09 — Veneration and Legacy
The afterlife of Hilary: his death at Poitiers (c. 367), the great pilgrimage church of Saint-Hilaire-le-Grand and the fate of his relics through the Wars of Religion and the Revolution; and a sober inventory and assessment of his works as primary sources and of his stature — “the Athanasius of the West,” pivotal yet under-read, his Latin famously difficult and his conciliatory and Christological positions long debated.
Tradition: Pan-Orthodox (pre-Schism West; Church Father)
The final section closes the circle. The first file follows the cult: Hilary’s death and burial at Poitiers, the basilica of Saint-Hilaire-le-Grand that rose over his tomb and became a station on the road to Compostela, the medieval cult and its legends — the daughter Abra, the snake-banishing on Gallinaria — pinned to their late attestation, and the scattering of his relics in the religious wars of the sixteenth century and the Revolution. The second file steps wholly into the scholar’s chair: an inventory of his authentic corpus and the doubtful attributions, the state of the critical editions, and an honest estimate of his importance and his limits. Together they hand the reader the documentary basis of everything claimed in this collection, with the confidence level of each claim made legible.
Files in This Section
| File | Description |
|---|---|
| Relics, Feast, and Cult | Hilary’s death (c. 367); Saint-Hilaire-le-Grand at Poitiers and the pilgrimage cult; the legends of Abra and the serpent-banishing pinned to their late sources; and the fate of the relics through the Wars of Religion and the Revolution. |
| Sources and Assessment | An inventory of the authentic and doubtful corpus; the critical editions (CCSL, SC, CSEL); and a sober assessment of Hilary’s stature, his difficult Latin, and the criticisms his work has drawn. |
See Also
- Bishop of Poitiers — the see whose cult this section follows
- The Commentaries — works inventoried in the assessment
- The First Latin Hymnographer — the disputed hymns weighed here
- A Western Father in the Orthodox Calendar — the veneration whose cult this section traces
- The Church Fathers — Hilary’s place in the patristic canon
- The Pre-Schism Church — the undivided Church that venerates him
References
- Venantius Fortunatus. Vita Sancti Hilarii and Liber de virtutibus Sancti Hilarii. (The earliest, legend-bearing Life, sixth century.)
- Jerome. On Illustrious Men (De Viris Illustribus) 100; Epistle 58.10. Trans. in Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series II, Vols. 3 and 6.
- Hilary of Poitiers. Opera. CCSL 61, 61A, 61B, 62, 62A; Collectanea Antiariana Parisina, ed. A. Feder, CSEL 65.
- Beckwith, Carl L. Hilary of Poitiers on the Trinity. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008.
- Hanson, R. P. C. The Search for the Christian Doctrine of God. Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1988.