[242] Trin. ix. 38 in., and especially ib. 39. The unity of glory departed through His obedience in the Dispensation.
[243] Trin. xi. 48; cf. the end of this section and xii. 6.
[244] Cf. Baltzer, Christologie, p. 10 f., Schwane, p. 272 f. Other explanations which have been suggested are quite inadmissible. Dorner, p. 407, takes the passage cited above about substance' too seriously, and wavers between the equally impossible interpretations of countenance' and personality.' Förster (l.c. p. 659) understands the word to mean mode of existence.' Wirthmüller, cited by Schwane, p. 273, has the courage to regard form of God' and form of a servant' as equivalent to Divinity and humanity.
[245] Trin. xii. 6, decedere ex Deo in hominem. Perhaps it should be decidere, as in Tr. in Ps. lxviii. 4.
[246] Tr. in Ps. lxviii. 25.
[247] Trin. xi. 48, emptying Himself' might have been a single act; hiding Himself within Himself' was a sustained course of conduct.
[248] Genus is fairly common, though much rarer than natura; pars occurs in Trin. xi. 14, 15, and cf. ib. 40. Elementa is, I think, somewhat more frequent.
[249] Trin. xi. 40, naturæ assumpti corporis nostri natura paternæ divinitatis invecta. Conversely, Trin. ix. 54, nova natura in Deum illata. But such expressions are rare; hominem ad sumpsit is the normal phrase. In Tr. in Ps. lxviii. 4, he speaks as if the two natures had been forced to coalesce by a Power higher than either. But, as we have seen, in this part of the Homily Hilary's language is destitute of theological exactness.
[250] Tr. in Ps. liv. 2.
[251] E.g. Trin. ix. 11, 39, x. 16. The expression utriusque, naturæ persona in Trin. ix. 14 is susceptible of another interpretation.
[252] E.g. Trin. x. 22.
[253] Trin. x. 22, quia totus hominis filius totus Dei filius sit.
[254] Cf. Gore's Dissertations, p. 138 f. But Hilary, though he shares and even exaggerates the general tendency of his time, has also a strong sense of the danger of Apollinarianism.
[255] Homo assumptus is constantly used, and similarly homo noster for our manhood, e.g. Trin. ix. 7. This often leads to an awkwardness of which Hilary must have been fully conscious, though he regarded it as a less evil than the use of an abstract term.
[256] Corpus coeleste, x. 18.
[257] Tr. in Ps. ii. 11, from St. John iii. 13.
[258] Trin. x. 47 f.; Tr. in Ps. cxxxviii. 3.
[259] Trin. x. 25.
[260] Trin. x. 24. The purpose of the Old Testament Theophanies, it will be remembered, was the same. God appeared as man, in order to make men familiar with the future reality and so more ready to believe. See Trin. v. 17.
[261] Trin. x. 14, 15.
[262] Trin. ii. 26 f., iii. 18 f. and often, especially in the Comm. in Matt.
[263] E.g. Trin. ix. 4, xi. 48.
[264] Ib. x. 11, 61.
[265] Trin. x. 14.
[266] Comm. in Matt. iii. 2; Trin. x. 45. The freedom of Christian martyrs from pain is frequently noticed in early writers.
[267] Cf. p. lxvi.
[268] Hilary was undoubtedly influenced more than he knew by the Latin words pati and dolere, the one purely objective, the other subjective. By a line of thought which recalls that of Mozley concerning Miracles he refuses to argue from our experience to that of Christ. That He suffered, in the sense of having wounds and death inflicted upon Him, is a fact; that He was conscious of suffering is an inference, a supposition (putatur dolere quia patitur, Tr. in Ps. cxxxviii. 3, fallitur ergo humanæ æstimationis opinio putans hunc dolere quod patitur, Trin. x. 47), and one which we are not entitled to make. In fact, the passage last cited states that He has no natura dolendi; so also x. 23, 35, and cf. Tr. in Ps. liii. 12. Or as Hilary puts it, Trin. x. 24, He is subject to the naturæ passionum not to their iniuriæ.
[269] Tr. in Ps. cxxxviii. 26.
[270] Trin. x. 24.
[271] Ib. 28.
[272] Ib. 29.
[273] Ib. 27.
[274] Ib. 11.
[275] Ib. 23. These instances of His power are used as a direct proof of Christ's incapacity of pain. Hilary is willing to confess that He could feel it, if it be shewn that we can follow Him in these respects.
[276] loc. cit.
[277] Tr. in Ps. liv. 6.
