Since Alain Le Boulluec's seminal work on the “notion of heresy” in early Christianity, analyses of the discursive construction of orthodoxy and heresy have become standard scholarly fare. I hope to contribute to this discussion by calling attention to the role played by the topos of exile in the construction of competing orthodox identities in the fourth and fifth centuries. Specifically, this paper will examine two particularly revealing letters written by Hilary of Poitier during his exile to Phrygia in 356 C.E. These letters demonstrate how Hilary's claim to orthodoxy is contigent upon his portrayal of the Roman emperor Constantius II. In Ad Constantium (359), Hilary sympathetically aligns himself with the emperor—both figures find themselves victims of Arian deception. Hilary's exile is used as an example of how the heretics prey upon the orthodox by deceiving the ruling authorities. Conversely, in In Constantium (360 C.E), the emperor is depicted as a type of anti-Christ, while Hilary functions as a typological christos figure. In this letter, the emperor is vilified in order to defend the orthodoxy of the persecuted bishop. Hilary's exile is no longer the singular fault of the heretics, but the result of the collusion between the emperor and the heretics. The two contrasting representations exhibit the aggressive strategies used by Hilary to preserve his orthodoxy—he insists throughout all of his letters written during his exile that he remains a bishop. Hilary's literary performance helpfully reveals how orthodox subjectivities viewed through the lens of exile expose the liminal space within which the late ancient bishop operates. While the bishop is firmly seated in his episcopal throne his political vulnerability is heavily masked by his position of power; but when the bishop is physically removed from that locus of power under charges of heresy, he must lean on other identity claims to secure his orthodoxy.
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