Miren Aranzazu Aroztegi Esnaola: Exegesis of Jn 17:21 in Hilary of Poitiers: Relationship between the Eucharist, the Church and the salvation of all humanity.

 Hilary of Poitiers states that, by the incarnation, the Son of God assumes the entire humanity within His Body. This seems to be in contrast with the necessity of the Eucharist and the role of the Church. The paper aims at analysing the way Hilary solves such hermeneutic tension, in his exegesis of Jn 17:21, through the concepts of “profectus” and assumption. The latter does not exclusively take place in the moment of incarnation, once and forever, as an automatic incorporation of all humankind into the Body of Christ. Hilary understands that assumption rather responds to a “profectus”, a progress by which all men and women can be assumed by the Incarnate Verb, in a gradual way and according to the logic of time. He believes that such progress is initiated with the incarnation, by which the entire humanity has been enabled to be saved by Jesus Christ. From this moment onwards, each one can be born again within His Body through baptism, and be made “one thing” with Him through the Eucharist. Thus, those who eat His flesh are incorporated into the Body of Christ, which is the Church, the only way to reach God. In addition, Hilary strongly defends the unity of nature between the Father and the Son as the model of unity for all humankind. In fact, he considers the “profectus” as a progress of each human being towards his or her unity with the Father, which will only be fully reached in the final resurrection.

Janet Sidaway: Liminal or subliminal? Perceptions of the Transfiguration and Ascension in the fourth century West.

The concept of “liminality”, although technically referring only to a threshold, has come to imply an undefinable “no-man’s land”: when something is “in- between” either physical or metaphysical states, or “both one thing and another”, or perhaps “either one thing or the other”, and occasionally, “neither one thing nor the other”. The ambiguity inherent in the term makes it particularly appropriate to use when interpreting the mysterious episodes of the Transfiguration and Ascension. The paper will examine how the liminality of these narratives was interpreted by three writers in the fourth century: Hilary of Poitiers (the first known interpreter of the Transfiguration in the West), Jerome and Ambrose. It will assess the extent to which these interpretations were either shaped by, or in their turn shaped, the Christological assumptions which ultimately influenced the Chalcedonian definition of the two natures of Christ, and set them in the context of their subordinationist and modalist opponents who rejected such an approach.

Jesús Ma Aguiñaga: Destino último del hombre y del mundo en los Tractatus super Psalmos de Hilario de Poitiers

La presente investigación se originó en base a la posible conexión entre Hilario de Poitiers y Marcelo de Ancira a través del argumento escatológico. La Instructio Psalmorum —que abre los Tractatus super Psalmos del Pictaviense— presenta los criterios, metodología y principios exegéticos con los que Hilario comenta los Salmos. La Instructio siguiendo las huellas de Orígenes, señala una división tripartita del Salterio.
A la luz de la temática de la segunda y tercera cincuentena sálmica, señaladas por el Obispo, se abordó la investigación buscando individuar y sistematizar una lectura escatológica en el contenido del Tractatus super Psalmos desde el conjunto de la obra hilariana.
En base a la problemática surgen los objetivos específicos de este estudio:
1. Definición y descripción de escatología en Hilario.
2. La estructuración del pensamiento escatológico a partir de su exégesis.
3. Descripción del tiempo de la Jerusalén santa y celeste.
4. Especificación de la crítica hilariana al obispo de Ancira en la temática de la investigación.
La lectura cronológica de las obras, el método compositivo y el analítico–comparativo centrado en el vocabulario y expresiones del autor, permiten individuar la unidad teológica que permanece en el conjunto de la obra y la evolución del pensamiento escatológico que se corona con los Tractatus super Psalmos. La justificación del argumento y el título de la investigación, se ancla en los conceptos consummo, consummatio y consummatus, –a, –um, que tienen su fuente en la Escritura.

