Hilary of Poitiers, Jerome of Stridon and Ambrose of Milan on subjection to Christ
Hilary of Poitiers,
Jerome of Stridon and Ambrose of Milan on subjection to Christ
In what
follows, I’ll quote the views of St. Hilary of Poitiers (d. 367), St Jerome of
Stridon (d. 420) and St. Ambrose of Milan (d. 397) on the topic of ‘subjection’.
This topic is quite relevant also for the present eschatological debates among
Christians and it is about how to interpret passages like 1 Corinthians
15:21-28 and 2 Philippians 2:9-11.
For a more
complete discussion about the eschatological beliefs of these authors, see: https://ancientafterlifebelifs.blogspot.com/2026/05/possible-traces-of-universalism-in.html
Hilary
of Poitiers
In his work
‘On the Trinity’, Hilary of Poitiers distinguishes between the ‘subjection’ and
the ‘abolition’ of enemies and evil powers:
“32. The meaning of the abolishing of every
power which is against Him is not obscure The prince of the air, the power of
spiritual wickedness, shall be delivered to eternal destruction, as Christ
says, Depart from Me, ye cursed, into the eternal fire which My Father
hath prepared far the devil and his angels54 . The abolishing is not the same as the
subjecting. To abolish the power of the enemy is to sweep away for ever his
prerogative of power, so that by the abolition of his power is brought to an
end the rule of his kingdom. Of this the Lord testifies when He says, My
kingdom is not of this world55 : as He had once before testified that
the ruler of that kingdom is the prince of the world, whose power shall be
destroyed by the abolition of the rule of His kingdom56 . A subjection, on the other hand, which
implies obedience and allegiance, is a proof of submission and mutability.” (On
the Trinity, book 11.32, source: https://historicalchristian.faith/by_father.php?file=Hilary%2520of%2520Poitiers%2FOn%2520the%2520Trinity%2FBook%252011.html)
“When authorities and powers are abolished, His
enemies shall be subjected under His feet. The same Apostle tells who are these
enemies, As touching the Gospel they are enemies for your sakes, but as
touching the election they are beloved far the fathers' sake59 . We remember that they are enemies of
the cross of Christ; let us remember also that, because they are beloved for
the fathers' sake, they are reserved for the subjection, as the Apostle
says, I would not, brethren, have you ignorant of this mystery, lest ye
be wise in your own conceits, that a hardening in part hath befallen Israel,
until the fulness of the Gentiles be come in, and so all Israel shall be saved,
even as it is written, There shall come out of Sion a Deliverer, and shall turn
away ungodliness from Jacob: and this is the covenant firm Me to them, when I
have taken away their sins60 . So His enemies shall be subjected under
His feet.” (On the Trinity, book 11.35, source: https://historicalchristian.faith/by_father.php?file=Hilary%2520of%2520Poitiers%2FOn%2520the%2520Trinity%2FBook%252011.html)
Considering
that the “enemies of the cross” will be subjected and subjection seems to be a
salvific event, we would perhaps lead to the conclusion that Hilary was an
universalist for human beings. While, indeed, he seems to be clear about the ‘abolition’
of the devil and fallen angels, the inclusion of the ‘enemies of the cross’
among those who will be subjected might suggest universal salvation for human
beings. However, at the same time, it might be the case that he did believe
that subjection will not be for all enemies of the Cross and he
strangely seems to imply in paragraph 35 that the ‘enemies of the Cross’ are
unbelieving Jews. Given the unclarity of these passages, I would class Hilary as
a supporter of the ‘traditional’ view of endless conscious torment as a
possible fate for human beings (with a seeming certainty that some human beings
will, indeed, be condemned to such a fate), with a significant degree of
uncertainty, however.
Anyway, he seems
to be clear that the fate of both the ‘unsaved’ and the ‘saved’ will be irrevocable and for the ‘unsaved’
there will be no annihilation but endless torment:
"28. … Suppose then we interpret the end
as a dissolution, we are forced to acknowledge that, since there is an end for
the blessed and for the wicked, the issue levels the godly with the ungodly,
for the appointed end of both is a common annihilation. What of our expectation
in heaven, if for us as well as for the wicked the end is a cessation of being?
