found no one of them but Hosius, that old metal is like another and not plated, if milk man who loves a peaceful grave too well, who which is of the same colour as other mik shall be found to think that we ought to keep is not different in taste. Nothing can be like silence about both. Amid the fury of the gold but gold, or like milk that did not belong heretics into what straits shall we fall at last, to that species. I have often been deceived if while we do not accept both, we keep by the colour of wine: and yet by tasting neither? For there seems to be no impiety the liquor have recognized that it was of in saying that since neither is found in Scrip- another kind. I have seen meat look like ture, we ought to confess neither or both. other meat, but afterwards the flavour has revealed the difference to me. Yes, I fear those resemblances which are not due to a unity of nature.

88. Holy brethren, I understand by duoovo God of God, not of an essence that is unlike, not divided but born, and that the Son has a birth which is unique, of the sub- 90. I am afraid, brethren, of the brood of stance of the unborn God, that He is begotten heresies which are successively produced in yet co-eternal and wholly like the Father. I the East: and I have already read what I tell believed this before I knew the word ópovrtov, you I fear. There was nothing whatever susbut it greatly helped my belief. Why do ycu picious in the document which some of you, condemn my faith when I express it by óuo- with the assent of certain Orientals, took on ovator while you cannot disapprove it when your embassy to Sirmium to be there subexpressed by ópotovatov? For you condemn my scribed. But some misunderstanding has arisen faith, or rather your own, when you condemn in reference to certain statements at the beits verbal equivalent. Do others misunder-ginning which I believe you, iny holy brethren, stand it? Let us join in condemning the Basil, Eustathius, and Eleusius, omitted to misunderstanding, but not deprive our faith mention lest they should give offence. If it of its security. Do you think we must sub- was right to draw them up, it was wrong to scribe to the Samosatene Council to prevent bury them in silence. But if they are now any one from using ouoovotov in the sense of unmentioned because they were wrong we Paul of Samosata? Then let us also subscribe must beware lest they should be repeated at to the Council of Nicæa, so that the Arians some future time. Out of consideration for may not impugn the word. Have we to fear you I have hitherto said nothing about this: that ópotovator does not imply the same belief yet you know as well as I do that this creed as óμoovσiov? Let us decree that there is no was not identical with the creed of Ancyra. difference between being of one or of a similar I am not talking gossip: I possess a copy of substance. The word ópovolov can be under- the creed, and I did not get it from laymen, it stood in a wrong sense. Let us prove that it was given me by bishops. can be understood in a very good sense. We hold one and the same sacred truth. I beseech you that we should agree that this truth, which is one and the same, should be regarded as sacred. Forgive me, brethren, as I have so often asked you to do. You are not Arians: why should you be thought to be Arians by denying the ὁμοούσιον ?

89. But you say: The ambiguity of the word óμoovin troubles and offends me.' I pray you hear me again and be not offended. I am troubled by the inadequacy of the word ouoOvoor. Many deceptions come from similarity. I distrust vessels plated with gold, for I may be deceived by the metal underneath: and yet that which is seen resembles gold. I distrust anything that looks like milk, lest that which is offered to me be milk but not sheep's milk for cow's milk certainly looks like it. Sheep's milk cannot be really like sheep's milk unless drawn from a sheep. True likeness belongs to a true natural connection. But when the true natural connection exists, the poovatov is implied. It is a likeness according to essence when one piece of

91. I pray you, brethren, remove all suspicion and leave no occasion for it. To approve of oμnovator, we need not disapprove of oμoovσiov. Let us think of the many holy prelates now at rest: what judgment will the Lord pronounce upon us if we now say anathema to them? What will be our case if we push the matter so far as to deny that they were bishops and so deny that we are ourselves bishops? We were ordained by them and are their successors. Let us renounce our episcopate, if we took its office from men under anathema. Brethren, forgive my anguish : it is an impious act that you are attempting. I cannot endure to hear the man anathematized who says óuovo and says it in the right sense. No fault can be found with a word which does no harm to the meaning of religion. I do not know the word óμotovoior, or understand it, unless it confesses a similarity of essence. I call the God of heaven and earth to witness, that when I had heard neither word, my belief was always such that I should have interpreted óuoiovorov by óμovvotov. That is, I believed that nothing could be similar according to nature

