riginal letter was
kept with veneration in the church of Poictiers, in the sixth century,
when he wrote, and that Apra followed his advice, and died happily at
his feet after his return.[21] St. Hilary sent to her with this letter
two hymns, composed by himself; one for the evening, which does not seem
to have reached our times; the other for the morning, which is the hymn
_Lucis largitor splendide_.

The emperor, by an unjust usurpation in the affairs of the Church,
assembled a council of Arians at Seleucia, in Isauria, to undermine the
great council of Nice. St. Hilary, who had then passed four years in
banishment, in Phrygia, was invited thither by the Semi-Arians, who
hoped from his lenity that he would be useful to their party in crushing
the staunch Arians, that is, those who adhered strictly to the doctrine
of Arius. But no human considerations could daunt his courage. He boldly
defended the decrees of Nice, till at last, tired out with hearing the
blasphemies of the heretics, he withdrew to Constantinople. The weak
emperor was the dupe sometimes of the Arians, and at other times of the
Semi-Arians. These last prevailed at Seleucia, in September, 359, as the
former did in a council held at Constantinople in the following year,
360, where having the advantage, they procured the banishment of the
Semi-Arians, less wicked than themselves. St. Hilary, who had withdrawn
from Seleucia to Constantinople, presented to the emperor a request,
called his second book to Constantius, begging the liberty of holding a
public disputation about religion with {145} Saturninus, the author of
his banishment. He presses him to receive the unchangeable apostolic
faith, injured by the late innovations, and smartly rallies the fickle
humor of the heretics, who were perpetually making new creeds, and
condemning their old ones, having made four within the compass of the
foregoing year; so that faith was become that of the times, not that of
the gospels, and that there were as many faiths as men, as great a
variety of doctrine as of manners, as many blasphemies as vices.[22] He
complains that they had their yearly and monthly faiths; that they made
creeds to condemn and repent of them; and that they formed new ones to
anathematize those that adhered to their old ones. He adds, that every
one had scripture texts, and the words _Apostolic Faith_, in their
mouths, for no other end than to impose on weak minds: for by attempting
to change fait