Faith in History / Sean Gallagher

St. Hilary of Poitiers was an ardent defender of the incarnation of Christ

In last month’s “Faith in History” column, we explored the life, teachings and significance of St. Athanasius. This towering figure from Alexandria, Egypt, in the Church of the fourth century played a key role in promoting and defending the Church’s teaching on the incarnation of Christ defined in 325 at the Council of Nicaea.

The doctor of the Church we’ll look at in this column is sometimes called the “Athanasius of the West.”

St. Hilary of Poitiers was born around 310 in that city in what is now central France, about 10 years after St. Athanasius was born in Egypt.

His parents were pagan and were likely prominent in the area. Hilary received a good classical education. It was his study of the Scriptures when he was in his 30s that led to his conversion and baptism.

He became the bishop of Poitiers around a decade later in the early 350s. At the time, advocates of Arianism, which held that Christ was not divine, were making inroads into the Church in Gaul, the Roman province that later became France. Hilary thus saw the defense of the Incarnation as one of his primary duties.

His deep faith and his eloquent writing honed in his classical education made him a fit person to carry out this critical mission.

But it also made Hilary a marked man, much like Athanasius had been in Alexandria. Many leaders in the imperial government, including at times emperors themselves, favored Arianism over the Church’s teaching. This led to Hilary being exiled to what is now Turkey for nearly four years.

But he did not let his time away from his flock go to waste. During his exile, Hilary wrote the first major work in Latin explaining the teachings of the Council of Nicaea, as well as insightful Scripture commentaries and hymn texts. Greek was in many ways still the primary language of the Church at this time and was certainly the language most commonly used to set forth its theology.

So, it was helpful for the faithful in the west, many of whom would have been Latin speakers, to have such eloquent explanations of the Church’s teachings in their native tongue.

Before the end of the fourth century, great theologians (and doctors of the Church) like St. Jerome and

St. Augustine emerged who wrote primarily in Latin. Both of these profound spiritual writers held Hilary in high esteem for his theological insights.

While in exile, Hilary also challenged defenders of Arianism to public debates. His ardent defense of the Church’s teachings while living so close to Constantinople, the empire’s primary city at the time, may have led to him being sent back to Poitiers around 361.

Readers of St. Hilary of Poitier’s book on the Trinity, De Trinitate, can see this doctor of the Church’s profound faith and his great wonder before the mystery of the Son of God taking on human flesh:

“By his incarnation, he [took] to himself from the Virgin a fleshly nature, that through this commingling there might come into being a hallowed body of all humanity. Through that body—which he was pleased to assume—all mankind was hid in him, and he in return, through his unseen existence, was reproduced in all.”

A reflection like this from St. Hilary, whose feast is on Jan. 13, would be good for us to meditate upon as we enter soon into Lent to prepare to enter into the passion, death and resurrection that Christ, the Son of God, in his human body, undertook for our salvation.
 

(Sean Gallagher is a reporter and columnist for The Criterion.) †