been as small as the results of his diplomacy. It is not his practical share, in word or deed, in the conflicts of his day that is his chief title to fame, but his independence and depth as a Christian thinker. He has, indeed, exerted an important influence upon the growth of ii doctrine, but it has been through the adoption of his views by Augustine and Ambrose; and many who have profited by his thoughts have never known who was their author. Hilary of Poitiers, the most impersonal of writers, is so silent about himself, he is so rarely mentioned by contemporary writers—in all the voluminous works of Athanasius he is never once named,—and the ancient historians of the Church knew so little concerning him beyond what we, as well as they, can learn from his writings, that nothing more than a very scanty narrative can be constructed from these, as seen in the light of the general history of the time and combined with the few notices of him found elsewhere. But the account, though short, cannot be seriously defective. Apart from one or two episodes, it is eminently the history of a mind, and of a singularly consistent mind, whose antecedents we can, in the main, recognise, and whose changes of thought are few, and can be followed. He was born, probably about the year 300 a.d.3, and almost certainly, since he was after- wards its bishop, in the town, or in the district dependent upon the town, by the name of which he is usually styled. Other names, beside Hilarius, he must have had, but we do not know them. The fact that he has had to be distinguished by the name of his see, to avoid confusion with his namesake of Arles, the contemporary of St. Augustine, shews how soon and how thoroughly personal details concerning him were forgotten. The rank of his parents must have been respectable at least, and perhaps high; so much we may safely assume from the education they gave him. Birth in the Gallic provinces during the fourth century brought with it no sense of provincial inferiority. Society was thoroughly Roman, and education and literature more vigorous, so far as we can judge, than in any other part of the West. The citizen of Gaul and of Northern Italy was, in fact, more in the centre of the world’s life than the inhabitant of Rome. Gaul was in the West what Roman Asia was in the East, the province of decisive importance, both for position and for wealth. And in this prosperous and highly civilised community the opportunities for the highest education were ample. We know, from Ausonius and otherwise, how complete was the provision for teaching at Bordeaux and elsewhere in Gaul. Greek was taught habitually as well as Latin. In fact, never since the 3 The latest date which I have seen assigned for his birth is 320, by Fechtrup, in Wetzer-Welte’s Encyclopædia. But this is surely inconsistent with his styling Ursacius and Valens, in his first Epistle to Constantine, ‘ignorant and unprincipled youths.’ This was written about the year 355 before Hilary knew much of the Arian controversy or the combatants, and was ludicrously inappropriate, for Ursacius and Valens were elderly men. He had found the words either in some of Athanasius’ writings or in the records of the Council of Sardica, and borrowed them without enquiry. He could not have done so had he been only some thirty-five years of age; at fifty-five they are natural enough. 7 The Life and Writings of St. Hilary of Poitiers.