Jarred Mercer: Vox infantis, vox Dei: the spirituality of children and being Christian in late antiquity

The study of children and childhood in late antiquity is a bourgeoning field. Studies to this point have focused primarily on socio-cultural conditions surrounding children in early Christianity or Late Antiquity generally, such as the education of children, children in relation to violence, liturgical practice, play, the child-parent relationship, abortion, infanticide, etc. (e.g. Clark (1994); Leyerle (1997); Bakke (2005); Horn and Martens, (2009); Horn and Phenix (2009)). This paper seeks to contribute to this fascinating area of research by exploring the spirituality of children (an important contemporary issue in theology and religious studies, psychology and anthropology which has not yet taken root in late antiquity studies) and how it functions in early Latin Christian perspectives on conversion and spiritual life, in other words, on becoming and being Christian.

Early Christians relied often upon the words of Jesus in Matthew 18.3 (‘unless you are converted and become like little children, you will not enter the kingdom of God’) as a model for Christian conversion and holiness: Being Christian is about becoming like a little child, so that Leo could write: ‘Christ loves infancy, master of humility, rule of innocence, model of gentleness’ (Sermo 8.3). Predominantly, the metaphor of childhood is interpreted morally, to promote a return of the Christian to the child’s outward existence of ‘innocence’. The child’s lack of concern for status, wealth, and, perhaps most often, sexual lust (e.g. Tert. De mon. 8) is held up as an exemplum of Christian virtue. However, there are texts which imply that the image of the child went beyond a passive outward example of the virtuous life. For Hilary of Poitiers, this return to childhood involves a resemblance, image, or vision of the humility of Christ himself (speciem humilitatis dominicae), and this speciem is a return to the very nature of childhood (In Matth. 18.1: reuersos in naturam puerorom). There is a sense here in which the spirituality of children, the child’s natural relation to God, and not only moral innocence of humility, is the goal of the Christian life. This paper will explore this primarily through investigating the role of the vox infantis in Christian conversion and identity formation. There are critical points in the lives of some early Christians, such as Augustine’s conversion and the consecration of both Ambrose and Martin of Tours as bishops, in which the voice of a child is accepted as the voice of God itself. The authority given to the voice of the child over the Christian and how these Christians are seen to manifest the journey of return to childhood in obedience to it, teach us something about the role the childhood metaphor of Jesus played in early Latin Christianity. To follow the voice of the child is to follow God’s own voice and, particularly with the christological connection mentioned above (what François Bovon (1999) has called ‘christology of the child’), this perhaps demonstrates that, from the perspective of these texts, in order for one to be Christian she must ‘convert and become like a child’ because God himself is childlike.

Janet Sidaway: Deification as Anthropophany: Hilary of Poitiers' Original Interpretation of the Exchange Formula

This paper examines an aspect of Hilary's theology that has been all but ignored: his emphasis on the full humanity of the incarnate Christ as the means whereby humankind attains the glory originally planned for it. Through this he suggests that the two phrases commonly known as the ‘exchange formula'- the ‘unassumed is the unhealed' and ‘God became man so man could become God'- are not interchangeable but sequential.

William Tabbernee - Exiled to Pepouza: Consorting Unwillingly with Heretical Montanists

In the mid-fourth century C.E., a number of prominent western bishops were exiled to Phrygia in Asia Minor by Constantius II.  These bishops included Hilary of Poitiers and Paulinus of Trier.  According to Hilary, Paulinus, through his exile, was forced from Christian society to be polluted from contact with heretics from “the den of Montanus and Priscilla” (In Constant. 1.11).  Perhaps Paulinus may have been exiled to Pepouza itself, the administrative and pilgrimage center of the Montanist movement.  Exile to Pepouza was certainly the lot of Aetius of Antioch, the early leader of Anomoean Arianism (Philostorgius, Hist. eccl. 4.8).  

