THE SAINTS IN A YEAR: ST HILARY OF POITIERS AND THE IDENTITY OF CHRIST

Fr Billy Swan

I doubt if many of us have a devotion to St Hilary of Poitiers and yet, we are indebted to him for being Christian today.

Hilary was born in France at the beginning of the fourth century and was elected bishop of Poitiers in 350 AD. His time as bishop was marked by controversy and division as he sought to repel the growing spread of the Arian heresy that claimed that Jesus Christ was like a super-saint but was created by the Father and certainly not divine in the same degree as God. Hilary saw this heresy for what it was. For if Jesus was just a creature like us then he couldn’t save or redeem us. This was not about splitting theological hairs. Hilary and others knew that the whole of Christianity was at stake with this controversy.

As teacher of the apostolic faith proclaimed at the Council of Nicaea in 325 AD, Hilary devoted his whole life to defending faith in Jesus’ identity as con-substantial in divinity with the Father. Despite suffering exile many times for efforts, Hilary is credited by many with the preservation of the orthodox faith in France at the early stage of its development. This was recognised by the Church in 1851 when Pope Pius IX proclaimed him as Doctor of the Church.

Despite Hilary’s efforts, Arianism hasn’t gone away. During a visit to Turkey in November last year, Pope Leo XIV warned against a “new Arianism,” present in today’s culture and sometimes even among believers. The Holy Father spoke about modern tendencies that “admire Jesus on a merely human level, perhaps even with religious respect, yet not truly regarding him as the living and true God among us… His divinity, his lordship over history, is overshadowed, and he is reduced to a great historical figure, a wise teacher, or a prophet who fought for justice — but nothing more” (Cathedral of the Holy Spirit, Istanbul, 28^th November 2025). Like St Hilary did before him, Pope Leo takes us back to the orthodox faith of the Council of Nicaea that “reminds us that Jesus Christ is not a figure of the past; he is the Son of God present among us, guiding history toward the future promised by God”.

This warning by Pope Leo is timely. What this error looks like is that while Jesus of Nazareth is accepted as one of the greatest leaders and figures of history, he was one among many human beings who lived, made an impact and died. We remember him and his legacy in history but nothing more.

Jesus certainly did show us how to live ethical lives, but he did far more. As God, Jeus became human and became the Saviour we needed to save us from sin, death and every form of dysfunction. If Jesus was only human and merely an external example to be copied, he could not do this as God. But by the power of his Holy Spirit, the saving power of God has been offered to us through faith in Jesus Christ and the sacraments of the Church. And by the power of that same Spirit, Jesus penetrates our humanity, uniting himself to our nature, in order to conform our nature to His.

This is why the divinity of Jesus that St Hilary insisted on, is so important today and is truly something alive and dangerous. For to admit that Jesus is divine is to admit his absolute authority over our lives, both private and public. It is the divine Christ that has come to kill in us what is selfish and wounded, changing us into people of greater love who resemble himself.

All of these insights that have been distilled through the Church for centuries, began with people like St Hilary who defended the divinity of Jesus while holding onto the fullness of his humanity. Historically the British Church was influenced by the French Church and Irish Church influenced by the British Church. Therefore, without Hilary, we might all be Arian today or have drifted into a vague admiration of Jesus but nothing more. This is not Christianity. For this reason, we owe St Hilary a debt of gratitude.