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 (Fragm. i. §6) that he 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 Aneyra. 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 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.0' If he had added to the Homoean formula, which was that the Son is `like the Father,0' the words `in substance0' or `in all things,0' 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.
146 Those which have been in constant use in the preparation of this chapter have been an excellent article by Th. Forster in the Theologische studien und Kritiken for 1888, p 645 ff., and two full and valuable papers by Dr. Baltzer on the Theologie and Christology of Hilary in the programm of the Rottweil Gymnasium for 1879 and 1889 respectively. I have unfortunately not had access to Wirthmuller's work, Die Lehre d. hl. Hil. uber die Selbstenausserung Christi, but the citations in Baltzer and Schwane give some clue to its contents. The Introduction to the Benedictine edition is useful, though its value is lessened by an evident desire to make Hilary confirm to the accepted opinions of a later age. Dorners great work on the Doctrine of the person of Christ, in the English translation, with the Dogmengeschichte of Schwane (ed.2, 1895) and that of Harnack(ed 3, 1894) have also been constantly and profitably consulted. Indebttedness to other works is from time to time acknowledged in the notes.
149 St. John v. 44 in Trin. ix. 22
150 Thus the Book of Baruch, regarded as part of Jeremiah, is cited with the same confidence as Isaiah and the other prophets in Trin. v. 39.
151 E.g. Tr. in Ps. cxviii. Aleph. i, cxxviii. 12. cxviii. 8. It must be confessed that Hilary's illustrations of the principle are not always fourtunate.
152 Thus in Trin. xi. 15, in commenting on Ps. xxii. 6, he puts forward two alternative theories of the generation of worms, only one of which can be true, while both may be false. But he uses both, to illustrate two truths concerbning our Lord.
162 Similar arguments are often used: cf. Tr. in Ps. cxlv. I.
166 E.g. Comm. in Matt. xviii. 2; Tr. in Ps. cxix, 20, cxxxiv. 12, cxxxvi. 6, 7: Trin. i.6,.
168 The unhesitating use of the Theophanies of the Old Testament.as direct evidence for the divinity of Christ is noteworthy, Similar to the usual proof. for the distinction of Persons within the 'Trinity, from the altcrnate use of plural and singular, are the arguments in Tr. in Ps. cxviii., Iod, 5, cxvii. 4.
169 It is worth notice that he makes no use of Origen's mystical interpretation of the Canticles. Silence in such a case is itself a criticism.
170 Compare such a passage as Trin. x. 24 with his use of the proof-texts against Arianism.
172 E.g. Tr. in Ps. xci. to, cxviii. Iod, x5, cxxxiv. 1, cxxxv. I.
173 E g. Trin. vii' 13; and cf. the argument which is also Athanasian of vii. 31.
174 Beside the passages menentioned on p. xxx., it only occurs in Instructio Psalmorum §13
175 The translation of the De Trinitate in this volume may give a somewhat false impressionin this respect. For the sake of concicseness the word Person has been often in the English where it is absent, and absent designedly in the Latin. The word occurs Trin. iii . 23 in.,iv .42,v. 10,26,vii. 39,40 and in a few other places.
176 Concorporatio, Comm. in Matt, vi. I ; corporatio, Tr. in Ps, i, 14, ii. 3, and often; corporalitas Deus, Comm, in Matt. iv, 14, Tr. in Ps. li. 16; corporalitas, Comm. in Matt. iv. 14 (twice), Instr. Ps. vi. In the De Trinitate he usually prefers a periphrasis ; - assumpta caro, assumpsit carnem. Corporatio is used of man's dwelling in a body in Trin. xi, 15 and De Mysteriis, ed. Gamurrini, p. 5.
177 It occurrs. in the De Synodis. 69, but in that work Hilary is writing as an advocate in defence of Ianguage used by others, not as the exponent of his own thoughts. It also occurs once or twice in translations from the Greek, probably by another hand than Hilary's; but from his own authorship it is completely absent.
178 Trin. v. to, Syn. 69, `God is One not in Person, but in nature, 0'Trin. iv. 42, `Not by oneness of Person but by unity of substance;0' vi. 35, `the birth of a living Nature from a living Nature0' of God or Christ. is simply a periphrasis. The two natures in the Incarnate Christ are also mentioned, though, as we shall see, Hilary here aIso avoids a precise nomenclature..
179 Tr. in Ps. cxxxi. 6, `The supreme achievement of Christ was to render man, instructed in the knowledge of God, worthy to be God's dwelling-place ;0' cf. ib §23
180 Tr. in Ps. cxviii, Aleph., §I
185 Deus Verbum often; Verbum alone rarely, if ever. Dorner with his iteration of `Logos,0' gives an altogether false impression of Hilary's vocabulary.
187 Doctrine of the Person of Christ, 1. ii. p. 302, English translation. The passages to which he refers are Comm. in Matt. xi. 12; Tr. in Ps. xci. 6 ; Trin. ii. 3. ix. 69. There is a good, though brief, statement of this view in Mason's Faith of the Gospel, p. 56.
