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 31: When Jesus came to a place called Gethsemane, and said to His disciples, Sit ye here, while I go and pray yonder; on His soul being sorrowful even unto death; on the cup, if it be possible, passing from Him; on the willing spirit and the weak flesh; and again, Father, if this cup may not pass away from me, except I drink it, thy will be done.
-
Then cometh Jesus with them unto a place called Gethsemane, and saith unto the disciples, Sit ye here, while I go and pray yonder, and the rest. He had accepted the faith of the disciples and the constancy of their will devoted to Him: but He knew that they would be troubled and lose their confidence. He bids them sit down in the place while He went forward to pray. And He took with Him Peter, and James and John, the sons of Zebedee. When He had taken them, He began to be sorrowful and very heavy; and He says that His soul is exceeding sorrowful, even unto death.
-
Some hold the opinion that sorrow could fall upon God on His own account, and that fear of the coming Passion broke Him: because He said, My soul is exceeding sorrowful, even unto death; and this, O my Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me; and again, The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak; and at last, twice, the same thing: O my Father, if this cup may not pass away from me, except I drink it, thy will be done. For they would have it that from the weakness of the body distress clung to the Spirit: as though the taking of flesh had infected that power of incorruptible substance with the lot of its own weakness, and eternity had taken on the nature of frailty. But if it is sorrowful to the point of fear, if weak to the point of pain, if trembling to the point of death, then it will now be subject to corruption too, and the affection of all weakness will fall upon it. It will then be what it was not: sad with anguish, anxious with fear, terrified with pain; and so eternity, changed into fear — if it can be what it was not, could in the same way at some time cease to be what is in it. But God always is, without measure of times; and as He is, so is He eternally. And eternity, abiding in the infinite, stretches as much into what is to follow as into what has been: always whole, incorrupt, perfect, with nothing left outside it which could be. It is not itself in anything, but all things are within it: able so to bestow on us what is its own that nothing of what it has bestowed departs from it.
-
But this is the whole mind of those who think that the fear of death fell upon the Son of God: they assert that He was not brought forth from eternity, nor came into being from the infinity of the Father’s substance, but was made out of nothing by Him who created all things: so that He was taken up out of nothing, begun by a work, and established in time. And therefore, they say, there is in Him the anguish of pain, therefore the suffering of the Spirit together with the suffering of the body, therefore the fear of death: so that He who could fear death could also die; and He who could die, though He will be eternal in the future, is not eternal from the past through Him who begot Him. Had they been able, through faith and uprightness of life, to take in the Gospels, they would know that the Word was God in the beginning, and that this was in the beginning with God, and that He was born of Him who was, and that in Him who was born there is this: that He is the very One with whom He was before He was born: that is, that the eternity of the Begetter and of the Begotten is the same. Nothing in God, then, could die, nor has God any fear from Himself. For God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto Himself.
-
But this whole passage must be looked into, so that, since we read that the Lord was sorrowful, we may find the causes of His sorrow. He had warned before that all would be offended. Peter, confident in himself, had answered that, though the rest were troubled, he would not be moved: and the Lord answered him that he would even deny Him three times. But both he and all the other disciples promise that not even if they were set in death itself would they deny Him. And going forward, He bade His disciples sit down while He prayed. And taking Peter, and James and John, He began to be sorrowful. So He is not sorrowful before He takes them with Him, and all the fear began when they had been taken: and so the sorrow did not arise from Himself, but from those whom He had taken. And indeed we must remember that no others were taken here than those very ones to whom the Son of man was shown coming in His kingdom, at the time when, with Moses and Elias standing by Him on the mountain, He was surrounded with the whole honour of His eternal glory. But the reason for taking them then was the same as now.
-
Then He says, My soul is exceeding sorrowful, even unto death. Does He say, My soul is sorrowful because of death? Certainly not. For if the fear were of death, it would surely have had to be referred to that through which it was. But it is one thing to fear until something, another to fear because of it. And whatever is at the end does not make the cause, since it is put off until what has been begun by another. He had said before, All ye shall be offended because of me this night. He knew that they would be terrified, put to flight, would deny Him: but because blasphemy against the Spirit is forgiven neither here nor in eternity, He feared lest they should deny that He was God, when they were to see Him beaten and spat upon and crucified. And this reason was kept in Peter, who, when he came to deny Him, denied Him thus: I know not the man: because anything said against the Son of man will be forgiven. He is sorrowful, then, even unto death. So it is not death, but the time until death, that is the object of the fear: because after it the faith of believers would be made firm by the power of the resurrection.
