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 2: On Jesus’ return from Egypt, on the preaching of John and his baptism, and on the baptism of the Lord.
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After this, when Herod was dead, Joseph is warned by an angel to return into Judaea with the young child and His mother. And as he was returning, when he heard that Archelaus the son of Herod reigned, he was afraid to go thither; and he is warned by the angel to pass over into Galilee, and to dwell in Nazareth, a city of that region. He is warned, then, to return to Judaea; and having returned, he is afraid. And again, warned in a vision, he is bidden to pass over into the region of the Gentiles. But either he who had been warned ought not to have been afraid, or a warning that was soon to be changed ought not to have been brought by an angel. The truth is that a figure is being kept. For Joseph bears the likeness of the apostles, to whom Christ was entrusted to be carried about. They, as though Herod were dead — that is, his people having perished in the Lord’s Passion — were bidden to preach to the Jews; for they had been sent to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. But while the inherited dominion of unbelief still remains, they fear and withdraw. Warned in a vision — beholding, that is, the gift of the Holy Spirit among the Gentiles — they carry over to them Christ, who was sent to Judaea, but was named the life and salvation of the Gentiles.
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In those days came John preaching in the wilderness of Judaea, and saying, Repent ye: for the kingdom of heaven is at hand, and so on. In John we must consider the place, the preaching, the clothing and the food: and so as to remember that the truth of what was done is not spoiled if a meaning of inward understanding lies beneath the things that were done. For a more convenient place, a more serviceable garment and a more suitable food were open to the preacher: but an example lies beneath the deeds, and in it the very doing is a meditation. For he came to the desert of Judaea, deserted by the presence of God, not of the people; empty of the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, not of men: so that the place of the preaching might bear witness to the desolation of those to whom the preaching was sent. He proclaims repentance too, since the kingdom of heaven is at hand: repentance, by which there is a return from error, and a running back from sin, and, after shame for our vices, a promise to cease from them: so that desert Judaea might remember that she was to receive Him in whom is the kingdom of heaven, and that she would be empty no longer if she cleansed herself from her old vices by the confession of repentance. His garment, too, woven of camel’s hair, marks the strange dress of this prophetic preaching: the preacher of Christ is clothed in the cast skins of unclean beasts, to which we are reckoned like; and whatever in us was before either useless or foul is sanctified by the prophet’s garb. The girding of the girdle, again, is a preparation effective for every good work: that we may be girded in will for every service of Christ. For his food, too, locusts are chosen, which flee from men and fly away at every sense of our approach: that is, ourselves, who were carried off from all speech and company with the prophets by certain leapings, as it were, of our very bodies. Wandering in will, unprofitable in works, querulous in words, strangers to the faith, we are now the nourishment of the saints and the satisfying of the prophets, chosen together with the wild honey: to furnish the sweetest food from ourselves, not out of the hives of the Law, but out of the trunks of the trees of the forest.
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Preaching, then, in such a garb, John calls the Pharisees and Sadducees who came to the baptism a generation of vipers. He warns them to bring forth fruit meet for repentance, and not to boast that they have Abraham to their father, because God is able of the stones to raise up children unto Abraham. For it is not the succession of the flesh that is sought, but the inheritance of faith. The dignity of origin, then, consists in the pattern of works, and the glory of descent is kept by the imitation of faith. The devil was faithless, Abraham faithful. For the one was false in the transgression of man, the other was justified by faith. And so each man’s manners and life acquire for him nearness of kindred: so that those who are faithful are the offspring of Abraham through faith, and those who are faithless are changed by their unfaithfulness into the offspring of the devil. And so the Pharisees are called a brood of vipers, and their boasting of a sanctified father is forbidden them, and children of Abraham are raised up from rocks and stones; and they are warned to bring forth fruits meet for repentance: that those who had begun to have the devil for their father might, with those who were raised up from the stones, become again the children of Abraham through faith.
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The axe laid to the root of the trees bears witness to the right of the power present in Christ, signifying, by the cutting down and burning of the unfruitful trees, that the destruction of useless unbelief is being prepared for the burning of the judgment. And because the work of the Law was now powerless to save, and John had come as the herald for those who were to be baptized unto repentance — for it was the office of the prophets to call back from sins, but it belongs to Christ to save those who believe — he says that he indeed baptizes unto repentance, but that a mightier one is coming, whose shoes he is not worthy to bear: leaving to the apostles the glory of carrying the preaching abroad, whose part it was to proclaim the peace of God with beautiful feet. He marks, then, in the Lord the time of our salvation and of the judgment, saying, He shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost and with fire: because for those who have been baptized in the Holy Ghost it remains to be made perfect by the fire of the judgment. Whose fan is in his hand, and he will purge his floor, and gather his wheat into the garner; but he will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire. The work of the fan is to separate the fruitful from the unfruitful. Its being in the Lord’s hand declares the judgment of His power: He lays up His wheat, that is, the perfect fruits of the believers, in the garners; but the chaff, that is, the emptiness of unprofitable and unfruitful men, He burns in the fire of the judgment.
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Then cometh Jesus from Galilee to Jordan unto John, to be baptized of him, and the rest. There was in Christ Jesus the whole man; and therefore the body He had taken, being made the servant of the spirit, fulfilled in itself the whole mystery of our salvation. He came to John, then, born of a woman, made under the Law, and made flesh through the Word. He Himself, indeed, had no need of washing, for of Him it was said, He did no sin; and where there is no sin, the remission of it is also idle. But both the body and the name of our created nature had been taken by Him; and so it was not He who had need to be washed, but through Him the cleansing of our washing was to be sanctified in the waters. And so He is forbidden by John to be baptized, as God; and He teaches that it must so be done in His case, as man. For all righteousness was to be fulfilled by Him through whom alone the Law could be fulfilled. And so He both has no need of washing, by the testimony of the prophet, and by the authority of His own example He completes the mysteries of man’s salvation, sanctifying man both by taking him to Himself and by the washing.
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The order of the heavenly secret is also expressed in Him. For when He had been baptized, the gates of heaven were opened and the Holy Spirit is sent forth, and is recognised, visible in the form of a dove, and in this manner He is anointed with the Father’s love. Then a voice from heaven speaks thus: Thou art my Son; this day have I begotten thee. The Son of God is shown both to hearing and to sight, and to an unbelieving people, disobedient to the prophets, a testimony to its Lord is sent both of sight and of voice: and at the same time, that we might know from what was accomplished in Christ that after the washing of water the Holy Spirit also flies down upon us from the gates of heaven, and that we are anointed with heavenly glory, and become sons of God by the adoption of the Father’s voice; since the truth has prefigured, by the very events, the image of the mystery thus ordered for us.