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 3: On the devil the tempter, on Jesus’ fast of forty days, and on Peter and Andrew the fishermen.
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Then was Jesus led up of the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil, and the rest. His being led into the wilderness, and the fast of forty days, and the hunger after the fast, and Satan’s temptation, and the Lord’s answer, are all full of the workings of a great and heavenly counsel. For in His being led into the wilderness there is signified the freedom of the Holy Spirit, who was now offering His man to the devil, and allowing him the occasion of tempting and of laying hold, which the tempter would never have had unless it had been given. In the devil, then, there was suspicion out of fear, not knowledge out of suspicion: for he was disturbed by the fast of forty days. He knew that for so many days the waters of the deep were poured out, the land of promise was spied out, the Law was written by God for Moses; and that the years too in which the people remained in the wilderness, with the life and garb of angels, made up this number. In fear of this length of time, then, he took the rashness of tempting Him whom he saw to be a man. For he had enticed Adam, and had brought him over to death by deceiving him. But it was a fit reward of his wickedness and crime that he should be overcome in the man in whose death and calamities he had gloried; and that he who had grudged man the benefits of God should not be able, before the temptation, to perceive God in the man. The Lord, then, is tempted immediately after His baptism, showing by His temptation that the devil’s assaults rage most against us when we have been sanctified: because victory over the saints is what he most longs for.
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Moreover He hungered not for the food of men, but for their salvation: for He hungered after forty days, not during the forty days, though Moses and Elias did not hunger in a fast of the same length. So when the Lord hungered, it was not the effect of want of food that crept upon Him; but that power, unmoved by the fast of forty days, left the man to his own nature. For the devil was to be overcome, not by God, but by the flesh; and he would certainly not have dared to tempt it, had he not recognised in it, through the weakness of hunger, the things that belong to man. And perceiving this in Him he began thus: If thou be the Son of God. The words are doubtful: If thou be the Son of God. Though he saw Him hungry, yet he dreaded the fast of forty days in Him. And by this ordering of things the Lord shows that after the forty days of His sojourn, during which He was to remain in the world after His Passion, He would hunger for the salvation of men. And at that time He carried back to God the Father, as a long-awaited gift, the man whom He had taken.
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We must now consider what questions, after all, he used. He says, If thou be the Son of God, command that these stones be made bread. The devil, deceitful and a most cunning craftsman at leading astray, knew that Christ could do all things, and perceived from the very length of the fast that there was hunger in the man, not knowing what it was that was hungered for. So in tempting Him he proposed such a task as would let him recognise, in God, the virtue of His power by the changing of stones into bread; and, in the man, mock His patience in hunger with the delight of food. But the Lord, hungering not for bread but rather for the salvation of men, says, Man shall not live by bread alone: because He Himself, being not only man but also God, though He abstained from man’s food up to the day of the temptation, was nevertheless fed by the Spirit of God; showing that the nourishment of eternity is to be hoped for, not in this bread alone, but in the Word of God.
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The next question is of this kind, when he had set Him on the pinnacle of the temple: If thou be the Son of God, cast thyself down, and the rest. By the temptation he labours to bring the Lord down from the heights to lower things, and to hold among the lowly Him who was set on the summit of the temple, that is, who stood high above the Law and the Prophets. He knew indeed that the ministry of the angels was ready for the Son of God, and that He could not fall against a stone of stumbling, since He was to walk upon the asp and the basilisk, and to tread upon the lion and the dragon. For about the things said against himself he kept silence; but by recalling what came before them he wishes somehow to draw obedience from the one he tempts, meaning to carry off glory from it, if the Lord of majesty had obeyed him, even out of confidence. But no occasion of so great a deceit fell to the devil, as the Lord Himself bore witness at a later time, when He says, The prince of this world cometh, and hath nothing in me. A worthy answer of the Lord, then, followed this insolence of his: Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God. Beating down the devil’s attempts and temptations, He both declares Himself God and Lord, and teaches that boastfulness must be far from the faithful: because, though all things are possible to God, nothing is to be ventured in tempting Him.
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But now, the third time, the whole ambition of the devil’s power is stirred up. Having set the Lord on an exceeding high mountain, he offered Him all the kingdoms of the world and the glory of them, if only he himself might be worshipped. By the two answers He had already passed beyond what suspicion could make of Him. With food he had enticed Adam, and had led him down from the glory of paradise into the place of sin, that is, into the region of the forbidden tree; the third time he had corrupted him with the ambition of a divine name, promising that he should be like the gods. So against the Lord the battle is now fought with the whole power of the world, and the possession of this universe is offered to its own Creator: so that, keeping to the order of his ancient deceit, he might now at least corrupt by ambition Him whom he had neither enticed with food nor moved from His place. But the Lord’s answer made a step worthy of what had gone before. For He says, Get thee hence, Satan: for it is written, Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve. He met an end fitting so great a rashness, when he both heard himself named Satan, the name of his crimes, and learned that his Lord and God was to be worshipped in the man. And by the effect of this answer the Lord also gave us a great example: that, despising the glory of human power and setting aside the ambition of the world, we should remember that God and the Lord alone is to be worshipped; because all the honour of the world is the devil’s business. After this flight of the devil, then, angels minister to Christ: showing that, when the devil’s head has been overcome and trodden down by us, neither the ministry of angels nor the services of the heavenly Powers will be wanting to us.
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Now when Jesus had heard that John was cast into prison, he departed into Galilee. His passing over into Capernaum, and the prophecy of Esaias, are the order of events. But in the choice of fishermen, the work of their future office is disclosed by the men’s craft: as fish from the sea, so men were thenceforward to be drawn out of the world into a higher place, that is, into the light of the heavenly dwelling. And from their leaving their craft, their country and their homes, we are taught that if we are to follow Christ we must not be held either by the cares of worldly life or by the habit of our father’s house. And in the choice of four apostles first, besides the truth of the event — for so it was done — the number of the Evangelists to come is foreshadowed. He goes about Galilee, then, and preaches the Gospel of the kingdom in the synagogues; and by healing the infirmities of every sickness He shows forth Himself in deeds: so that Him whom they had been wont to read of in the books of the prophets they might behold present in His works.