabulary, there is no strong reason why this should not be by Hilary; cf. especially, §§ 5-7. Mai also prints in the same volume a short fragment on the Paralytic (St. Matt. ix. 2), too brief for a judgment to be formed. In Pitra's Spicilegium Solesmense, vol. i., is a brief discussion on the first chapters of Genesis, dealing chiefly with the Fall. It appears, like the Homilies on the Psalms, to be the report of some extemporary addresses, and is more likely than any of the preceding to be the work of Hilary. It is quite in his style, but the contents are unimportant. But we must remember that the scribes were rarely content to confess that they were ignorant of the name of an author whom they transcribed; and that, being as ill-furnished with scruples as with imagination, they assigned everything that came to hand to a few familiar names. Two further works ascribed to Hilary are obviously not his. Pitra, in the volume already cited, has printed considerable remains of a Commentary on the Pauline Epistles, which really belongs to Theodore of Mopsuestia; and a Commentary on the seven Canonical Epistles, recently published in the Spicilegium Casinense, vol. iii., is there attributed, with much reason, to his namesake of Arles.
[139] Contra Auxentium, §7.
[140] It is clear from Hilary's account (Contra Auxentium, § 7) that the decision lay with the laymen. Auxentius, in his account of the matter, does not even mention the bishops.
[141] This was a gross exaggeration. They cannot have been more than 400, and probably were less and we must remember that the Homoean decision was only obtained by fraud, as Auxentius well knew.
[142] §4.
[143] There are fifteen in the collection, but the second and third which are as long as the rest together, and are obviously extracts from the same work, are not by Hilary. He expressly says (Fragm. i. § 6) that he will commence with the council of Arles and the exile of Paulinus. These documents narrate at great length events which began six years earlier, and with which Hilary and his province had no direct concern. This proves that the fragments are not a portion of the Liber adversus Ursacium et Valentem. Internal evidence proves not less clearly that they cannot be excerpts from some other work of Hilary. In Fragm. ii. § 21 we are told that apparently in the year 349, Athanasius excommunicated Marcellus of Ancyra. It is of course, notorious that he never did so; the mistake is one which Hilary could not possibly have made. None the less, these fragments are both in themselves and in the documents which they embody, one of our most important authorities for the transactions they narrate, and are indisputably contemporary and authentic. Nor is there any reasonable doubt as to the genuineness of the thirteen. Those of them which reveal the inconstancy of Liberius have been assailed by some Roman Catholic writers, though they are accepted by others. The same suspicion has extended to others among the fragments, because they are found in company with these revelations concerning Liberius. But the doubts have been suggested by the wish to disbelieve.
[144] This correspondence which Hilary has preserved (Fragm. xiii.-xv.) is interesting as shewing how difficult it must have been for the laity to determine who was, and who was not, a heretic, when all parties used the same Scriptural terms in commendation of themselves and condemnation of their opponents. It begins with a public letter in which Germinius makes a declaration of faith in Homoeousion terms, without any mention of the reasons which had induced him to depart from the Homoean position. This is followed by a reproachful letter, also intended for publicity, from Valens, Ursacius, and others. They had refused to attend to the rumour of his defection; but now are compelled, by his own published letter, to ask the plain question, whether or not he adheres to the Catholic Faith set forth and confirmed by the Holy Council at Rimini.' If he had added to the Homoean formula, which was that the Son is like the Father,' the words in substance' or in all things,' he had fallen into the justly condemned heresy of Basil of Ancyra. They demand an explicit statement that he never had said, and never would say, anything of the kind; and warn him that he is gravely suspected, complaints of his teaching having been made by certain of his clergy to neighbouring bishops, which they trust will be proved groundless. Germinius made no direct reply to this letter, but addressed a manifesto to a number of more sympathetic bishops, containing the scriptural proofs of the divinity of Christ and recalling the fact that the Homoean leaders, before their own victory, had acquiesced in the Homoeousian confession. Any teaching to the contrary is the work, not of God, but of the spirit of this world, and he entreats those whom he addresses to circulate his letter as widely as possible, lest any should fall through ignorance into the snares of the devil. Germinius was assured of safety in writing thus. Valentinian's support of Auxentius had proved that bishops might hold what opinions they would on the great question provided they were not avowed Arians. Germinius had been a leader of the Homoean party, and it is at least possible that his change of front was due to his knowledge that the Emperor, though he would not eject Homoeans, had no sympathy with them and would allow them no influence. In fact, the smaller the share of conscience, the greater the historical interest of Germinius' action as shewing the decline of Homoean influence in the West.