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Quail not, and quake not, thou warder bold,
Be there no friend in sight;

Turn thee to question the days of old,

When weakness was aye Heaven's might.

Time's years are many, Eternity one,

And one is the Infinite;

The chosen are few, few the deeds well done;
So scantness is still Heaven's might.

Lyra Apostolica, p. 108.

JANUARY 13.

S. Hilary, Bishop and Confessor.

368.

S. HILARY was born at Poictiers in Gaul. There is some reason to believe that his family was illustrious in that country. His parents were pagans ; and he gives an account of his conversion to the faith of Christ in his book on the Trinity. After his admission into the Church by baptism, so holy and recollected was his behaviour, that it was said of him, that while he was yet a laic he seemed to have already received the grace of the priesthood. Even in those stricter times he was remarkable for carefully avoiding the society of Jews and heretical perLittle is known of the circumstances of his early life, except these general facts; and thus God often trains in secrecy the future rulers and defenders of His Church.

sons.

It is probable that S. Hilary was elected bishop of Poictiers from the rank of a laic, as was often the case in the early ages; when that high office was as dangerous as it was honourable, and needed men of

heroic courage to meet the pagan and heretical enemies of the Church. The date of his consecration was about the year 350. He soon became renowned in Gaul as a preacher; and S. Martin, afterwards Bishop of Tours, then a young man, was attracted by his name, and lived for a time at Poictiers as his disciple. Hilary wished to ordain him deacon, but the humility of Martin was so great, that he would receive no higher order than an exorcist's.

Immediately after the Arian council at Milan in 355, which had condemned Athanasius, and had prevailed on the Emperor Constantius to banish all the bishops who adhered to him, S. Hilary wrote to the emperor, entreating him to stop the persecution, to recal the Catholic bishops, and to forbid secular judges to interfere in church affairs. His remonstrance had no effect, but he had the satisfaction of seeing the Gallican bishops remain firm during those days of trial. Saturninus bishop of Arles, alone united with Ursatius and Valens, two Illyrian bishops, to vex the Catholics. They held an Arian synod at Beziers in Languedoc, at which Saturninus himself presided. S. Hilary there made a noble confession of the Nicene faith, and refuted the heresy of Arius; but the party of Saturninus, reinforced by bishops from the neighbouring countries, was too strong for him, and he was condemned and deposed; and immediately afterwards the Emperor Constantius banished him into Phrygia.

He left Gaul early in the year 356, in company with Rhodanus bishop of Toulouse, whom God called from those evils to His kingdom soon after

their arrival in Phrygia. His departure was followed by a cruel persecution of the Gallican clergy; but nothing could daunt their constancy, or prevail on them to communicate with the enemies of S. Hilary and the Nicene Faith, or to fill up his

the eye of the Church was not vacant.

see, which in The priests

and deacons of Toulouse were severely beaten, and their Church profaned. In 357 the Bishops wrote a letter to Hilary, assuring him of their fidelity and firmness. What comfort such a letter would bring to him in his exile may well be imagined. The news of the faithful courage of the Gallican bishops confirmed the faith of many in the Eastern Church, which was then sadly torn by the Arian and SemiArian parties. At that time the latter faction had influence over Constantius, who vacillated between the two, and many of the bishops who followed Arius were in banishment.

About the same time S. Hilary received a letter from Apra, his only daughter, (for in his youth he had been married',) informing him that she had been asked in marriage by a young man. She was then about thirteen or fourteen years of age. He immediately wrote to her, intreating her to set her thoughts on the more precious rewards which the Lord Jesus has promised to those virgins who devote themselves

1 Those who are anxious to claim the sanction of the early ages of Christianity for the practice of the modern Anglican clergy in this respect, may consult with advantage, among other writers, S. Jerome's Treatises against Jovinian and Vigilantius, which record the opinion of the Church in the fourth age regarding the celibacy of the priesthood.

wholly to their heavenly Spouse, and are not entangled in the snares of earthly love 1. He reminded her of that blissful company whom the Church remembers on the feast of Holy Innocents, who sing a new song which no man can learn but they who are virgins, and follow the Lamb whithersoever He goeth 2. She yielded to his pious counsel; and on his return home God took her to Himself at his request, without pain or any visible sickness. Bishop Jeremy Taylor relates this little story in his own beautiful language in the "Holy Dying3."

In return for the comforting letter which the Gallican bishops had sent him, and at their request to be informed regarding the faith of the Eastern Churches, S. Hilary wrote his "History of Synods in the end of the year 358. It contains a history of the various councils that had been assembled in the East

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on the subject of the Arian heresy; together with a defence of the Nicene faith. It is addressed to the British bishops among others, whom he congratulates on their stedfastness. The saint also wrote his book "on the Trinity" during his exile; and a smaller treatise "against the Arians." In his style he is said to have imitated Quinctilian. He also composed a matin and a vesper hymn for his daughter Apra; and in the council of Toledo in 633, he was mentioned as the probable author of the hymns "Ut queant laxis" on the feast of the Nativity of S. John the Baptist; and "Pange lingua-lauream certaminis" on the Sixth Day of Holy Week.

1 S. Matth. xix. 29; S. Mark x. 29, 30; S. Luke xviii. 29, 30; 1 Cor. vii. 38.

2 See the Epistle for the day.

3 Ch. iii. Sect. 7, § 6.

In 359 the Western bishops held a synod at Rimini, at which nearly four hundred were present. The Arian party among them beguiled the rest by its address to sanction its errors by their signatures. The bishops of Agen and Tongres took a prominent lead in the proceedings of the synod.

In September of the same year S. Hilary was invited with other Catholic bishops, by the SemiArians to their council at Seleucia in Isauria. Their object was to defeat the Arians, and they hoped that the Catholics would assist them. As he was on his way thither, he stopped on a Sunday at a little village, and went into the church. A peasant girl named Florentia immediately cried out that a servant of Christ was there, and falling at his feet besought him to make the sign of the cross over her. Her father Florentius and his whole family asked and received the sacrament of baptism from his hands. They were probably Arians, and had not been baptized in the name of the ever-blessed Trinity.

He

In the council of Seleucia, Hilary bore witness to the faith of the Western Church being the same as that declared to be the Catholic faith at the council of Nicæa in 325, and he protested against both the Arian and Semi-Arian opinions as novelties. accompanied the deputies of the council to Constantinople, in hopes of obtaining from the Emperor Constantius the recal of his sentence of banishment. He found the Arian party supreme at court, and the Semi-Arian deputies from the council of Rimini united with the others against him as a common enemy. While the Arian synod was sitting at Constantinople, in January 360, he entreated the Empe

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