It has been said that the practical teaching of Hilary is that of Cyprian. But this is not a literary debt The account of exorcism given on Ps. 64, § 10, suggests Cyprian, Ad. Don. 5, but the subject is such a commonplace that nothing definite can be said.; the writer to whom almost all the exegesis is due, by borrowing of substance or of method, is Origen, except where the spirit of the fourth century has been at work. Yet other authors have been consulted, and this not only for general information, as in the case, already cited, of the elder Pliny, but for interpretation of the Psalms. For instance, a strange legend concerning Mount Hermon is cited on Psalm 132, § 6, from a writer whose name Hilary does not know; and on Psalm 133, § 4, he has consulted several writers and rejects the opinion of them all. But these authorities, whoever they may have been, were of little importance for his purpose in comparison with Origen. Still we can only accept Jerome’s assertion that the Homilies are translated from Origen in a qualified sense. Hilary was writing for the edification of his own flock, and was obliged to modify much that Origen had said if he would serve their needs, for religious thought had changed rapidly in the century which lay between the two, and a mere translation would have been as coldly received as would a reprint of some commentary of the age of George II. to-day. And Hilary’s was a mind too active and independent to be the slave of a traditional interpretation. We must, therefore, expect to find a considerable divergence; and we cannot be surprised that Hilary, as he settled down to his task, grew more and more free in his treatment of Origen’s exegesis.