While almost all of the works in this vault use Victorian translations, due to the only English translation of this commentary being in copyright, it was machine-translated (by Claude, 2026) from the public-domain Latin. It has not been checked by a human translator.
Hilary, bishop of Poitiers, Commentary on the Gospel of Matthew, written about 353–356, before his exile to the East. Chapter 17: Where He is seen on the mountain with Moses and Elias, and a voice is heard from heaven; where He sets free the lunatic boy; on the faith of believers; on the tribute money demanded; and on the stater in the fish’s mouth.
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Verily, verily I say unto you, There be some standing here, which shall not taste of death, till they see the Son of man coming in his kingdom. The Lord teaches both by deeds and by words: and word and work alike build up the faith of our hope. For He had laid a heavy burden on human weakness: that men, when they had begun to have the sense of life from the love of living, should give up the enjoyment of that life which, being present, pleased their bodies, and should deny themselves — that is, should be unwilling to be what they had begun to be, though the beginning of this feeling came to them from the disposition of their will; and should then follow the expectation of a hope that was doubtful and uncertain, while in the things they had present the allurements of a flattering joy were found. There was need, then, of the authority of a true and plain example, so that, against the force and feeling of their own judgment, the loss of present things might become desirable, the gain of things to come being thenceforth no longer doubtful. So, after He had warned them that the cross must be taken up, the life lost, and eternal life bought in exchange for the loss of the world, He turned to the disciples and said that there would be some of them who should not taste of death until they beheld the Son of man in the glory of His kingdom. And by the terms of “tasting” He shows that the faithful will have only a slight sip of death. And so the deed follows the words.
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For after six days Peter, James and John are taken apart, and stand on a high mountain; and while they look on, the Lord is transfigured, and shines all about with the whole appearance of His glory. And in this kind of deed a meaning, a number and an example are all kept. For after six days the appearance of the Lord’s glory is shown: that is, when the times of six thousand years have run their course, the honour of the heavenly kingdom is prefigured. And by the three who were taken, the future election of a people from the three origins, Sem, Cham and Japheth, is shown. And as for Moses and Elias standing by Him, out of the whole number of the saints: Christ stands in the kingdom between the Law and the prophets; for with these, by whose witness He was preached, He will judge Israel. And at the same time it was taught that the glory of the resurrection has been decreed for them in human bodies, since Moses stood there visible. And the Lord Himself becomes whiter than snow and the sun: shining, that is, with the splendour of a heavenly light beyond our imagining. And when Peter offered that three tabernacles should be made there, no answer is given: for it was not yet the time to abide in this glory.
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But while He yet spoke, a bright cloud overshadowed them, and they are surrounded by the Spirit of the divine power. The voice from the cloud declares that this is the Son, this the Beloved, this the One in whom He is well pleased, this the One to be heard: so that He might be a fit author of such precepts, who, after the loss of the world, after the willing cross, after the death of the body, had confirmed by the example of a deed the glory of the heavenly kingdom from the resurrection of the dead. Then He raised them up, terrified and dismayed as they were; and they see Him alone, whom they had seen standing between Moses and Elias. For Moses and Elias had stood on the mountain as the figure of what was to come and as proof of the deed. And He commands silence about the things they had seen until He Himself should rise from the dead: for this reward was being kept for faith, that the honour should be paid to those with whom the authority of the precepts alone should be found to weigh not lightly. For He had seen that they were weak at the hearing of the voice: so that, when they were filled with the Holy Spirit, they might then be witnesses of spiritual deeds.
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Being anxious also about the times of Elias, they ask about them. He answers them that Elias is to come and to restore all things, that is, that he will call back to the knowledge of God the remnant he finds of Israel. But He signifies that John had come in the power and spirit of Elias, on whom they had carried out every cruelty and harshness: so that, as he had foretold the Lord’s coming, he might also go before Him in His Passion by the example of insult and ill-usage.
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And when they were come to the multitude, there came to him a certain man, kneeling down to him, and saying, Lord, have mercy on my son. When the Lord returned to the multitudes, a boy possessed with a devil is brought to Him by his father on bended knees: one who often fell both into the water and into the fire, and whom the disciples had not been able to heal. When He had rebuked them, and rebuked the devil, the boy was made whole.
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The apostles had indeed believed: yet they were not yet of perfect faith. For while the Lord stayed on the mountain, and they themselves remained with the multitude, a certain lukewarmness had slackened their faith; and therefore He says, O faithless and perverse generation, how long shall I be with you? — because in His absence the habit of their old unbelief had crept upon them. He teaches, then, that those who, in the time between the Gospels and His second coming, fall away from the faith, as though the Lord were absent, can bring no salvation.
