07 — Theology and the Fathers
Hilary’s enduring theological achievement and its one genuine crux: his synthesis of the Greek and Latin Trinitarian traditions, which carried Greek categories into Western theology before Augustine and won him the praise of Augustine himself; and the long-disputed passages on Christ’s human suffering, where Hilary seems to qualify the Lord’s experience of pain — handled here with both sides and named scholars.
Tradition: Pan-Orthodox (pre-Schism West; Church Father)
This section steps back from the chronicle to weigh Hilary as a theologian. The first file places him between East and West: how he received the Greek doctrine of the Son’s eternal generation and mutual indwelling and rendered it into Latin (substantia, natura, the cautious reception of homoousios), and how Augustine and the later Latin tradition received him in turn — Augustine calling him “an illustrious doctor of the churches.” The second file confronts the collection’s sharpest theological dispute, per METHODOLOGY §4: the passages in De Trinitate Book 10 where Hilary appears to say the incarnate Christ felt the force of suffering without its pain. Was this a defect verging on docetism (so Harnack, and more cautiously Hanson), or a subtle and defensible account of the Word’s voluntary, sovereign relation to the Passion (so Beckwith, Weedman, Meijering)? Both readings are set out with their advocates named.
Files in This Section
| File | Description |
|---|---|
| The Trinitarian Synthesis | Hilary’s place between the Greek and Latin Trinitarian traditions; his vocabulary and the Latin reception of homoousios; eternal generation and mutual indwelling (John 10:38; 14:10); and his reception by Augustine and the later Fathers. |
| Christology and the Passion | The contested passages on Christ’s suffering and impassibility (De Trin. 10.23, 10.35); both the “docetic tendency” reading and the “defensible voluntary-passion” reading, with named scholars (METHODOLOGY §4). |
See Also
- The Twelve Books on the Trinity — the work in which the synthesis is built
- Exegesis Against Arianism — the forma servi framework underlying the Christology
- A Western Father in the Orthodox Calendar — the Eastern reception of this Latin Father
- Sources and Assessment — the sober overall estimate of his stature
- The Holy Trinity — the dogma at the heart of his synthesis
- The Nicene Creed — the confession he rendered into Latin theology
References
- Hilary of Poitiers. On the Trinity (De Trinitate). Trans. E. W. Watson et al., Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series II, Vol. 9. New York: Christian Literature Company, 1899.
- Augustine of Hippo. On the Trinity 6.10; Against Julian (Contra Iulianum) 1.3.9.
- Beckwith, Carl L. Hilary of Poitiers on the Trinity. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008.
- Weedman, Mark. The Trinitarian Theology of Hilary of Poitiers. Leiden: Brill, 2007.
- Meijering, E. P. Hilary of Poitiers on the Trinity: De Trinitate 1, 1–19, 2, 3. Leiden: Brill, 1982.
- Hanson, R. P. C. The Search for the Christian Doctrine of God. Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1988.