Voices and influences
Hilary of Poitiers
He reasoned his way to God, met the prologue of John, and became the West's hammer against Arianism — exiled to Asia Minor for it.
Summary
This site quotes Hilary of Poitiers 40 times across 9 books, and lists 0 works.
- Lived died 367.
- Quoted here most in Matthew: 16 of 40.
Hilary of Poitiers
- Lived
- died 367
- Tradition
- Patristic
5 of 40 quotations
Own words
Quoted in full, because Hilary of Poitiers died in 367 and these works are out of copyright. Each citation below names its edition and its year. A citation naming a modernised text means that edition makes its own editorial changes, and that edition's terms are not in this site's record.
Be with me now in thy faithful spirit, holy and blessed Patriarch Jacob, to combat the poisonous hissings of the serpent of unbelief. Prevail once more in thy wrestling with the Man, and, being the stronger, once more entreat His blessing.
The rest of the quotation
Why pray for what thou mightest demand from thy weaker Opponent? Thy strong arm has vanquished Him Whose blessing thou prayest. Thy bodily victory is in broad contrast to thy soul's humility, thy deeds to thy thoughts.
Genesis 32:28 Then the man said, “Your name will no longer be Jacob, but Israel, because you have struggled with God and with men, and you have prevailed.” BSB
[Christ] offered himself to the death of the accursed that he might break the curse of the Law, offering himself voluntarily a victim to God the Father, in order that by means of a voluntary victim the curse that attended the discontinuance of the regular…
HOMILY ON PSALM 53(54).13, 367
The rest of the quotation
victim might be removed. Now of this sacrifice mention is made in another passage of the psalms: "Sacrifice and offering you did not desire, but a body have you prepared for me"; that is, by offering to God the Father, who refused the legal sacrifices, the acceptable offering of the body that he received.
Psalms 40:6 Sacrifice and offering You did not desire, but my ears You have opened. Burnt offerings and sin offerings You did not require. BSB
The obvious thing for the Prophet to say was, O God, hear me. But because he is speaking as the mouthpiece of Him, Who alone knew how to pray, we are given a constantly reiterated demand that prayer shall be heard. The words of St.
The rest of the quotation
Paul teach us that no man knows how he ought to pray: For we know not how to pray as we ought.
Psalms 54:2 Hear my prayer, O God; listen to the words of my mouth. BSB
The introduction of a pause marks a change of person. He no longer speaks but is addressed. For now the prophetic utterance assumes a general character.
The rest of the quotation
Thus immediately after the prayer addressed to God, he has added, in order that the confidence of the speaker might be understood to have obtained what He was asking even in the very moment of asking: Behold, God is My helper and the Lord is the upholder of My soul. He has requited evil unto Mine enemies.
Psalms 54:4 Surely God is my helper; the Lord is the sustainer of my soul. BSB
After this there is a return to the Person of God, to Whom the petition was at the first addressed: Destroy them by Your truth. Truth confounds falsehood, and lying is destroyed by truth.
The rest of the quotation
We have shown that the whole of the foregoing prayer is the utterance of that human nature in which the Son of God was born; so here it is the voice of human nature calling upon God the Father to destroy His enemies in His truth.
Psalms 54:5 He will reward my enemies with evil. In Your faithfulness, destroy them. BSB
Influence, on the record
This site quotes Hilary of Poitiers 40 times across 9 books.
