oric tend to conceal his personality. But the Homilies105on the Psalms, which would seem xli to have reached us in the notes of a shorthand writer, so artless and conversational is the style, shew us Hilary in another aspect. He is imparting instruction to his own familiar congregation; and he knows his people so well that he pours out whatever is passing through his mind. In fact, he seems often to be thinking aloud on subjects which interest him rather than addressing himself to the needs of his audience. Practical exhortation has, indeed, a much smaller space than mystical exegesis and speculative Christology. Yet abstruse questions are never made more obscure by involution of style. The language is free and flowing, always that of an educated man who has learnt facility by practice. And here, strange as it seems to a reader of the De Trinitate, he betrays a preference for poetical words106, which shews that his renunciation of such ornament elsewhere is deliberate. Yet, even here, he indulges in no definite reminiscences of the poets. There remains only one trace, though it is sufficient, of the original circumstances of delivery. The Homily on Psalm xiv. begins with the words, ‘The Psalm which has been read.’ The Psalms were sung as an act of worship, not read as a lesson, in the normal course of divine service; and therefore we must assume that the Psalm to be expounded was recited, by the rector or another, as an introduction to the Homily. We need not be surprised that such notices, which must have seemed to possess no permanent interest, have been edited away. Many of the Homilies are too long to have been delivered on one or even two occasions, yet the ascription of praise with which Hilary, like Origen, always concludes,107 has been omitted in every case except at the end of the whole discourse. This shews that Hilary himself, or more probably some editor, has put the work into its final shape. But this editing of the Homilies has not extended to the excision of the numerous repetitions, which were natural enough when Hilary was delivering each as a commentary complete in itself, and do not offend us when we read the discourse on a single Psalm, though they certainly disfigure the work when regarded as a treatise on the whole Psalter. 105 Tractatusought to be translated thus. It is the term, and the only term, used so early as this for the bishop’s address to the congregation; in fact, one might almost say that tractare, tractatus in Christian language had no other meaning. It is an anachronism in the fourth century to render prædicare by ‘preach;’ cf. Duchesne, Liber Pontificalis, i. 126. 106 E.g. fundamen, Tr. in Ps. cxxviii. 10, germen, cxxxiv. 1, revolubilis, ii. 23, peccamen, ii. 9 fin. and often. The shape of sentences, though simple, is always good; to take one test word, sæpe, which was almost if not quite extinct in common use, occurs fairly often near the end of a period, where it was needed for rhythm, which frequenter would have spoiled. Some Psalms, e.g. xiii., xiv., are treated more rhetorically than others. 107 Psalm li. is the only exception, due, no doubt, to careless transcription. The Homilies on the titles of Psalms ix. and xci. do not count; they are probably spurious, and in any case are incomplete, as the text of the Psalms is not discussed. 59 The Life and Writings of St. Hilary of Poitiers.