-
Then follows: Tarry ye here, and watch with me. And he went a little further, and fell on his face, and prayed. He warns them to stay with Him, keeping watch. For He knew that, as the devil pressed heavily upon them, their faith would be lulled to sleep: and He commands those on whom the same suffering was coming to keep a like watch with Him.
-
Then He prays: O my Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me: nevertheless not as I will, but as thou wilt. He asks that the cup may pass from Him. Does He say, Let this cup pass by Me? For that would have been the prayer of one afraid for himself. But it is one thing to pray that it may pass by oneself, another that it may pass from oneself. For in that which passes by a man, he himself is spared the trouble of what passes by: but he who asks that it may pass from him does not pray that he himself may be passed over, but that what passes from him may go on to another. Was it possible for Christ not to suffer? But already from the foundation of the world this mystery of our salvation had been shown forth in Him. Was He Himself unwilling to suffer? But just before He had consecrated the blood of His body, to be shed for the remission of sins. How, then, does He say, Father, if it be possible? And how, not as I will, but as thou wilt? His whole fear, then, is for those who were to suffer; and therefore, since it is not possible for Him not to suffer, He prays for those who were to suffer after Him, saying, Let this cup pass from me: that is, as it is drunk by Me, so may it be drunk by them, without distrust of hope, without sense of pain, without fear of death.
-
And He says if it be possible because to their flesh and blood the terror is grievous, and it is hard for human bodies not to be overcome by the bitterness of those sufferings. And as for His saying, not as I will, but as thou wilt: He would indeed wish that they should not suffer, lest perhaps they lose confidence in suffering, and that they should win the glory of being joint heirs with Him without the hardship of suffering. So He does not pray that they may not suffer, when He says, not as I will; but, He says, that, as the Father wills, the strength to drink the cup may pass from Him to them: because, by His will, the devil was to be conquered not so much through Christ as also through His disciples.
-
After this He returns to the disciples and finds them asleep; and He rebukes Peter for not watching with Him even one hour. Peter, out of the three, because he above the rest had boasted that he would not be offended. And He shows the causes of His earlier fear, saying, Pray, that ye enter not into temptation. This, then, was what He wished; and therefore in the prayer He had handed down, Lead us not into temptation, that the weakness of the flesh might have no power over us. And why He had warned them to pray that they might not come into temptation He shows, saying, The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak: not, surely, of Himself; for this saying is turned to them. Or how could the spirit now be willing in His own case, if just before His soul was sorrowful even unto death? But He bids them watch and pray, that they may not fall into temptation, that they may not succumb to the weakness of the body: and therefore He prays that, if it be possible, the cup may pass from Him, because all flesh is weak for drinking it.
-
He went away again the second time, and prayed, saying, O my Father, if this cup may not pass away from me, except I drink it, thy will be done. For the disciples who were to suffer, through the justification of faith, He took upon Himself all the weakness of our body, and fastened to the cross together with Himself all the things by which we were made weak. Therefore He bears our sins and grieves for us: because, while faith burns hot in us, when the battle of suffering must be fought out against the devil, all the pains of our weaknesses die with His body and His Passion. And therefore the cup cannot pass from Him unless He drinks it: because we cannot suffer except from His Passion.
-
But His returning again and finding them asleep shows that during the time of His absence many would be held by a kind of sleep of faith. But again He prayed, repeating the same words; and returning, He who had bidden them watch, and had rebuked them for sleeping, says, Sleep on now, and take your rest. After repeated prayer, after many goings and returnings, He takes away fear, gives back confidence, urges them to rest, and now, assured, awaits the Father’s will concerning us, saying, Thy will be done: because, by drinking the cup that was to pass to us, He would swallow up the weakness of our body, and the anxiety of fear, and the very pain of death. And as for His returning to them and finding them asleep, and the first time rebuking them on His return, the second time keeping silence, the third time bidding them rest: the reason is this — that first, after the resurrection, He will rebuke them as scattered, distrustful and fearful; the second time, when the Spirit the Comforter has been sent, He will visit them while their eyes are heavy for beholding the freedom of the Gospel: for for some while, held by love of the Law, they were overcome by a kind of sleep of faith; and the third time, that is, at the return of His glory, He will restore them to confidence and rest.