In 356, the Synod of Béziers, composed mostly of Arians, sentenced Hilary to exile in Phrygia (in present-day Turkey). It was there that Hilary wrote his best-known work, On the Trinity, where he supported his stand with Scriptures from both Old and New Testament. For Hilary, the doctrine of the Trinity is not only biblical, but is the only way to reach a correct understanding of God, who can only be known in Christ and through the Spirit.

“He Who upholds the universe, within Whom and through Whom are all things, was brought forth by common childbirth; He at Whose voice Archangels and Angels tremble, and heaven and earth and all the elements of this world are melted, was heard in childish wailing. The Invisible and Incomprehensible, whom sight and feeling and touch cannot gauge, was wrapped in a cradle.”[1]

This is how Hilary of Poitiers, considered by some the greatest Latin theologian before Augustine, expressed his wonder at the startling mystery of the incarnation – a wonder that intensifies when we realize the Triune God did this for sinful men. “He by Whom man was made had nothing to gain by becoming Man; it was our gain that God was incarnate and dwelt among us, making all flesh His home by taking upon Him the flesh of One. We were raised because He was lowered; shame to Him was glory to us. He, being God, made flesh His residence, and we in return are lifted anew from the flesh to God.”[2]

Hilary spoke these words at a time when the message they conveyed seemed not only absurd but offensive and unworthy of a God, generating a host of objections and what appeared to be more logical and dignified explanations, such as the Arian fabrication of a created and lesser Christ.

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