ST. HILARY OF POITIERS

CHAPTER XVI.

LAST YEARS OF HILARY—CONCLUSION.

The decision of Constantius, which had sent Hilary back to Gaul, though still keeping the sentence of banishment hanging over him, allowed him some freedom in his mode of return. It was dilatory, for he stayed at various places on the road, and his happiness at the prospect of regaining home was much alloyed by the scenes which he witnessed. The emperor had banished from their sees all the bishops who refused to accept the ambiguous form of words set forth by the Council of Rimini, and many flocks were mourning the absence of their chief pastors. The year 361 was spent in this way; but in the following year Hilary regained his home, and rejoined his wife and daughter. He was warmly welcomed by the inhabitants of his native town and by the diocese at large, and his friend and disciple, Martin of Tours, was among those who hastened to visit him.

Abra had received addresses during his absence; and he, on hearing it, had sent her a letter of a rather mystic though exceedingly affectionate character. Its tendency was to set forth the superiority of celibacy. But he wished the decision to be really her own, though if she found any difficulty in understanding his letter, or two hymns which he enclosed, she was to consult her mother. He found her unwedded on his return, and she may probably have remained so.

The more ardent among Hilary's friends and supporters desired, as has been observed already, to refuse communion to all who had been betrayed into the acceptance of the decrees of Rimini. But such a course did not commend itself to their leader. Hilary preferred the plan of gathering together, in different parts of Gaul, assemblies of bishops, and entering into mutual explanations. The line proposed by him proved most successful, and the counter-efforts of his old opponent, Saturninus, were utterly fruitless. The Bishop of Aries found himself thoroughly deserted, and was in a short time practically excluded from communion with the Gallican episcopate.

The attempt to carry out still further this line of conduct by a journey into Northern Italy and Illyria was not, as we have implied, equally successful. Though Eusebius of Vercelli lent Hilary powerful aid, the efforts of these two friends seem to have been threatened by the conduct of the well-intentioned, but uncompromising, Lucifer of Cagliari, Nevertheless, Hilary remained in Italy from the latter part of AD 362 until the late autumn of 364, when, as has already been mentioned, he was ordered home by the Emperor Valentinian. Ten years later, had he lived so long, Hilary would have had the satisfaction of seeing Ambrose become bishop of Milan.

The last three or four years of his life were spent at Poitiers, and seemed to have been comparatively quiet and untroubled. He died in peace on January 13th, AD 368.

There was so much of paganism remaining in Gaul at the date of Hilary's conversion, that he might have, humanly speaking, enjoyed a brilliant career as a member of the gifted, and, for those times, polished society of the aristocracy of his native land. In that case, he would not have known exile; and, though he might have disliked many of the anti-pagan measures of Constantius, he probably would not have protested against them any more than did the heathen orators of the day, such as Themistius or Libanius, who continued to lavish flatteries upon the emperor, though in their hearts believing him to be an enemy of the gods. But there was that in Hilary which, by the grace of God, rendered such a career impossible; and his country, and Christendom at large, more especially in the West, were to be the gainers. Even in Britain a few churches have been dedicated to his memory. The great popularity of the name Hilaire in France is a tribute to the impression which he made upon the public mind. This impression may have been deepened by the good gifts of his name­sake, St. Hilary of Aries, in the succeeding century.

But we can hardly look back upon Hilary's troubled and chequered career, noble as it was, without feeling that it offers one of the numerous illustrations of the fact, that in whatever age of the Church our lot might have been cast we should have found difficulties at least as great as those of our own time. In the eighteenth century its spiritual deadness might have paralysed us. In the sixteenth we should have had to undergo the fierce trial of deciding, not merely between Mediaevalism and the Reformation, but between, it may be, the different schools and theories of reform. In the fifteenth, we might have shared its torpor, or have become intoxicated with the pagan spirit of the movement known as the Renaissance. In the early part of the thirteenth century, a wave of unbelief, exceedingly mysterious in its origin, and as subtle as anything to which we are now exposed, might have swept us away in its vortex. And, during the first three centuries, there might have been presented to us the choice between apostasy and a death of torture, demanding heroic virtue to support it.

And how, as regards that age, the middle of the fourth century, in which was placed, by God's providence, the life of Hilary of Poitiers? He has himself described it.

"It is a thing equally deplorable and dangerous that there are as many creeds as opinions among men, as many doctrines as inclinations, and as many sources of blasphemy as there are faults among us, because we make creeds arbitrarily and explain them arbitrarily. The Homousion is rejected, and received, and explained away by successive synods. The partial or total resemblance of the Father and of the Son is a subject of dispute for these unhappy times. Every year, nay, every moon, we make new creeds to describe invisible mysteries. We repent of what we have done, we defend those who repent, we anathematize those whom we defended. We condemn either the doctrine of others in ourselves, or our own in that of others; and, reciprocally tearing one another to pieces, we have been the cause of each other's ruin."

That, unlike these varying creeds, the Nicene Creed has endured; is, as we have already remarked, a wonderful tribute to the divine blessing on the work of the famous council which drew it up.

That Hilary was permitted to take an honorable, and, on the whole, a wonderfully successful part in bringing Christendom out of this state of chaos, and that his character and conduct were not unworthy of his lofty aims and devout writings, form his title to our reverence and regard,—

We live by admiration, hope, and love,

And even as these are well and wisely fix'd

In dignity of being we ascend.

One alone, indeed, of our race can satisfy all the demands of the human heart, and intellect, and conscience. But His servants stand around Him, and lead onward to Him. To throw our lot with them is to hope for acceptance at His hands :—

Thou art the King of Glory, O Christ,

Thou art the everlasting Son of the Father.

We therefore pray Thee help Thy servants, whom Thou

hast redeemed with Thy precious blood.

Make them to be numbered with Thy saints in glory everlasting.