188 Trin, xii. 21, `the birth is in the generation and the generation in the birth, 0'
189 Discourses against the Arians, iii. 58ff ; see Robertson's notes in the Athanasius volume of this series. p.426
190 E.g. Syn. 35, 37, 59, Trin. iii. 4, vi. 21, viii . 54
191 Cf. Baltzer, Theologie d. hl. Hil. p, 19 f.
192 Hort, Two Dissertations, p. 21, and cf. p. xvi., above.
193 It constantly appears, though with all due safeguards, in the De Synodis, where sympathy as well as policy impelled him to approximate the language used by his friends. Similarly in Trin. iii. 23, he argues, from the admitted likeness, that there can be no difference. But, as we saw, this part of the De Trinitate is probably an early work, and does not represent Hilary's later thought
196 Cf. Sulp Sev., Chron. ii. 42 for the Eastern suspicion that the West held a trionyma unio ;-one Person under three names, the citations in Westcott's Gospel of St. John, additional note to xiv. 28
197 This was the doctrine of all the earlier theologians, soon to be displaced in the stress of controversy by the opinion that theinferiority concerns the Son only as united with man. See the citations in Wescot's Gospel of St. John, additional note to xiv, 28.
200 Trin. xi. 21 ff., on I Cor. xv, 21 ff.
202 Bardenhewer, Patrologie, p. 377.
203 This is one of Hilary's many reminiscences of Origen. Athanasius brought the father into direct connection with the world ; cf. Harnack, Dogmengesch. ii. 206 (ed.3)
204 Trin. xii. 35 ff. The passage is treated at much greater length in Athanasius' Discourses against the Arians, ii. 18fi where see Robertson's notes.
205 Trin. xii. 45; at the Incarnation Christ is `created in the body,0' and this is connected with His creation for the begining of the ways of God.
206 Westcott, essay on `The Gospel of creation,0' in his edition of St John's Epistles, Where, however Hilary is not mentioned.
208 Trin.ii. 6, xii.4, &c. He is also often named Jesus Christ in this connection, e.g. Trin. iv. 6
209 According to Eusebius' computation, which Hilary would probably accept without dispute, there were 5,228 years from the creation to our Lord's commencement of his mission in the 15th year of Tiberius, a.d. 29.
210 E.g. Trin. iv . 27; Tr. in Ps, lxviii, 19
211 Trin. iii.9 ; cf. St. John xvii. 3.
213 Trin. ii. 27. The sarne conclusion is constantly drawn in the Comm. in Matt.
214 E g. Trin. ix. 4, 14, 51; Tr. in Ps. ii. 11, 25.
216 E.g. Tr. in Ps. cxxxviii. 3.
217 This, in contrast with God, Who is Life, is proved by the fact that certain bodily growths can be removed without our being conscious of the operation ; Trin. vii. 28.
218 Cf. Trin. vii. 23, x 15, 16. Similarly in the Eumenides 637, Aechylus Makes Apollo excuse Orestes' murder of Clytae nnestra on the go and that the mother is not the parent, but only the nurse of the germ. This is contrary to Aristotle's teaching; Aeschylus and Hilary evidently represent a rival current of ancient opinion..
219 Trin. x. 20. In Tr. in Ps. cxviii., Iod, 6, 7, this thought is developed. Man has a double origin. First, he is made after the likeness of God. This is the soul, which is immaterial and has no resemblance and owes no debt, as of effect to cause, to any other nature (i.e. substance) than God. It is not His likeness, but is after His likeness. Secondly, there is the body, cornposed of earthly matter.
220 Trin. ii. 3of., viii. 23f .
221 Trin. x. 16, caro non aliunde originem sumpserat quam Verbo, and ib. 15,18,25. Dorner, I. ii., p.403, n.i points out that this is exactly the teaching of Gregory of Nyssa.
222 This view that the conception by the Holy Ghost means conception by the Son is consistently held by Hilary throughout his writings. It appears in the earliest of them; in Comm. in Matt. ii. 5, Christ is `born of a woman; . . . Made flesh through the Word.0' So in Trin. ii. 24 He is `born of the Virgin and of the Holy Ghost, Himself ministering Himself in this operation.... By His own, that is God's., overshadowing power He sowed for Himself the beginings of His body ordained that His flesh should commence to exist ; 0'and Trin. x 16
223 Trin. x. 16; cf. ib. 17. 1n the Instructio. Pslamorum,§6, he speaks in more usual language;-adventus Domini ex virgine in hominem. procreandi, and also in some other passage. Dorners view (1. ii 403 f. and note 74, p. 533) differs from that here taken. But he is influenced (see especially p. 404) by the desire to save Hilary's consistency rather than to state his Actutal opinion on. And Hilary was too early in the field, too anxiously employed in feeling his way past the pitfalls of heresy, to escape the danger of occasional inconsistency.
224 Trin. iii. I9, perfectum ipsa de suis non imminuta generavit. So ib, ii. 25, uigenitus Deus.... Virginis utero insertus acc rescit. He grew there, but nothing more. In Virginem exactly corresponds to ex Virgine.
225 Trin. xii. 50; it would be a watering of the sense to regard commixtio in this passage as simply equivalent to coitio.
228 He often and emphatically repudiates the use which the Monarchians made of them, e.g. Trin.iv, 4.
229 E.g. Trin. x. 22 in The human soul is clearly intended. Schwane, ii, 268, justly praises Hilary for greater accuracy than his contemporaries in laying stress upon each of the constituent elements of Christ's humanity, and especially upon the soul ; in this respect following Tertullian and Origen
230 In Trin. x. 21 f. is an argument analogous to that of the De Synodis concerning the Godhead. Christ is Man because He is perfectly like man, just as in the Homoeusian argument He is God because He is perfectly like God.