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Then, when they asked Him why they could not cast out the devil, He answered that it came from their want of faith that they could not: for if this were in them as a grain of mustard seed, they would command this mountain, with power to do it, to pass from one place to another. But He had already come down from the mountain, and was speaking these things among the multitudes. And so He called Himself the grain of mustard seed, the least of all, and named the devil the mountain: because in him are the spiritual wickednesses and the powers in heavenly places, which are to be cast out by those whom fasting and prayer accompany for this power, and thrown into the depth of the sea, as into the depth of hell.
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We shall keep the order here too, so that under the name of the disciples the person of the Pharisees and scribes is treated. To them, as to disciples, the Law brought the people to be healed, as a father brings his son, while the Lord was absent. The people, its sins having dominion over it, now fell into the fire of judgment, now was plunged into the water by the habit of its daily filth. These, then, brought no help: because while Moses stayed with the Lord on the mountain they had become unbelieving. And that the figurative meaning might be fulfilled, the disciples wonder that they could not cast out the devil, though all power had been granted them, not only of putting devils to flight but even of raising the dead. But because the Law would no longer be with them, He says, O faithless and perverse generation — He does not seem to say this to those whom He had sanctified — how long shall I be with you? Because, not having faith, they would lose even that Law which they had. And had they had that faith in themselves — since He Himself is the grain of mustard seed — they would, by the power of the word, have cast out this burden of sins, and the heavy mass of unbelief, from the people that was brought to them, and would have carried it over, like a mountain into the sea, to the way of life of the Gentiles and the world.
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And while they abode in Galilee, Jesus said unto them, The Son of man shall be betrayed into the hands of men. Sorrow follows the knowledge of the Passion: for the mystery of going to the cross had not yet been revealed by the power of the resurrection.
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And when they were come to Capernaum, they that received tribute money came to Peter. The Lord is asked to pay the didrachma: for the Law had appointed this for all Israel for the redemption of soul and body, in the service of those who ministered in the temple. But the Law, as we know, is a shadow of things to come. For God did not desire a price of brass, as though by so small an outlay some redemption from the sins of body and soul could be granted. So that we might offer ourselves in Christ, enrolled and professed and sealed with Christ’s name — in Christ, who is the true temple of God — this offering of the didrachma was appointed as a testimony to the Son of God.
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And so He forestalls Peter, who was silent after being approached, with these words: What thinkest thou, Simon? of whom do the kings of the earth take custom or tribute? and so on. Is there any doubt that the sons of kings are not liable to tribute, and that those to whom the inheritance of the kingdom belongs are free from servitude? But the saying reaches further in. The didrachma was being demanded of the people. For the Law is shut up into that faith which was to be revealed through Christ. So this same didrachma, by the custom of the Law, was being demanded of Christ as of a man. But to show that He was not subject to the Law, and to bear witness in Himself to the glory of His Father’s dignity, He set forth the example of an earthly privilege: that the sons of kings are not held to census or tribute; and that He is rather the Redeemer of our soul and body than one for whose redemption anything should be demanded; since the king’s son must be outside the community of the rest. So, to avoid offence, He agrees to pay; but He is free of the debt of the Law.
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Then, under the working of present events, He set out both the meaning of the Law and the steadfastness of the Gospel’s freedom: so that it might be easy to know what the didrachma prefigured in the Law. Peter is bidden to go to the sea, cast a hook, look in the mouth of the first fish that comes up, and offer the stater found in it for himself and the Lord. The Lord is asked for a didrachma, that is, two denarii: why does Peter offer a stater, which holds four denarii? Then, when he is told to look for the first fish, it is shown that more are going to come up. And would the nature of fish allow that a stater found by chance on the shore should be kept in the mouth rather than stored away in the belly? So an inner meaning lies beneath the doing of these present things.
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For Peter, appointed to preach and made a fisher of men, cast the hook of teaching into the world, so as to draw out of it, by the sweetness set before them, those who wandered and were tossed about. To this hook clung that blessed first martyr, who held in his mouth the fourfold denarius: that is, by the unity of the number of the Gospels, beholding the glory of God and Christ the Lord in his passion, he preached them. So Stephen came up first, Stephen held the stater in his mouth: in which there was also the didrachma of the new preaching, as two denarii. This the Law prefigured; it carried about the shadow of this truth, as the image of a body; this redemption of soul and body was being marked out. And so He says, Give unto them for me and thee: because now such a coin, not a didrachma but a stater, was to be paid both for Christ and for the preaching of Christ.