The ancient site of Pepouza has recently been discovered, by an international team led by the author of this paper. The discovery included a rock-cut monastery, 1.2 kilometers west of the city.  This paper provides archaeological details of the monastery and discusses various possibilities regarding the origins of the monastery.  One of these possibilities is that, regardless of its later functions, the large rock-cut structure may have provided hospitality for exiles such as Aetius and, perhaps, Paulinus, forcing them, because of its geographical location, to have contact against their will with the Montanists who lived in Pepouza or who visited the city as Montanist pilgrims and whom they considered to be dangerous heretics.  

Lesley-Anne Dyer - The Twelfth-Century Influence of Hilary of Poitiers on Richard of St. Victor’s De Trinitate

In recent years, books by Mark Weedman and Carl Beckwith on Hilary of Poitiers’ De Trinitate have encouraged patristics scholars to think anew about the nature and importance of Hilary’s contribution to Pro-Nicene Christianity. The struggle to know how to approach this text was shared by medieval scholars. While John Cavadini has discussed the use of Hilary by orthodox Carolingian scholars like Alcuin, Madigan has shown that high medieval scholars wrestled to reconcile the testimony of Augustine that Hilary was important with the questionable theology that they found in his text. The twelfth-century author, Peter Lombard compiles many quotations from Hilary, but these quotations are the source of multiple questions in the commentaries of Albert the Great, Thomas Aquinas, and Bonaventure. There are also reports that Gilbert of Poitiers, who was condemned in the twelfth century for his Trinitarian theology, studied “with” Hilary of Poitiers. It has been surmised that such language is figurative and refers to Gilbert’s reading of Hilary.

My paper examines a unique use of Hilary’s Trinitarian thought by the twelfth-century theologian, Richard of St. Victor, whose De Trinitate was revered and used for its orthodoxy throughout the scholastic period. Mark Weedman has argued that one of the key contributions that Hilary of Poitiers made to Pro-Nicene theology in the patristic period was his shift of discussion away from the eternity of generation towards the eternity of the divine substance. He also clearly connects divine eternity with divine infinity in a way that is unusual. My research has shown a remarkably similarity between this aspect of Hilary of Poitiers’ theology and one of Richard’s major Trinitarian improvements upon Anselm’s Perfect Being Theology, which was the explicit connection of the co-eternity of the Trinitarian persons with the aseity of the divine substance. This paper, therefore, explores one of the major positive influences of Hilary’s thought upon the medieval development of orthodox Trinitarian theology.

paola francesca moretti - Not only ianua diaboli. A short overview on the role played by the Bible in the Latin fathers’ discourse about women.

In my paper I will present a short overview on the multifarious use of the Bible in the construction of female gender model by the Latin fathers (III-IV centuries). I will dwell not only on authors whose importance for this subject is taken for granted (Ambrosiaster), but also on less obvious ones, such as Hilarius of Poitiers and Ambrose of Milan.

Sometimes passages of the Scripture (mostly from Genesis and Paul’s epistles) are commented upon as a whole, in order to affirm female’s subordination to male, or – more seldom – equivalence between the two; in other cases single verses of the Bible are just referred to, in order to embellish female positive or negative portraits, as e.g. happens in texts belonging to the genre de cultu feminarum.  

In this overview we will often be confronted with inconsistent and somewhat contradictory views, often expressed in passages by the same author. 

The reason for this is that the Fathers’ discourse about women both aims at shaping the Christians’ perception of female and, at the same time, «responds to what happens» (cf. G. Clark, Women in Late Antiquity, Oxford 1993). And the Bible, with its text, provides support for both of these aims.