[278] Comm. in Matt. iii. 2.
[279] Ib. xxxi. 1-7. These were not immature speculations, abandoned by a riper judgment. The explanation of even unto death' is repeated, and that concerning the cup implied, in Trin. x. 36, 37.
[280] Trin. x. 41. Westcott and Hort insert it within brackets. Even if the passage be retained, Hilary has an explanation which agrees with his theory.
[281] Ib. 24.
[282] loc. cit., Tr. in Ps. liii. 7.
[283] In Tr. in Ps. liii. 7, there is also the moral purpose. He prays humbly. His prayer expresses no need of His own, but is meant to teach us the lesson of meekness.
[284] Trin. x. 45. Yet Hilary himself is not always consistent. In the purely homiletical writing of Tr. in Ps. lxviii. 1, he dwells upon Christ's endurance of pain. His argument obliged Him to emphasize the suffering; it was natural, though not logical, that he should sometimes insist also upon the feeling.
[285] Harnack, Dogmengesch. ii. 301 n.
[286] The words are Förster's, op. cit. p. 662, and are accepted as representing their opinion by Bardenhewer, Patrologie, p. 382, and Baltzer, Christologie, p. 32.
[287] Strom. vi. § 71. Bigg, Christian Platonists, p. 71, gives other sources, by which Hilary is less likely to have been influenced, from which he may have derived this teaching. This is not the only coincidence between him and Clement.
[288] Trin. ii. 2,in vitium vitio coarctamur alieno.
[289] Tr. in Ps.lxviii. 4. The unity is also strongly put in Trin. viii. 13, x. 61.
[290] Trin. x. 34. This was Hilary's deliberate belief. But in earlier life he had written rashly of the Holy Spirit (i.e. God the Son) surrendering His humanity to be tempted, and of the cry upon the Cross testifying the departure of God the Word from Him' (Comm. in Matt. iii. 1, xxxiii. 6). This, if it had represented Hilary's teaching in that treatise would have proved it heretical; but the whole tenour of the commentary proves that this was simply carelessness. In the Homilies on the Psalms he also writes somewhat loosely on occasion; e.g. liii. 4 fin., where he mentions Christ's former nature, i.e. the Divinity, and ib. 5, where he speaks of Him Who after being God (ex Deo) had died as man.' But only malevolence could give an evil interpretation to these passages, delivered as they were for the edification of Hilary's flock, and with no thought of theological accuracy. It is, indeed, quite possible that they were never revised, or even intended, for publication by him.
[291] E.g. Trin. ix. 6, and often in the Homilies on the Psalms, as cxxxviii. 13.
[292] Tr. in Ps. liii. 12.
[293] loc. cit.
[294] Tr. in Ps. cxxxix. 15.
[295] Trin. x. 63. Similarly in Tr. in Ps. lxvii. 2l, he speaks of the passion, the cross, the death, the burial of God.'
[296] Trin. in Ps. liii. 4.
[297] Trin. ix. 3.
[298] Tr. in Ps. cxli. 4. There is no evidence that the text is corrupt, though the words as they stand are rank Apollinarianism, and the more significant as dating from the maturity of Hilary's thought. But here, as often, we must remember that the Homilies are familiar addresses.
[299] Trin. x. 52. We must remember not only that heretical distinctions had been made, but that Christ is the name of the Son in pretemporal relation to the world (see p. lxvii.), as well as in the world.
[300] Ib. 22, 52.
[301] Cf. Gore, Dissertations, p. 211. It is in relation to the self-emptying that Hilary uses such definite language: Trin. xi. 48, intra suam ipse vacuefactus potestatem....Se ipsum intra se vacuefaciens continuit; xii. 6, se evacuavit in sese.
[302] Offensio, Trin. ix. 38.
[303] Trin. x. 22, A se dividuus.
[304] E.g Trin. ix. 38.
[305] Trin. ix. 6. On earth Christ is Deus and homo; in glory He is totus Deus and totus homo.
[306] E.g. Discourses against the Arians, iii. 53, p. 422 of the translation in this series.
[307] Bp. Westcott on Cyril of Alexandria in St. John's Gospel (Speaker's Commentary), p. xcv.
[308] Dorner, I. ii. 415. The liberty has been taken of putting Himself' for itself.' On the same page Dorner speaks of ever increasing return of the Logos into equality with Himself.' This is a contradiction of his own explanation. God has become God-man. He could not again become simply the Logos. The key to Hilary's position is the double nature of Christ. The Godhead and the Manhood are aspects in revelation, abstractions in argument. That which connects them and gives them reality is the one Person, the object of thought and faith.
