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.