Hilary the Bishop

Hilary, bishop of Poitiers in Aquitaine, was a member of the party of Saturninus, bishop of Arles. Banished to Phrygia by the Synod of Béziers, he wrote twelve books Against the Arians, and another book On Councils, written to the bishops of Gaul, and Commentaries on the Psalms, that is, on the first and second, on the fifty-first to the sixty-second, and on the one hundred eighteenth to the end of the book. In this work he imitated Origen, but he also added some matter of his own. [a]

There is a little book of his To Constantius, which he presented to the emperor while he was living at Constantinople, and another On Constantius, which he wrote after the emperor’s death. There is also a book Against Valens and Ursacius, containing a history of the councils of Ariminum and Seleucia; To Sallust the Prefect, or Against Dioscorus; a book of Hymns and Mysteries; a commentary On Matthew; and treatises On Job, which he translated freely from the Greek of Origen. There is also another elegant little work Against Auxentius, and Letters to various people. They say he wrote On the Song of Songs, but this work is not known to us. He died at Poitiers in the reign of Valentinian and Valens.