Michael Williams - Auxentius of Milan: From Orthodoxy to Heresy

The aim of this paper is to re-examine the evidence for the position of Auxentius of Milan against the background of the ongoing debates and shifting definitions of orthodoxy and heresy in the middle decades of the fourth century AD. Our evidence regarding Auxentius’ doctrinal stance can be divided into two (overlapping) categories. Firstly there are the claims and accusations of Athanasius and those who aligned themselves with him, of which the pre-eminent example is the Contra Auxentium of Hilary of Poitiers; and secondly there is the identification of Auxentius as playing a leading role in the 359 Council of Ariminum, before his apparent condemnation by Damasus of Rome in 369. This, it must be admitted, is more than enough to suggest that Auxentius’ stated Christological beliefs were significantly different from what would become the orthodoxy of the western empire. Yet it may not be enough to establish him firmly as a standard-bearer for Arianism in the west. 

Thus recent work by Lewis Ayres and David Gwynn, among others, has recognised the instability and tendentiousness of many of the doctrinal labels applied to individuals in this period; and Gwynn in particular has emphasised the extent to which an idea of organised ‘Nicene’ or ‘Arian’ (and by extension ‘Neo-Arian’ or ‘Homoian’) parties or factions may be misleading. It is far from clear, therefore, that Auxentius can be regarded as having consciously adopted his doctrinal position in contradistinction to a predominant ‘Nicenism’ in the west, or indeed in Italy or in his own see of Milan. That he acquired his position with the support of the Arianising Constantius II is one thing; but that he retained it with the support of Valentinian I -- hardly a fierce supporter of the Arian interpretation -- would suggest that he had more than his beliefs in his favour. Similarly, we might pay less attention to Hilary’s claims in his Contra Auxentium than to his failure to persuade the people of Milan (or Valentinian) to dismiss their bishop. For all that hostile witnesses, in the fourth century and since, have sought to paint Auxentius as a fanatic, it seems possible that the evidence would allow a different image: of an Auxentius whose chief concern was not ideological but rather more pragmatic; whose doctrinal positions were those which were the most mainstream and authoritative of his time; and who enjoyed the support not only of emperors but perhaps also of a majority of his Milan congregation.

Jennifer Barry - “Exiles and Emperors: Hilary of Poitier's construction of the orthodox self”

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. 

Jarred Mercer: Vox infantis, vox Dei: the spirituality of children and being Christian in late antiquity

The study of children and childhood in late antiquity is a bourgeoning field. Studies to this point have focused primarily on socio-cultural conditions surrounding children in early Christianity or Late Antiquity generally, such as the education of children, children in relation to violence, liturgical practice, play, the child-parent relationship, abortion, infanticide, etc. (e.g. Clark (1994); Leyerle (1997); Bakke (2005); Horn and Martens, (2009); Horn and Phenix (2009)). This paper seeks to contribute to this fascinating area of research by exploring the spirituality of children (an important contemporary issue in theology and religious studies, psychology and anthropology which has not yet taken root in late antiquity studies) and how it functions in early Latin Christian perspectives on conversion and spiritual life, in other words, on becoming and being Christian.

Early Christians relied often upon the words of Jesus in Matthew 18.3 (‘unless you are converted and become like little children, you will not enter the kingdom of God’) as a model for Christian conversion and holiness: Being Christian is about becoming like a little child, so that Leo could write: ‘Christ loves infancy, master of humility, rule of innocence, model of gentleness’ (Sermo 8.3). Predominantly, the metaphor of childhood is interpreted morally, to promote a return of the Christian to the child’s outward existence of ‘innocence’. The child’s lack of concern for status, wealth, and, perhaps most often, sexual lust (e.g. Tert. De mon. 8) is held up as an exemplum of Christian virtue. However, there are texts which imply that the image of the child went beyond a passive outward example of the virtuous life. For Hilary of Poitiers, this return to childhood involves a resemblance, image, or vision of the humility of Christ himself (speciem humilitatis dominicae), and this speciem is a return to the very nature of childhood (In Matth. 18.1: reuersos in naturam puerorom). There is a sense here in which the spirituality of children, the child’s natural relation to God, and not only moral innocence of humility, is the goal of the Christian life. This paper will explore this primarily through investigating the role of the vox infantis in Christian conversion and identity formation. There are critical points in the lives of some early Christians, such as Augustine’s conversion and the consecration of both Ambrose and Martin of Tours as bishops, in which the voice of a child is accepted as the voice of God itself. The authority given to the voice of the child over the Christian and how these Christians are seen to manifest the journey of return to childhood in obedience to it, teach us something about the role the childhood metaphor of Jesus played in early Latin Christianity. To follow the voice of the child is to follow God’s own voice and, particularly with the christological connection mentioned above (what François Bovon (1999) has called ‘christology of the child’), this perhaps demonstrates that, from the perspective of these texts, in order for one to be Christian she must ‘convert and become like a child’ because God himself is childlike.

