# Hymns - Author: [Hilary of Poitiers](https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/authors/hilary-of-poitiers/) - Latin title: *Hymni* - Date: ca. 356–360 (approximate) - Source: A. Feder, ed., S. Hilarii episcopi Pictaviensis opera, pars 4, CSEL 65 (Vienna: Tempsky, 1916) (Latin text: Vienna CSEL, digitized by Open Greek and Latin (csel-dev, University of Leipzig), CC BY-SA 4.0) - Translation: Claude, from the original text, unless a passage says otherwise; each passage below gives the translator - Work page: https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/hilary-hymni/ - Passages: 2 ## Hymns 1.1 - URL: https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/hilary-hymni/1-1/#p-1-1 - Source: CSEL 65:209–212 - Translation: Claude (claude-opus-5-5), 2026-09-27 Summary: An alphabetical hymn to Christ, eternally begotten of the Father and born of the Virgin, celebrating the Son's full equality and mutual indwelling with the Father; it breaks off at the letter T. ### Latin text Ante saecula qui manes / semperque nate, semper ut est pater! — / namque te sine quomodo / dici, ni pater est, quod pater sit, potest? — / Bis nobis genite deus, / Christe! dum innato nasceris a deo / uel dum corporeum et deum / mundo te genuit uirgo puerpera: / Credens te populus rogat, / hymnorum resonas mitis ut audias / uoces, quas tibi concinit / aetas omnigena, sancte, gregis tui. / Dum te fida rogat, sibi / clemens ut maneas, plebs tui nominis / in te innascibilem deum / orat, quod maneat alter in altero. / Extra quam capere potest / mens humana, manet filius in patre; / rursum, quem penes sit pater, / dignus, qui genitus est filius in deum. / Felix, qui potuit fide / res tantas penitus credulus assequi, / ut incorporeo ex deo / perfectus fuerit progenitus dei. / Grande loquimur et deum / uerum: ut genitor, quicquid inest sibi, / aeternae decus gloriae / totum in unigenam ediderit deum, / Hinc unus merito bonus / ipsum, quod deus est, extra inuidiam sui / gigni uellet in alterum / transformans se, ut est, uiuam in imaginem. / Istis uera patet dei / uirtus: cum dederit omnia, non tamen / ipsis, quae dederit, caret / cuncta, quae sua sunt, cum dederit, habens. / Kara progenies dei, / connatum cui sit omne decus patris! / nil natae eguit dari, / sed natum simul est, quicquid erat dei. / Lumen fulsit a lumine / deusque uerus substitit ex deo / uero, non aliud habens / ortus unigena, quam innascibilis pater. / Mirum hoc opus est dei, / aeternus ut incorruptibilis deus, / ortu qui careat, quia / sit sempiterna uirtus, quod est deus, / Non natis, quibus est in bonis, / ex sese placidus gigneret in deum; / ac sic in unigena deo / hoc ipsud ortu, quod genitum est, caret. / O felix duum unitas! / alterque cum sit mixtus in altero, / unum sic faciunt duo, / sit in duobus cum, quod est in altero. / Paret sed genitus patri / omnemque ad nutum attonitus manet; / et scire non est arduum, / quid uelit se sequi, (quem) penes est pater. / Quanta est genitus in bona! / nam constitutus in cunctorum exordia / condensque primum saecula / aeternum in motum tempora protulit. / Rebus anterior deus / cunctis — nam per eum omnia facta sunt —, / esset cum nihilum modo, / mundum corporeo condidit in statu. / Sed nos littera non sinit, / per quam te genitum concinimus deum, / gesta, quae tua sunt, loqui / carnemque natum, iam qui eras deus. / Te cunctis dominum modis / caelorum regem et caelestis gloriae, / ut cuncta per te condita! / ∗ ∗ ∗ ∗ ∗. / ∗ ∗ ∗ ∗ ∗ / ∗ ∗ ∗ ∗ ∗ ### English translation (Claude) [A] You who abide before the ages / and are ever born, as the Father ever is! / For without you, how / can it be said that he is Father, if he is not a father? / [B] God twice begotten for us, / O Christ! while you are born of the unbegotten God, / and while a virgin mother bore you / to the world, both bodily and God: / [C] believing, your people ask / that you, gentle one, may hear the resounding voices of hymns, / which the flock of every age / sings to you, holy one. / [D] While the faithful people of your name / ask that you remain merciful to them, / it prays in you to the unbegettable God, / that the one may remain in the other. / [E] Beyond what the human mind / can grasp, the Son remains in the Father; / and again the Son, begotten as God, / is worthy that the Father should