Daily Reading for January 13 • Hilary, Bishop of Poitiers, 367
For as long as I enjoy the life which you have given me by your Spirit, O Holy Father, Almighty God, I shall proclaim you as the eternal God and also as the eternal Father. Nor shall I ever show such folly and impiety as to make myself judge of your omnipotence and mysteries, and put the feeble understanding of my weakness above a true understanding of your infinity and faith in your eternity. I shall never declare that you could have existed without your wisdom, your virtue, your word: the only-begotten God, my Lord Jesus Christ. . . .
Preserve, I ask of you, this piety of my faith without any contamination, and to the end of my life give me this awareness of my knowledge, that I always may hold fast to what I possess, that is, what I professed in the creed of my regeneration when I was baptized in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Grant that I may adore you, our Father, and your Son together with you, and that I may be worthy of the Holy Spirit who is from you through your only-begotten. He bears witness to my faith who says, “Father, all things that are mine are yours, and yours are mine”—my Lord Jesus Christ, who for ever abides as God in you, from you and with you, who is blessed for ever and ever. Amen.
From Hilary of Poitiers, quoted in The Christian Theology Reader, third edition, edited by Alister E. McGrath (Malden, Mass.: Blackwell Publishing, 2007).