John Voelker - "Marius Victorinus' Remembrance of the Nicene Council"

As a Neo-Nicene who takes up the cause of the homoousios and tries to defend the cause of Nicaea in the late 350s against coalescing parties of Anti-Nicene theology, we would expect Marius Victorinus to know the details of the 325 council, and to clearly reproduce the 325 creed of Nicaea somewhere within the lengthy four books of Against Arius. But we do not find it anywhere within Against Arius or his other trinitarian treatises, making us wonder whether or not he actually knows it and has it at hand, even though he speaks at length twice in Against Arius about the significance of the 325 council.

   In Against Arius Victorinus quotes the 381-sounding formula of ‘one ousia in three hypostases,’ showing that he has an amazing grasp of currents in Eastern theology circa 362, but it is not clear whether or not Victorinus actually knows very much about the Nicene council or if Victorinus just has the ideal of Nicaea in his historical memory. He possibly possessed the text of the 325 creed, if he could quote the condemnations of Arius mentioned in the creed that had become commonplaces. But to quote a creed that had an embarassing modalist element would certainly serve against his interest, especially when among his stated opponents in arguing for the Neo-Nicene cause in the 350s are old Nicene figures such as Marcellus and Photinus. It was better to recreate a certain memory of Nicaea as a rallying standard of orthodoxy in the trinitarian definition finally emerging after the high-handed Anti-Nicene efforts that culminated in the brief Homoian supremacy of the last years of the 350s decade.

   This paper could be placed within the Arian-Nicene Trinitarian Controversy category that deals with other Latin Nicenes such as Phoebadius of Agen, Gregory of Elvira, Hilary of Poitiers and others.

Janet Sidaway: Hilary of Poitiers and Phoebadius of Agen: who influenced whom?

Hilary of Poitiers and Phoebadius of Agen were near contemporaries. Both were involved  in Gaul’s  opposition to “Arianism” , both contributed to the wider  theological debate by their  polemical writing,  and  both  were  present at the  two councils convened by Constantius in 359 in an attempt to formulate an agreed creed: Phoebadius at Rimini, Hilary at Seleucia. The similarities in their theological arguments in 358 have been noted from Feder onwards, although opinions vary on who influenced whom.

Despite the conflicting views, surprisingly little attention has been paid to the actual relationship between Hilary and Phoebadius. The paper argues that some overlap would have been likely anyway, given a shared Western inheritance, and probably similar educational background. Comparing Phoebadius’ Contra Arrianos with Hilary’s earlier books does however suggest an interdependence of ideas, most likely consolidated through their correspondence when Hilary was in exile in Phrygia. But what happened afterwards? If  Hilary had moved away from an homoousian to an homoiousian Christology under the influence of Basil of Ancyra,  as has been  argued recently, how would this have influenced Hilary’s subsequent relationship with  Phoebadius  and the latter’s position at Rimini and later councils which he attended or chaired?

The paper explores this relationship not through the usually cited De Trinitate but by  discussing the Christology  of Hilary’s other works, in particular the  polemical  In Constantium and Contra Auxentium, and suggests that Hilary’s Christology remained closer to  Phoebadius than is often alleged.