Hilary of Poitiers is a relatively underappreciated figure in the history of Christian doctrine. Though his association with Basil of Ancyra, a homoiousian theologian, caused his own contemporaries to doubt his theological credentials, his thought came to find an authoritative place in later pro-Nicene Latin theology. Scholars often remark that in book 6 of his De Trinitate, Augustine would have to tread lightly in respectfully disagreeing with Hilary, ‘a man of no small authority in the interpretation of the scriptures and the defense of the faith’ (De Trinitate 6.11; trans. Hill, p. 213). Access to Hilary's mature expression of pro-Nicene theology has proved less tenable than those who would take Augustine seriously might hope. One of the chief reasons for such inaccessibility is the apparent inscrutability of the final form of Hilary's De Trinitate. Its confusing internal inconsistencies and the obscure chronology of its production have baffled scholars, resulting in an unsatisfactory assessment of its structure and a dearth of clear theological analysis of the work as a whole.
Carl Beckwith's Hilary of Poitiers on the Trinity aims to correct this situation. The monograph falls into three parts. Part I situates Hilary's career in the mid-fourth-century scuffles over the divinity of the Son, from Nicaea (325) through the Western Synods in the 350s to what Hilary calls the ‘Blasphemy of Sirmium’ in 357. Part II lays out Beckwith's novel proposal regarding the structure and chronology of De Trinitate, and part III elaborates Hilary's ‘theological method’, which grounds his mature expression of pro-Nicene theology.
Scholars have long considered Hilary's De Trinitate to be a composite work, the assumption being that books 1–3 were originally written as De Fide, and books 4–6 comprise Hilary's work Adversus Arianos. Beckwith argues that in 358 Hilary, during his exile to the East and following his encounter with Basil of Ancyra's homoiousian theology, reconsidered what he had written up to that point (books 2–6 of De Trinitate). He then wrote what is now ‘book 1’, not as an introduction to De Fide, but as an introduction to De Trinitate 2–7. He also added prefaces to books 2–6 in order to give the work an integrated appearance. In the process, he would use Basil's anti-Photinian exegesis even as he distanced himself from Basil's homoiousian theology, all to serve his own pro-Nicene (i.e. non-homoiousian) ends. In this way, Beckwith hopes to have shown how Hilary was a flexible and original thinker.
Beckwith, armed with the insight that book 1 of De Trinitate was not originally a preface to De Fide, but an introduction to the entirety of De Trinitate, agues that ‘Book One . . . sets forward a theological method, used throughout the treatise, on how we are to approach the mystery of God’ (p. 158). Since he has already presented detailed textual and thematic analyses linking book 7 to book 1 and Hilary's new prefaces (chapters 4–6), Beckwith's case for book 1's independence from books 2–6 is compelling. Hilary argues that the approach to pro-Nicene faith involves the subordination of reason to the regula fidei and the use of scripture as a normative intellectual resource. Hilary's revised work addresses concerns from critics that he had advocated a ‘simple and unreflective faith’ (p. 171). He offers ratio caelestis as a kind of faith which does not abandon reason but orders it (p. 185). Beckwith suggests that Hilary, knowing his opponents could advocate for the use of faith and scripture as fundamental norms for their own thinking, recommended a deeper prerequisite for pro-Nicene doctrine: knowledge of one's own mortality and the fear of death. This would lead to a search for ‘an answer that says death is not the . . . purpose of human life’, which scripture readily provides when read in light of a pro-Nicene doctrine of the equality of the Son with the Father (p. 208).
In Beckwith's hands, the thick woods of Hilary's dogmatic contributions become more navigable than they had been previously. Hilary of Poitiers on the Trinity's subterranean repetitiveness owes its original form to a dissertation (Notre Dame), but such a minor vice produces the greater virtues of clarity, cogency and consistency. One of the most important tasks for the historian of doctrine is to identify the polemical horizons of theological texts whose opponents are intentionally masked. To do so is a tedious, often thankless task, but it is essential if modern readers of ancient doctrinal treatises are to gain anything more significant than a naïve brush with theological greatness. Beckwith's work is a model for those who would go and do likewise. Theological scholars interested in Hilary as a pro-Nicene resource, both in the fourth century and now, will want to consider his proposals.