[309] Tr. in Ps. cxviii., Iod, 6, cxxix. 5.
[310] Ib. cxxix. 5.
[311] Isai. xlv. 12, the Old Latin, translated from the LXX., having the singular. This characteristic piece of exegesis is in Tr. in Ps. cxviii., Iod, 5; cf. ib. 7, 8.
[312] Ib. Iod, 1.
[313] Tr. in Ps. cxviii., Koph, 8.
[314] Ib. li. 16, naturam in se universæ carnis adsumpsit, ib. liv. 9, universitatis nostræ caro est factus; so also Trin. xi. 16 in., and often.
[315] This latter is the argument of Trin. viii. 13 f.
[316] Trin. ii. 24; in Him there is the universi generis humani corpus because He is homo factus ex virgine.
[317] Tr. in Ps. cxxv. 6.
[318] Comm. in Matt. iv. 12; habitatio, as is often the case in late Latin with abstracts, is collective. Hilary also speaks of Christ as gerens nos, Trin. x. 25, which recalls the gestans of Tertullian and the portans of Cyprian.
[319] Tr. in Ps. ii. 16, lvii. 3, lxii. 3, and often.
[320] Trin. xi. 40-42.
[321] Tr. in Ps. ii. 27.
[322] Comm. in Matt. ii. 6; Tr. in Ps. ii. 29; Trin. viii. 25. Yet he twice (Trin. vi. 23; Tr. in Ps. cxxxviii. 6) gives the ordinary text, without any hint that he knew of an important variant.
[323] Tr. in Ps. ii. 29, ipse Deo renascebatur in filium perfectum. Trin. viii. 25, perfecta nativitas.
[324] Dorner, I. ii. 417. Dorner overlooks the birth in Baptism.
[325] Tr. in Ps. ii. 27, liii. 14.
[326] Ib. cxxxviii. 19.
[327] Ib. liii. 14.
[328] Ib. lv. 12.
[329] Trin. xi. 40, 49.
[330] Ib. 40, habens in sacramento subiectionis esse ac manere quod non est.
[331] Trin. xi. 42, incrementum glorificati in eo Dei.
[332] E.g. Trin. ix. 4, x. 7.
[333] Trin. in Ps.lxii. 3; cf. Comm. in Matt. xvi. 5.
[334] Tr. in. Ps. lvi. 7, liii. 5. We must remember the importance of names in Hilary's eyes. They are not arbitrary symbols, but belong essentially to the objects which they signify. Had there been no sin, from which man needed to be saved, he would still required raising to his name and nature.
[335] Ib. cxviii., Aleph, 1, cxxxi. 6.
[336] Ib. cxxxi. 23.
[337] Trin. iii. 9.
[338] Förster, op. cit.
[339] Cf. Harnack, Dogmengesch. ii. 281. But Harnack is unjust in saying that Hilary had not quite made up his own mind.
[340] Gwatkin, Studies of Arianism, p. 206 n. Hilary's belief in the deity of the Holy Spirit is hardly more doubtful than St. John's: yet he nowhere states it in so many words.'
[341] If the word may be admitted for the sake of clearness. Hilary never calls the Spirit a Person.
[342] §§ 23, 25, 30; so also ix. 69 and notably in x. 16. Similarly in Comm. in Matt. iii. 1, the Spirit means Christ.
[343] Trin. viii. 20, ix. 73 fin., and especially ii. 4. This last is not a reference to the Macedonian heresy, but to the logical result of Arianism.
[344] Trin. i. 17, v. 1, 35, vii. 8, 31, viii. 31, 36, x. 6 &c.
[345] Baltzer, Theologie des hl. Hilarius, p. 51.
[346] Trin. viii. 21, xii. 55.
[347] The work by Tertullian in which the doctrine of the Spirit is most fully brought out; in which, in fact, He is first expressly named God, is the Adversus Praxean. It was written after his secession from the Church, and Hilary, upon whom it had more influence than any other of Tertullian's writings, may have suspected that this teaching was the expression of his Montanism rather than a legitimate deduction from Scripture, and so have been misled by over caution. He may also have been influenced by such Biblical passages as Rev. xiv. 1, where the Spirit is unnamed.
[348] E.g. Tr. in Ps. ii. l6, li. 23.
[349] Ib. lvii. 3.
[350] Ib. cxviii., Teth, 4, lxiv. 5.
[351] Ib. cxviii., Gimel, 3, 4.
[352] Ib., Daleth, 1.