Corpus of Latin Ecclesiastical Writers, Vol. LXV: Hilary's Treatise on the Mysteries, Fragments, and Hymns

The explanation of Abraham was followed by a consideration of the type of Isaac, which the author had already briefly indicated in the preface (original: "ecclesiam — discernit — ortu Ysahac" "it distinguishes the church... by the birth of Isaac," p. 3, 15 sqq.) and which the subscription similarly indicates (cf. p. 38). However, apart from one fragment preserved by Peter the Deacon, which commemorates the betrothal made between Isaac and Rebecca and the prefiguring of the assumption of the Gentiles into the church, the entire interpretation concerning the patriarch Isaac has perished. But since Hilary does not treat more on Isaac in the remaining books, it is evident that he covered the example of the patriarch Isaac in a few words.

There followed then a consideration of the type of the patriarch Jacob (cf. pref. p. 3, 17 and the subscription p. 38), whose servitude under Laban, according to Hilary, had already prefigured the redemption of the church, as he had indicated in the preface, and whose struggle with the angel of God he commemorates in chapter 13 of the second book (p. 36, 29). We find this struggle explained also in the books De trinitate On the Trinity¹ and in the Tractatibus super psalmos Treatises on the Psalms². Furthermore, since the name Jacob changed to Israel is mentioned in those same commentaries—and indeed quite frequently³, as well as his two sons Jacob and Esau dissenting, and his wife Rachel prefiguring the church—we suspect not without reason that Hilary interpreted these or similar things also in the Tractatus mysteriorum Treatises on the Mysteries. The further part of the narrative concerning the struggle that arose between Jacob and Esau is still preserved in the first folios of that quire which is now the second in codex A.

With these things established, it can be held as certain that in that second quire of the entire manuscript, which is lost—unless one thinks rather that two quires have perished—the remaining deeds of Abraham were treated, and briefly, the examples of the prophets Isaac and Jacob. That the whole volume was not large is gathered also from that part of the excerpts of Peter the Deacon whose traces are lost in codex A itself. For if Peter always excerpted the Tractatus mysteriorum in an equal manner, the fragments of the excerptor are proof that the parts now lost, of which we owe knowledge only to Peter the Deacon, were neither lengthy nor many. It is indeed to be regretted that Peter excerpted only the first book.

The second book, too, has been handed down to us torn and lacunose. And first, indeed, many things perished which followed the last

¹ IV 31, V 19, XII 46     ² On Ps. 54, 13; 68, 19.     ³ On Ps. 13, 6; 52, 21; 120, 10; 123, 1; 134, 6; 147, 7.