ian a slave of the devil, a vessel of death, and fuel of hell,
(in Ps. cxviii. l. 18, p. 349.) This crime he joins with pride and
fornication, as sins at the sight of which every good Christian
ought to pine away with grief and zeal, according to the words of
Ps. cxviii. v. 139. Saint Hilary seems to have explained the whole
Psalter, though only part is recovered by the editors of his works.
To the comments published by Dom Coutant at Paris, in 1693, the
marquis Scipio Maffei added some others on several other Psalms, in
his edition at Verona, in 1730. Dom Martenne, in 1733, published
others on certain other Psalms, which he had discovered in a
manuscript at Anchin, in his Amplissima Monumentorum Collectio, t.
9, p. 55. These comments on the Psalms, St. Hilary compiled after
his exile, as appears from certain allusions to his books on the
Trinity, and from his frequent reflections against the Arians.
Nothing of this is found in his commentary on St. Matthew, which Dom
Coutant shows to have been the first of his works in the order of
time, composed soon after he was raised to the episcopal dignity. He
here and there borrows short passages from Origen, but sticks closer
to the literal sense, though he sometimes has recourse to the
allegorical, for the sake of some moral instruction. St. Hilary is
one of the first who published any Latin comments in the holy
scriptures. Rheticius, bishop of Autun, and St. Victorinus of
Passaw, though the latter wrote in Greek, had opened the way in the
West in the beginning of the same century. St. Hilary, in this
commentary on St. Matthew, excellently inculcates in few words the
maxims of Christian virtue, especially fraternal charity and
meekness, by which our souls pass to divine charity and peace, (in
Matt. c. 4, v. 18, 19, p. 626:) and the conditions of fasting and
prayer, though for the exposition of our Lord's prayer, he refers to
that of St. Cyprian; adding that Tertullian has left us also a very
suitable work upon it; but that his subsequent error has weakened
the authority of his former writings which may deserve approbation,
(in c. 5, p. 630.) The road to heaven he shows to be exceeding
narrow, because even among Christians very few sincerely despise the
world, and labor strenuously to subdue their flesh and all their
passions, and to shun all