Hilary of Poitiers on the Incarnation

Here is another repost from 2004 on the Incarnation–this one from Hilary of Poitiers. Hilary of Poitiers, who, like Athanasius, lived in the fourth century, was also a foe of Arianism. This quote about the Incarnation comes from his work On the Trinity:

For He took upon Him the flesh in which we have sinned that by wearing our flesh He might forgive sins; a flesh which He shares with us by wearing it, not by sinning in it. He blotted out through death the sentence of death, that by a new creation of our race in Himself He might sweep away the penalty appointed by the former Law. He let them nail Him to the cross that He might nail to the curse of the cross and abolish all the curses to which the world is condemned. He suffered as man to the utmost that He might put powers to shame. For Scripture had foretold that He Who is God should die; that the victory and triumph of them that trust in Him lay in the fact that He, Who is immortal and cannot be overcome by death, was to die that mortals might gain eternity. These deeds of God, wrought in a manner beyond our comprehension, cannot, I repeat, be understood by our natural faculties, for the work of the Infinite and Eternal can only be grasped by an infinite intelligence. Hence, just as the truths that God became man, that the Immortal died, that the Eternal was buried, do not belong to the rational order but are an unique work of power, so on the other hand it is an effect not of intellect but of omnipotence that He Who is man is also God, that He Who died is immortal, that He Who was buried is eternal. We, then, are raised together by God in Christ through His death.

It is interesting to me that these men, these Fathers of the Church, saw so clearly the uniqueness and necessity of the Incarnation–and we today often cannot see it at all. May God open our eyes to this “unique work of power” done on our behalf.