unless it was of the same nature. Though long tion for you to write thus of many abstruse ago regenerate in baptism, and for some time matters which until this our age were una bishop, I never heard of the Nicene creed attempted and left in silence. I have spoken until I was going into exile, but the Gospels what I myself believed, conscious that I and Epistles suggested to me the meaning of owed it as my soldier's service to the Church ὁμοούσιον and όμοιούσιον. Our desire is sacred. to send to you in accordance with the Let us not condemn the fathers, let us not teaching of the Gospel by these letters the encourage heretics, lest while we drive one voice of the office which I hold in Christ. heresy away, we nurture another. After the It is yours to discuss, to provide and to act, Council of Nicæa our fathers interpreted the that the inviolable fidelity in which you stand due meaning of μoovorov with scrupulous care; you may still keep with conscientious hearts, the books are extant, the facts are fresh in and that you may continue to hold what you men's minds: if anything has to be added to hold now. Remember my exile in your holy the interpretation, let us consult together. prayers. I do not know, now that I have thus Between us we can thoroughly establish the expounded the faith, whether it would be as faith, so that what has been well settled need sweet to return unto you again in the Lord not be disturbed, and what has been misunder- Jesus Christ as it would be full of peace to die. stood may be removed. That our God and Lord may keep you pure

92. Beloved brethren, I have passed beyond and undefiled unto the day of His appearing the bounds of courtesy, and forgetting my is my desire, dearest brethren. modesty I have been compelled by my affec

INTRODUCTION TO THE

DE TRINITATE.

SINCE the circumstances in which the De Trinitate was written, and the character and object of the work, are discussed in the general Introduction, it will suffice to give here. a brief summary of its contents, adapted, in the main, from the Benedictine edition.

BOOK I. The treatise begins with St. Hilary's own spiritual history, the events of which are displayed, no doubt, more logically and symmetrically in the narrative than they had occurred in the writer's experience. He tells of the efforts of a pure and noble soul, impeded, so far as we hear, neither by unworthy desires nor by indifference, to find an adequate end and aim of life. He rises first to the conception of the old philosophers, and then by successive advances, as he learns more and more of the Divine revelation in Scripture, he attains the object of his search in the apprehension of God as revealed in the Catholic Faith. But this happiness is not the result of a mere intellectual knowledge, but of belief as well. In 1-14 we have this advance from ignorance and fear to knowledge and peace. And here he might have rested, had he not been charged with the sacerdotal (i.e., in the language of that time, the episcopal) office, which laid upon him the duty of caring for the salvation of others. And such care was needed, for ($$ 15, 16) heresies were abroad, and chiefly two; the Sabellian which said that Father and Son were mere names or aspects of one Divine Person, and therefore there had been no true birth of the Son; and the Arian (which, however, Hilary rarely calls by the name of its advocate, preferring to style it the 'new heresy') asserting more or less openly that the Son is created and not born, and therefore is different in kind from the Father, and not, in the true sense, God. Hilary declares (§ 17) that his purpose is to refute these heresies and to demonstrate the true faith by the evidence of Scripture. He demands from his hearers a loyal belief in the Scriptures which he will cite; without such faith his arguments will not profit them (§ 18); and in § 19 he warns them of the limits of the argument from analogy, which he must employ, inadequate as it is in respect of the finite illustrations which he must use to express the infinite. Then in § 20 he speaks with a modest pride of his careful marshalling of the arguments which shall lead his readers to the right conclusion, and in §§ 21-36 he gives a summary of the contents of the work. He concludes the first Book ($37, 38) with a prayer which expresses his certainty that what he holds is the truth, and entreats the Father and the Son that he may have the eloquence of language and the cogency of reasoning needed for the worthy presentation of the truth concerning Them.