abide with him. / [F] Happy he who by faith could / believingly attain to such great things in full: / that from the bodiless God / the perfect offspring of God was begotten. / [G] We speak great things, and of the true God: / that the Begetter, whatever is in himself, / the honour of eternal glory, / has brought forth wholly into the only-begotten God. / [H] Hence the One, rightly good, / without envy of himself, willed that what God is / should be begotten into another, / transforming himself, as he is, into a living image. / [I] In these the true power of God lies open: / though he has given all things, yet / he does not lack the things he gave, / keeping all that are his, though he gave them. / [K] Dear offspring of God, / to whom all the honour of the Father is co-born! / Nothing needed to be given to the one born, / but whatever was God's was born together with him. / [L] Light shone from light, / and true God came to subsist from true / God, the only-begotten having no other / origin than the unbegettable Father. / [M] This is a wonderful work of God: / that the eternal, incorruptible God, / who lacks an origin, because / what God is is everlasting power, / [N] should graciously beget from himself into God / the goods in which he is, which were never born; / and so in the only-begotten God / this very thing that is begotten lacks an origin. / [O] O happy unity of the two! / Since each is mingled in the other, / the two thus make one, / since what is in the one is in both. / [P] But the Begotten obeys the Father / and waits intent upon his every nod; / and it is not hard for him with whom the Father is / to know what the Father wills him to follow. / [Q] How great are the goods into which he is begotten! / For, set at the beginning of all things / and founding the ages first, / he brought forth the times into eternal motion. / [R] God, prior to all things / (for through him all things were made), / when there was only nothing, / founded the world in a bodily state. / [S] But the letter does not allow us, / through which we sing you as begotten God, / to tell the deeds that are yours, / and that you, who were already God, were born as flesh. / [T] You, Lord in every way, / king of the heavens and of heavenly glory, / as all things were founded through you! / … ### Scripture references - John 14:10–11: allusion, high confidence - John 10:38: allusion, medium confidence - John 1:3: quotation, high confidence - Col 1:15–17: allusion, high confidence - Luke 1:35: allusion, medium confidence - Heb 1:3: allusion, medium confidence - John 1:14: allusion, medium confidence ### Extrabiblical texts - Conc. Nic. 0 (Creed and Canons of the Council of Nicaea (325)): echo, medium confidence ### Translation notes - Abecedarian hymn (Feder, CSEL 65): each four-line strophe begins with the next letter of the Latin alphabet (A Ante, B Bis, C Credens, D Dum, E Extra, F Felix, G Grande, H Hinc, I Istis, K Kara, L Lumen, M Mirum, N Non, O O, P Paret, Q Quanta, R Rebus, S Sed, T Te); the letters are shown in brackets. The manuscript breaks off after the first lines of T (marked …). - “The letter does not allow us” (strophe S) refers to the acrostic itself: the few letters left do not leave room to sing the incarnate deeds. - The theology is Nicene: the Son is eternally begotten, not made, light from light, true God from true God, and Father and Son are each in the other (John 10:38; 14:10). Strophe N is obscure in the Latin (“Non natis, quibus est in bonis, ex sese placidus gigneret in deum”) and is translated tentatively. ### Citation (SBL) Hilary, Hymn. 1.1 (CSEL 65:209–212; trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/p/hilary-hymni/1-1). ## Hymns 1.3 - URL: https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/hilary-hymni/1-1/#p-1-3 - Source: CSEL 65:214–217 - Translation: Claude (claude-opus-5-5), 2026-09-27 Summary: A hymn on Christ, the heavenly Adam, battling Satan: the devil, gloating over a world lost to idolatry, hears the angels' song at the nativity and the Father's voice at the baptism, and, seeing only a mortal body, prepares the temptation; the rest is lost. ### Latin text Adae carnis gloriosa et caduci corporis / in caelesti rursum Adam concinamus proelia, / per quae primum satanas est Adam uictus in nouo. / Hostis fallax saeculorum