Hilary of Paris

ILARIO da PARIGI. — Capuchin theologian, b. in Paris on 23 November 1831, d. by drowning near Castel S. Elia (Viterbo) on 18 July 1904. Already a priest and a graduate in theology and canon law, he entered religious life on 2 August 1859; he accompanied the Bishop of Geneva, Mermillod, later a cardinal, as theologian to the First Vatican Council.

He began a Theologia universalis (3 vols., Lyon 1868–1871), left incomplete because of the vastness of the project; in Cur Deus homo? (Lyon 1867, Amiens 1886) he expounds the Thomistic view concerning the reason for the Incarnation; related to the First Vatican Council is the treatise De dogmaticis definitionibus (Freiburg 1871); in Notre-Dame de Lourdes et l'Immaculée Conception (Lyon 1880) he studied Mary’s privilege in depth; in the Liber Tertii Ordinis s. Francisci

(Geneva, Paris, Brussels 1888) he published a rich body of historical and juridical material, which had previously served the Roman Congregations (2 vols., Rome 1881–82) for the reform of the Third Order carried out by Leo XIII. In these and other publications he demonstrated keen intelligence and erudition; but some of his assessments of scholastic philosophy, as well as of the Regula Fratrum Minorum (Lyon–Paris 1870; French ed. Exposition de la règle des Frères Mineurs [Fribourg 1872], placed on the Index on 12 June 1895), were condemned. Furthermore, the position he upheld in the conflict with the major superiors concerning the capitular vote of lay brothers led him to leave the Order (rescript of 5 March 1894); he found fraternal hospitality in the convent of Castel S. Elia of the German Friars Minor.

Ilarino da Milano