Free English Translation
Fragments from Other Works
Fragmenta ex aliis S. Hilarii operibus
9 chapters · ~4 min read · by Hilary of Poitiers
About Fragments from Other Works
This is a short collection of quotations drawn from works of Hilary of Poitiers that no longer survive in full, preserved because later authors copied passages from them. The excerpts touch on the devil's power over sinful flesh and the cleansing won through struggle against vice, drawn from his Tractates on Job; on the incarnation of the only-begotten God as man, from the preface to his exposition of Matthew; and on Christ as mediator between God and man, from his exposition of the Epistle to Timothy. Further fragments, some from uncertain or doubtful sources, address the Son of God's exaltation of human nature, the daily bread of the Lord's Prayer, Christ's sinless likeness to sinful flesh, and the inheritance of sin from Adam.
By Hilary of Poitiers. Collected in Patrologia Latina, Volume 10.
In this work
From the Tractates on Job
For so great and so admirable is the goodness of God's mercy toward us, that through him through whom, in Adam's offence, we lost the nobility of that first and blessed creation, through him again we may deserve to obtain what we lost. For then the devil harmed us by his envy; but now, when he strives to harm, he is overcome. For he moves all the weapons of his power through the weakness of our flesh—when he inflames to wantonness, when he entices to drunkenness, when he goads to hatred, when he provokes to avarice, when he equips for slaughter, when he sharpens for cursing. But when, through the firmness of the soul, the creeping incitements of all these things are repressed, we are cleansed from sin through the glory of this victory; for it is thus said: Or how shall one born of woman make himself clean? Because, if the enemy is not present, there will be no war; and if war then ceases, victory will be lacking.
Moreover, if the victory over the vices assailing us is not obtained, there will be no cleansing from vices: because, when this pirate of our body is overcome by these snares, we are purged by the contest of the passions struggling against us. Being therefore mindful and aware that our very bodies are the material of all vices, through which, being polluted and defiled, we obtain nothing clean, nothing innocent in ourselves; let us rejoice that we have an enemy, in whose contest we may fight as in a certain war of our own striving.
Likewise
What letters had Job read, that he kept himself from every evil thing, because he worshipped God with a mind alone unmixed with vices? Now to worship God is the proper duty of justice.
From the Preface of the Exposition of the Gospel of Matthew
For it was first necessary for us that the only-begotten God, for our sake, should be born as man—that which at that time he was not.
Likewise from the same
The third thing thereafter was fitting: that because God, born as man in the world
From the Exposition of the Epistle to Timothy
For both when Scripture says, the man Christ, and when it says, Christ died, and when it says, the Word was made flesh; the text is not to be stripped of its own proper meanings by the deceitfulness of the reader. For where Christ is man, there precedes, Mediator of God and men: so that from both, God and man, one subsists; and he stands as mediator between man and God, by the confession in himself of both natures. But where Christ died, there is added, Who rose again, who is at the right hand of God. In his death is the weakness of our flesh, in his resurrection is his power, in his sitting with God is his dignity.
From the book to the Emperor Constantius
The Son of God made man is God; God the Son was made son of man (for man was made God, not God was made man), and the son of man was made Son of God. For the greatness of the Lord surpassed the smallness of the servant's form; so that the very servant's form, which he assumed, ceased to be that of a servant through him the Lord who assumed it. For if those who by nature are not sons of God are made sons of God through him; how much more did he himself, who by nature is the Son of God, so exalt this one with whom by his own will he was conceived and born of a virgin womb into God, that at his name every knee should bow, of heavenly and earthly and infernal beings, and every tongue confess that the Lord Jesus Christ is in the glory of God the Father.
From an Uncertain Work
Give us this day our daily bread. For what does God so desire as that Christ, who is the bread of life and the bread from heaven, should dwell in us daily; and because the prayer is daily, it is also prayed daily that it be given.
Likewise another
Therefore when (Christ) was sent in the likeness of sinful flesh, he did not have sin just as he had flesh. But because all flesh is from sin—derived, that is, from Adam the sinful parent—he was sent in the likeness of sinful flesh, there being in him not sin, but the likeness of sinful flesh.
A doubtful Fragment
In whom all have sinned. In whom, that is, in Adam all have sinned. It is manifest that they sinned in Adam, as it were in the mass. For he himself, corrupted through sin, begot all who were born under sin.
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