HILA'RIUS, SAINT, was born in 401, and became bishop of Arelate (Arles) in 429, on the death of Honoratus, who had been the means of converting him to Christianity. Hilariue was distinguished by the holiness of his life and his zeal for monastic institutions; but he is more known in ecclesiastical history on account of his controversy with Leo, bishop of Rome. Celidonins, bishop of Vesontio (Besancon), who had been deposed from his office by a council, at which Hilarius had presided, appealed to Leo against this decision. Leo gladly availed himself of this opportnnity of extending the power of the Roman see, and accordingly reinstated Celidoniva in his bishopric. Hilarius strongly opposed the decision of Leo; but his opposition only drew upon him the enmity of the Roman bishop, who soon found an oppor tunity of depriving Hilarius of the bishopric of Arelate. Several of the Gallic bishops, whom he had offended by the severity with which he had enforced the discipline of the church, accused him of various ecclesiastical offences ; and Leo accordingly, supported by a rescript of the Emperor Valentinian III., deposed Hilarina from the exercise
of his episcopal dnties. Hilarius however still continued to possess great infinence in his diocese, in which he died in 449.
Bilarius was highly esteemed by all his contemporaries; even Leo, after his death, declared that he was an upright and pious man. (' Epistles of Leo,' 106.) The writings of Hilarius are lost, with the exception of a life of Honoratua, a letter to Encherius, and a poem upon the beginning of Genesis; which are published by (lumen, at the end of Leo'a works, Paris, 1675. His life of Honoratus has also been published by Genebrard, Paris, 1578, and from a different text by Barralie, in his Chron. sanct. maul. Lugd., 1613: the latest reprint is that of Salinas, in the ' Opera Vincentii Lirinensis et Hilarii Arclatensis,' Rom., 1731.