Indeed the identification of Hilary’s hymns—except the _Lucis largitor_—is purely conjectural. It rests mainly on the hymnological acumen of Cardinal Thomasius, which may or may not be liable to error. Kayser refuses, on one ground or another, to positively endorse any, except the one which all now concede. Next to this in probability stands the _Beata nobis gaudia_ (though it is doubted by Professor March), and then the _Deus pater ingenite_, which is taken from the Mozarabic Breviary. The _Jam meta noctis transiit_, the _In matutinis surgimus_, and the _Jesu refulsit omnium_, have only the authority of Thomasius. The _Jesu quadragenariae_, Daniel says, is an old hymn, but very certainly composed later than the time of Hilary. The _Ad coeli clara_ we have already rejected. Thus we have one authentic and five conjectural Hilarian hymns. There is, however, great doubt resting on the _Jesu refulsit omnium_; and if I consulted merely my own judgment, I should declare against it, if only in view of the _rhymes_—a characteristic which it would scarcely possess if it were genuinely of the fourth century. And while we are upon this somewhat ungrateful duty of trying to set matters right, shall we pass over the slip which Mrs. Charles makes in her capital little book? (_Christian Life in Song._ Am. ed., p. 74.) For she says that “The Hilary who wrote the hymns was the canonized Bishop of Arles.” There was, much later, a Hilary of Arles; and there was another Hilary of Rome, and there were also others of the same name; but none of them wrote hymns. He of Arles assuredly did not. Of our own Hilary it may be added that the rest of his life was earnest, but comparatively quiet. We shall find Gregory of Tours and Fortunatus asserting that he raised the dead and healed the sick, and cast out devils (some of them in the shape of snakes) from a boy’s stomach; but these stories belong naturally to a credulous and superstitious age. More to the purpose is it to find that the bishop had entered upon the composition of tunes for his hymns, and had taken up calligraphy and the ornamentation of manuscripts. There was a book of the Gospels found, on which was indorsed, “_Quem scripsit Hilarius Pictavensis quondam sacerdos_”—“which Hilary of Poitiers, formerly a priest, wrote.” A similar book was left by St. Perpetuus, Bishop of Tours, to Bishop Euphronius, Fortunatus’s friend. This is attested by his will, executed in 474. “I saw,” says Christian Druthmar (ninth century), “a book of the Gospels, written in Greek, which was said to have been St. Hilary’s, in which were Matthew and John,” etc. But whether Hilary wrote this is naturally an open question.