Fragmenta Minora

V. FRAGMENTA MINORA. FROM THE BOOK AGAINST CONSTANTIUS. Hilary also, a man of keen intellect, writing to the emperor Constantius concerning the incarnation of the Lord, speaks thus: The Son, he says, of God, having become man, is God. And reversing the order, he repeats: God, having become the Son of man, is God — for man became God, not God became man — and the Son of man became the Son of God. For the greatness of Christ the Lord overcame the smallness of the servile form, so that the servile form itself, which He assumed, ceased to be servile through the Lord who assumed it. For if those who are not by nature sons of God become sons of God through Him, how much more does He Himself, who is by nature the Son of God, so exalt this one, with whom by His own will He was conceived and born from the virginal womb, into God, that in His name every knee bends — of the celestial, terrestrial, and infernal beings — and every tongue confesses that the Lord Jesus Christ is in the glory of God the Father.

From the Treatises on Job. In a certain homily on the book of holy Job, note what he says, how he asserts that the unceasing war of the devil himself against us arises from this, when he stirs up against us those evils which are within us, which he wishes to teach are turned to our benefit, namely by divine mercy converting the malice of the devil to our purification: For so great and so admirable, he says, is the goodness of God’s mercy toward us, that through him by whose envy we lost the nobility of that first and blessed creation in the offense of Adam, through him again, he says, we lost, we deserve to obtain. For then the devil harmed by envying, but now, when he tries to harm, he is overcome. For he moves through the weakness of our flesh all the weapons of his power, when he inflames to lust, when he entices to drunkenness, when he goads to hatred, when he provokes to avarice, when he incites to murder, when he exasperates to curses.

but when the creeping incitements of all these are repressed by the firmness of the mind, we are cleansed from sin through the glory of this victory; for it is said thus: "Or how will one born of woman cleanse himself?" because if the enemy does not stand, there will be no war, and with the war ceasing, victory will be absent. Without achieving victory over the vices that contend against us, there will be no cleansing from vices, because we are purified by the struggle of the passions contending against us, with the pirate of our body overcome. Therefore, he says, let us be mindful and aware that these very bodies of ours are the material of all vices, through which, polluted and filthy, we hold nothing clean, nothing innocent in ourselves; let us rejoice that we have an enemy, in whose struggle we fight in a certain war of our own struggle. Also, what he records that he said: What letters had Job read, that he might abstain from every evil thing? Because he venerates God with a mind alone, unmixed with vices; and to worship God is the proper office of righteousness.

What would he have done? Job says, not what he would have accomplished in this world or without the grace of the Savior, whom he also prophesied, or would have done or accomplished. Saint Hilary says: Give us our daily bread today. For what does God so much desire as that Christ, who is the bread of life and the bread from heaven, dwell in us daily? And because the prayer is daily, it is also prayed daily that it be given. From the Commentary on Matthew. Likewise, from the same author, in the prologue of the exposition of the Gospel according to Matthew: For it was first necessary for us that the only-begotten God be known to have been born man for our sake. Likewise, in what follows: To that which was God, man, that which then was not, would be born. Likewise, in the same: Thirdly, it was then fitting that, since God born man in the world, and so forth. From the Exposition of the Epistle to Timothy. Therefore Saint Hilary, in the exposition of the Epistle to Timothy, speaks thus:

For when Scripture says "Christ is man" and when it says "Christ died" and when it says "the Word became flesh," the text is not to be stripped of its own meanings by the deceit of a reader. For where it says "Christ is man," it is preceded by: "mediator of God and men: from God a man, each one single, and between man and God a mediator by the confession in himself of both natures." Where it says "Christ died," it 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 his power, in his sitting with God his dignity. FROM AN UNCERTAIN WORK. Who does not know that the venerable Hilary, a Gallic bishop, was the most zealous defender of the Catholic Church against heretics? When he was dealing with the flesh of Christ, note what he said: "Therefore when he was sent," he says, "in the likeness of the flesh of sin, it is not that just as he had flesh, so also he had sin. But because all flesh is from sin, that is, derived from the parent Adam, he was sent in the likeness of the flesh of sin, there existing in him not sin, but the likeness of the flesh of sin.