This site’s own count of what it does with the voice
The life, in order
The life told as one accountfrom this site's record
Hilary was born at Poitiers in western Gaul about 310, into a wealthy pagan family, and given a full classical education. He came to God the long way — by thinking. He describes working through the question of what a life is for, rejecting the answers he had been given, arriving at the conviction that there must be one eternal, self-existent God, and then meeting the prologue of John's Gospel. He was married and had a daughter before he was baptized, probably in his thirties. Around 350 the people of Poitiers made him their bishop. The Arian controversy reached Gaul, and Hilary would not go along. He refused communion with Saturninus of Arles and the bishops backing the imperial line, and he wrote to the emperor Constantius asking for freedom for the church. In 356 Constantius exiled him to Phrygia in Asia Minor. The exile was the making of him. Cut off from his diocese but left free to read and write, Hilary learned Greek theology at its source and produced On the Trinity in twelve books — the first major Latin treatment of the doctrine, and the book that gave the West its vocabulary for it. He also wrote On the Councils, patiently explaining to Western bishops what the Eastern parties actually meant by their terms, and where the disagreement was real and where it was only language. It was an attempt to keep men from condemning each other over translation. He kept fighting from exile. He asked for a public debate with Saturninus. He attended the eastern council at Seleucia in 359. Finally he wrote Against Constantius, an unsparing attack on the emperor himself. The Eastern bishops concluded he was more trouble in their territory than in his own, and in 360 they sent him home — Sulpicius Severus says they returned the sower of discord to Gaul. In Gaul he did what no one expected: he led the churches back to the Nicene faith without a purge, receiving back bishops who had signed at Rimini rather than deposing them. Then he went to Milan with Eusebius of Vercelli to challenge the Arian bishop Auxentius. He wrote the first Latin hymns for congregations to sing, and commentaries on Matthew and the Psalms. Martin of Tours was his disciple. He died about 367, and Rome named him a Doctor of the Church in 1851. Jerome and Augustine both call him a defense of the church. Sources: Hilary of Poitiers, On the Trinity and historical fragments (Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, 2nd series, vol. 9); Jerome, On Illustrious Men, 100; Sulpicius Severus, Chronicle, book II; Philip Schaff, History of the Christian Church, vol. III.
40 quotations across 9 books
Where this voice is quoted
Sacrifice and offering You did not desire, but my ears You have opened. Burnt offerings and sin offerings You did not require.
“[Christ] offered himself to the death of the accursed that he might break the curse of the Law, offering himself voluntarily a victim to God the Father, in order that by means of a voluntary victim the curse that attended the discontinuance of the regular…”
Hear my prayer, O God; listen to the words of my mouth.
“The obvious thing for the Prophet to say was, O God, hear me. But because he is speaking as the mouthpiece of Him, Who alone knew how to pray, we are given a constantly reiterated demand that prayer shall be heard. The words of St.”
Surely God is my helper; the Lord is the sustainer of my soul.
“The introduction of a pause marks a change of person. He no longer speaks but is addressed. For now the prophetic utterance assumes a general character.”
He will reward my enemies with evil. In Your faithfulness, destroy them.
“After this there is a return to the Person of God, to Whom the petition was at the first addressed: Destroy them by Your truth. Truth confounds falsehood, and lying is destroyed by truth.”
Freely I will sacrifice to You; I will praise Your name, O LORD, for it is good.
“For next there follows: I will sacrifice unto You freely. The sacrifices of the Law, which consisted of whole burnt-offerings and oblations of goats and of bulls, did not involve an expression of free will, because the sentence of a curse was pronounced on all…”
This is my comfort in affliction, that Your promise has given me life. The arrogant utterly deride me, but I do not turn from Your law.
“We are instructed in all this, but the prophet has already experienced it. He says, "This hope has consoled me in my humility, for your word has given me life." The hope is the hope that God has implanted in him.”
Surely I have stilled and quieted my soul; like a weaned child with his mother, like a weaned child is my soul within me.
“Then he goes on: Like a weaned child upon his mother's breast, so will you reward my soul.”
O Israel, put your hope in the LORD, both now and forevermore.
“But he does not demand this living bread from heaven for himself alone, he encourages all mankind to hope for it by saying: Let Israel hope in the Lord from henceforth and for evermore.”
Where can I go to escape Your Spirit? Where can I flee from Your presence?
“In devout thoughts such as these my soul, engrossed in the pursuit of truth, took its delight. For it seemed that the greatness of God so far surpassed the mental powers of His handiwork, that however far the limited mind of man might strain in…”