But even if there remains for the saints an expectation. whereas for the wicked
there waits the end they have deserved, we cannot conceive that end as a final
dissolution. What punishment would it be for the wicked to be beyond the
feeling of avenging torments, because the capability of suffering has been
removed by dissolution? The end is, therefore, a culminating and irrevocable
condition which awaits us, reserved for the blessed and prepared for the
wicked.
29. We can therefore no longer doubt that by
the end is meant an ultimate and final condition and not a dissolution.
"(On the Trinity, book 11.28-9, source: https://historicalchristian.faith/by_father.php?file=Hilary%2520of%2520Poitiers%2FOn%2520the%2520Trinity%2FBook%252011.html )
Jerome
of Stridon
In a letter
probably date in 394 AD, Jerome, interestingly enough, seems to endorse an
universalist interpretation (for human beings) of 1 Corinthians 15:21-28 and he
even seems to interpret Hilary as endorsing this view:
“5. Your third and last question relates to the
passage in the same epistle where the apostle in discussing the resurrection,
comes to the words: “for he must reign, till he has put all things under his
feet. The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death. For he has put all
things under his feet. But when he says, all things are put under him, it is
manifest that he is excepted, which did put all things under him. And when all
things shall be subdued unto him, then shall the Son also himself be subject
unto him that put all things under him that God may be all in all.” I am
surprised that you have resolved to question me about this passage when that
reverend man, Hilary, bishop of Poictiers, has occupied the eleventh book of
his treatise against the Arians with a full examination and explanation of it.
Yet I may at least say a few words. The chief stumbling-block in the passage is
that the Son is said to be subject to the Father. Now which is the more
shameful and humiliating, to be subject to the Father (often a mark of loving
devotion as in the psalm “truly my soul is subject unto God”) or to be
crucified and made the curse of the cross? “For cursed is everyone that
hangs on a tree.” If Christ then for our sakes was made a curse that
He might deliver us from the curse of the law, are you surprised that He is
also for our sakes subject to the Father to make us too subject to Him as He
says in the gospel: “No man comes unto the Father but by me”, and “I,
if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto me.” Christ
then is subject to the Father in the faithful; for all believers, nay the whole
human race, are accounted members of His body. But in unbelievers, that is in
Jews, heathens, and heretics, He is said to be not subject; for these members
of His body are not subject to the faith. But in the end of the world when all
His members shall see Christ, that is their own body, reigning, they also shall
be made subject to Christ, that is to their own body, that the whole of
Christ's body may be subject unto God and the Father, and that God may be all
in all. He does not say that the Father may be all in all but that God may be,
a title which properly belongs to the Trinity and may be referred not only to
the Father but also to the Son and to the Holy Ghost. His meaning therefore is
that humanity may be subject to the Godhead. By humanity we here intend not
that gentleness and kindness which the Greeks call philanthropy but the whole
human race. Moreover when he says that God may be all in all, it is to be taken
in this sense. At present our Lord and Saviour is not all in all, but only a
part in each of us. For instance He is wisdom in Solomon, generosity in David,
patience in Job, knowledge of things to come in Daniel, faith in Peter, zeal in
Phinehas and Paul, virginity in John, and other virtues in others. But when the
end of all things shall come, then shall He be all in all, for then the saints
shall severally possess all the virtues and all will possess Christ in His
entirety.” (Letter 55.5, c.a. 394, source: https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/3001055.htm)
While he later
rejected the belief in universal salvation, I believe that it is hard to read
the above as not endorsing an universalist belief for human beings.
Notably, in the above, Jerome doesn’t mention the ‘fallen angles’, probably
because following Hilary he did believe that they will be eternally condemned.
Anyway, for
the purpose of this post, it is notable that Jerome, like Hilary, sees the ‘subjection’
of human beings as seemingly salvific.
Ambrose
of Milan
The last
author we will discuss now is Ambrose of Milan. In the fifth book of his work ‘On
Faith’, he writes:
“167. How, then, will they be brought into
subjection? In the way that the Lord Himself has said. Take My yoke
upon you. It is not the fierce that bear the yoke, but the humble and the
gentle. This clearly is no base subjection for men, but a glorious one: that
in the Name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven and things
beneath; and that every tongue should confess that Jesus is Lord in the glory
of God the Father. But for this reason all things were not made
subject before, for they had not yet received the wisdom of God, not yet did
they wear the easy yoke of the Word on the neck as it were of their mind.
