Christ, Whose properties as incarnate are thus described by Hilary, is one Person. This, of course, needs no proof, but something must be said of the use which he makes of the doctrine. It is by Christ’s own work, by an act of power, even of violence Tr. in Ps.lxviii. 4. The unity is also strongly put in Trin. viii. 13, x. 61., exercised by Him upon Himself, that the two natures are inseparably associated in Him; so inseparably that between His death and resurrection His Divinity was simultaneously present with each of the severed elements of His humanity Trin. x. 34. This was Hilary’s deliberate belief. But in earlier life he had written rashly of the Holy Spirit (i.e. God the Son) surrendering His humanity to be tempted, and of the cry upon the Cross ‘testifying the departure of God the Word from Him’ (Comm. in Matt. iii. 1, xxxiii. 6). This, if it had represented Hilary’s teaching in that treatise would have proved it heretical; but the whole tenour of the commentary proves that this was simply carelessness. In the Homilies on the Psalms he also writes somewhat loosely on occasion; e.g. liii. 4 fin., where he mentions Christ’s former nature, i.e. the Divinity, and ib. 5, where he speaks of ‘Him Who after being God (ex Deo) had died as man.’ But only malevolence could give an evil interpretation to these passages, delivered as they were for the edification of Hilary’s flock, and with no thought of theological accuracy. It is, indeed, quite possible that they were never revised, or even intended, for publication by him.. Hence, though Hilary frequently discriminates between Christ’s utterances as God and as Man E.g. Trin. ix. 6, and often in the Homilies on the Psalms, as cxxxviii. 13., he never fails to keep his reader’s attention fixed upon the unity of His Person. And this unity is the more obvious because, as has been said, the Manhood in Christ is dominated by the Godhead. Though we are not allowed to forget that He is truly Man, yet as a rule Hilary prefers to speak in such words as, ‘the only-begotten Son of God was crucified Tr. in Ps. liii. 12.,’ or to say more briefly, ‘God was crucified loc. cit..’ Judas is ‘the betrayer of God Tr. in Ps. cxxxix. 15.;’ ‘the life of mortals is renewed through the death of immortal God Trin. x. 63. Similarly in Tr. in Ps. lxvii. 2l, he speaks of ‘the passion, the cross, the death, the burial of God.’.’ Such expressions are far more frequent than the balanced language, ‘the Passion of Jesus Christ, our God and Lord Trin. in Ps. liii. 4.,’ and these again than such an exaltation of the manhood as ‘the Man Jesus Christ, the Lord of Majesty Trin. ix. 3..’ But once, in an unguarded moment, an element of His humanity seems to be deified. Hilary never says that Christ’s body is God, but he speaks of the spectators of the Crucifixion ‘contemplating the power of the soul which by signs and deeds had proved itself God Tr. in Ps. cxli. 4. There is no evidence that the text is corrupt, though the words as they stand are rank Apollinarianism, and the more significant as dating from the maturity of Hilary’s thought. But here, as often, we must remember that the Homilies are familiar addresses..’