Book II. He begins with the command to baptize all nations (St. Matt. xxviii. 19) as a summary of the faith; this by itself would suffice were not explanations rendered necessary by heretical misrepresentations of its meaning. For (S$ 3, 4) heresy is the result of Scripture misunderstood; and here we must notice that Scripture is regarded as ground common to both sides. All accept it as literally true, and combine its texts as will best

seive their own purposes. Hilary, regarding all heresies as one combined opposition to the truth, makes the two objections that their arguments are mutually destructive, and that they are modern. Then in § 5 he expresses the awe with which he approaches the subject. The language which he must use is utterly inadequate, and yet he is compelled to use it. In $$ 6, 7 he begins with the notion of God as Father; in $$ 8-11 he proceeds to that of God the Son. He states the faith as it must be believed; it is not enough (§§ 12, 13) to accept the truth of Christ's miracles. The mystery, as it is revealed in St. John i. 1—4, must be the object of faith. In S$ 14-21 he expounds this passage in the face of current objections, and then triumphantly asserts that all the efforts of heresy are vain (§ 22). He advances proof-texts in § 23 against each objector, and then points out in $ 24, 25 our indebtedness to the infinite Divine condescension thus revealed. For, in all the humiliation to which Christ stooped the Divine Majesty was still inseparably is, and was manifested both in the circumstances of His birth and in His life on earth (§§ 26—28). The book concludes (§§ 29-35) with a statement of the doctrine of the Holy Ghost, as perfect as in the undeveloped state of that doctrine was possible.

Book III. In SS 1- -4, the words, I in the Father and the Father in Me, are taken as typical. Man cannot comprehend, but only apprehend them. So far as they are explicable Hilary explains them. But God's self revelation is always mysterious. The miracles of Christ are inexplicable (S$ 5-8); this is God's way, and meant to check presumption. Human wisdom is limited, and when it passes its bounds, and invades the realm of faith, it becomes folly. Next, in § 9-17, the passage, St. John xvii. 1 ff., is explained as proving that in the One God there are the Persons of Father and of Son, and as revealing God in the aspect of the Father. Then, in §§ 18-21, the wonderful deeds of Christ are put forth as an evidence of His wonderful birth. We must not ask how He can be coeternal with the Father, for it is in vain that we should ask how He could pass through the closed door. Either question is mere presumption. The revelation which Christ makes (§ 22, 23) is that of God as His Father; Unum sunt, non Unus. And finally, in §§ 25, 26, he returns to the futility of reasoning. True wisdom is to believe where we cannot comprehend; we must trust to faith, not to proof.

Book IV. This book is in a sense the beginning of the treatise, and is sometimes cited later on as the first. Its three predecessors, he says in § 1, had been written some time before. They had contained a statement of the truth concerning the Divinity of Christ, and a summary refutation of the various heresies. He now commences his main attack upon Arianism. First (§ 2) he repeats what his difficulty is; that human language and thought cannot cope with the Infinite. Then (§ 3) he tells how the Arians explain away the eternal Sonship of Christ. As a defence against this tampering with the truth, the Church has adopted the term Homoousion (S$ 4-7); Hilary explains and defends its use. In § 8 he shews, by a collection of the passages of Scripture which they wrest to their own purposes, that such a definition is necessary, and in §§ 9, 10 that their use of these passages is dishonest. In § 11 he tells us exactly what the Arian teaching is, and sets it forth in one of their own formularies, the Epistola Arii ad Alexandrum (§§ 12, 13). In § 14 this doctrine is denounced; it does not explain, but explains away. The proclamation made through Moses, Hear, O Israel, the Lord thy God is One, upon which the Arians take their stand, reveals only one aspect of the truth (§ 15). It does not exhaust the truth; for God is represented as not one solitary Person in the history of creation (16-22), in the life of Abraham (S$ 23-31), and in that of Moses (S$ 32-34). And this again is the teaching of the Prophets, as is shewn by passages selected from Isaiah, Hosea, and Jeremiah (§§ 35-42).