But as many as received Him, as it is written, to them gave He
power to become the sons of God.
168. Will any one say that Christ is now made
subject, because many have believed? Certainly not. For Christ's subjection
lies not in a few but in all. For just as I do not seem to be brought into
subjection, if the flesh in me as yet lusts against the spirit, and the spirit
against the flesh, although I am in part subdued; so because the whole Church
is the one body of Christ, we divide Christ as long as the human race
disagrees. Therefore Christ is not yet made subject, for His members are not
yet brought into subjection. But when we have become, not many members, but one
spirit, then He also will become subject, in order that through His subjection God
may be all and in all.
…
175. The benefit has passed, then, from the
individual to the community; for in His flesh He has tamed the nature of all
human flesh. Thus, according to the Apostle: As we have borne the image
of the earthly, so also shall we bear the image of the heavenly. This thing
certainly cannot come to pass except in the inner man. Therefore,
laying aside all these, that is those things which we read of:
anger, malice, blasphemy, filthy communication; as he also says
below: Let us, having put off the old man with his deeds, put on the
new man, which is renewed in knowledge after the image of Him that created Him.
176. And that you might know that when he
says: That God may be all in all, he does not separate Christ from
God the Father, he also says to the Colossians: Where there is neither
male nor female, Jew nor Greek, Barbarian nor Scythian, bond nor free, but
Christ is all and in all. So also saying to the Corinthians: That
God may be all and in all, he comprehended in that the unity and equality
of Christ with God the Father, for the Son is not separated from the Father.
And in like manner as the Father works all and in all, so also Christ works all
in all. If, then, Christ also works all in all, He is not made subject in the
glory of the Godhead, but in us. But how is He made subject in us, except in
the way in which He was made lower than the angels, I mean in the sacrament of
His body? For all things which served their Creator from their first beginning
seemed not as yet to be made subject to Him in that.
…
181. As we then sit in Him by fellowship in our
fleshly nature, so also He, Who through the assumption of our flesh was made a
curse for us (seeing that a curse could not fall upon the blessed Son of God),
so, I say, He through the obedience of all will become subject in us; when the
Gentile has believed, and the Jew has acknowledged Him Whom he crucified; when
the Manichæan has worshipped Him, Whom he has not believed to have come in the
flesh; when the Arian has confessed Him to be Almighty, Whom he has denied;
when, lastly, the wisdom of God, His justice, peace, love, resurrection, is in
all. Through His own works and through the manifold forms of virtues Christ
will be in us in subjection to the Father. And when, with vice renounced and
crime at an end, one spirit in the heart of all peoples has begun to cleave to
God in all things, then will God be all and in all.
182. Let us then shortly sum up our conclusion
on the whole matter. A unity of power puts aside all idea of a degrading
subjection. His giving up of power, and His victory as conqueror won over
death, have not lessened His power. Obedience works out subjection. Christ has
taken obedience upon Himself, obedience even to taking on Him our flesh, the
cross even to gaining our salvation. Thus where the work lies, there too is the
Author of the work. When therefore, all things have become subject to Christ, through
Christ's obedience, so that all bend their knees in His name, then He Himself
will be all in all. For now, since all do not believe, all do not seem to be in
subjection. But when all have believed and done the will of God, then Christ
will be all and in all. And when Christ is all and in all, then will God be all
and in all; for the Father abides ever in the Son. How, then, is He shown to be
weak, Who redeemed the weak?” (St. Ambrose of Milan, On Faith, Book V; source: https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/34045.htm )
Again, it
does seem that Ambrose sees the ‘subjection’ as salvific and like Jerome he
contrasts the situation of the present time (in which only some are believers)
with the situation that will occur at the end in which all will be subjected. Anyway, regardless of Ambrose being an universalist or not, for the purpose of this post, Ambrose seems to read the ‘subjection’ as a
salvific act, similarly to Hilary and Jerome.
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