et dirae mortis artifex / iam consiliis toto in orbe uiperinis consitis / ad salutem nil restare spei humanae existimat. / Gaudet aris, gaudet templis, gaudet sanie uictimae; / gaudet falsis, gaudet stupris, gaudet belli sanguine; / gaudet caeli conditorem ignorari gentibus. / Inter tanta dum exultat nostrae cladis funera, / deo audit in excelsis nuntiari gloriam / et in terra pacem hominum uoluntatis optimae. / Terret coetus angelorum laetus ista praedicans; / terret Christum terris natum nuntians pastoribus, / magnum populis hinc futurum desperatis gaudium. / Errat partes in diuersas tantis rebus anxius; / quaerit audax, ecquis hic sit tali dignus nuntio, / nihil ultra, quam commune est, terris ortum contuens. / Cernit tamen is, quod Iohannes in desertis praedicet / aquis mersans in Iordanis cunctis poenitentiam, / quam sequatur confessorum criminum remissio. / Inter turbas, quae frequentes mergebantur, accipit / uocem e caelo praedicantem: meus est hic filius; / hunc audite! hic dilectus, in quo mihi complacet. / Cernit hominem, cernit corpus, quod Adae perlexerat; / nihil ultra uox honoris afferebat desuper; / scit terrenam subiacere mortis legi originem. / Ad temptandum multas artes priscae fraudis commouet; / quaerit audax tempus, quod sit∗∗∗∗∗∗∗∗∗∗∗∗ / ∗∗∗∗ ∗∗∗∗ ∗∗∗∗∗ ∗∗ ∗ ∗∗∗∗∗∗∗∗∗∗ / ∗∗∗∗∗∗∗∗∗∗∗∗∗∗∗∗∗∗∗∗∗∗∗∗∗∗∗∗∗∗∗∗∗∗∗ / ∗∗∗∗∗∗∗∗∗∗∗∗∗∗∗∗∗∗∗∗∗∗∗∗∗∗∗∗∗∗∗∗∗∗∗ ### English translation (Claude) Let us sing the glorious battles of Adam's flesh and of the fallen body / waged again in the heavenly Adam, / by which Satan was first conquered, in the new Adam. / The deceitful enemy of the ages, the craftsman of dire death, / having now sown his viper's counsels throughout the world, / thinks that nothing of human hope is left for salvation. / He rejoices in altars, rejoices in temples, rejoices in the victim's gore; / he rejoices in falsehoods, rejoices in debaucheries, rejoices in the blood of war; / he rejoices that the maker of heaven is unknown to the nations. / While he exults amid such great funerals of our ruin, / he hears glory proclaimed to God in the highest / and on earth peace to men of the best will. / The company of angels, joyfully proclaiming this, terrifies him; / it terrifies him, announcing to the shepherds that Christ is born on earth, / and that hence great joy will come to peoples in despair. / He wanders this way and that, anxious at such great things; / boldly he asks who this may be, worthy of such a message, / seeing nothing born on earth beyond what is common. / Yet he sees that John is preaching in the wilderness, / immersing all in the waters of the Jordan for repentance, / which the forgiveness of confessed sins is to follow. / Among the crowds that were immersed in great numbers, he hears / a voice from heaven proclaiming: “This is my Son; / hear him! This is the beloved, in whom I am well pleased.” / He sees a man, he sees a body, which had come down woven from Adam; / the voice of honour from above brought nothing further; / he knows that an earthly origin lies under the law of death. / To tempt him he sets in motion the many arts of the ancient fraud; / boldly he seeks a time that may be … ### Scripture references - 1 Cor 15:45–47: allusion, high confidence - Rom 5:14: allusion, medium confidence - Luke 2:10–14: allusion, high confidence - Mark 1:4–5: allusion, high confidence - Matt 3:17: quotation, high confidence - Matt 17:5: quotation, medium confidence - Matt 4:1–11: allusion, medium confidence ### Translation notes - Feder's text (CSEL 65), in trochaic tercets; the hymn breaks off in the middle of the tenth tercet (marked …). Unlike the first hymn it is not abecedarian. - The digital text reads “in nono” in line 3; read as “in nouo” (“in the new [Adam]”), as the sense requires. In line 20 a stray Greek letter group before “Iordanis” has been removed. - Scripture: the two Adams (1 Cor 15:45–47; Rom 5:14); the angels' song (Luke 2:13–14, Latin “hominibus bonae voluntatis”, here “men of the best will”); the shepherds (Luke 2:10–11); John's baptism (Mark 1:4–5; Matt 3:5–6); the Father's voice, combined with “hear him” from the transfiguration (Matt 3:17; 17:5); the temptation (Matt 4:1–11). ### Citation (SBL) Hilary, Hymn. 1.3 (CSEL 65:214–217; trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/p/hilary-hymni/1-3).