Hilary Is Not in the Bible — but the Word Is, in 2 Corinthians 9:7

Names and Their Biblical MeaningsSee all 223 articles in this series

Hilary is not in the Bible. But the Latin word behind it turns up in Greek in one of Paul’s best-known sentences, and most readers have never noticed.

Hilary comes from the Latin hilaris — cheerful, glad. The same root gives us hilarious, though the English word has travelled a long way from the Latin sense, which was closer to good-humoured than to funny.

It was a man’s name for most of its history and shifted towards women in the twentieth century, a pattern it shares with several others.

Each of you should give what you have decided in your heart to give, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver. (2 Corinthians 9:7)

The Greek word for cheerful there is hilaron. It is the same root as the Latin, and it is the word standing behind the name.

So a Hilary carries, in effect, the adjective from that verse.

What the verse is actually arguing is worth attention. Paul is collecting money for the church in Jerusalem, and he has just spent a chapter praising the Macedonians, who gave out of severe poverty and asked for the privilege of doing it. The word about cheerfulness is not a request for a good mood. It is a refusal to accept money extracted by pressure.

Not reluctantly. Not under compulsion. The gift has to be free or it is not the thing he is asking for.

The name’s great bearer was a fourth-century bishop who spent his life on one argument.

The question was whether the Son is of the same substance as the Father, or a creature — however exalted — made by him. The Arian position, that Christ was created, held much of the empire at various points, including the emperor.

Hilary argued the Nicene side and was exiled to Asia Minor for it. He used the exile to read the Greek theologians his western colleagues could not, and wrote a long work on the Trinity that brought that thinking west.

There is a story that he became such a nuisance in exile that he was sent home as a punishment to the people who had banished him. It is probably too neat to be true, and it is a good line.

The English legal and academic term Hilary term takes its name from his feast in January.

It would be easy to turn a name like this into an instruction to be upbeat, and Scripture does not support that.

Joy in the Bible is not a mood. Paul wrote about it most from a prison cell (Philippians 4:4). Nehemiah 8:10 is spoken to a crowd in tears. Hebrews 12:2 puts joy on the far side of the cross rather than available during it.

And the book that sits at the centre of the Old Testament is a collection of songs in which roughly a third are complaints. How long, Lord? Will you forget me for ever? (Psalm 13:1) is in the same book as the praise.

So the cheerfulness Paul asks for is specific: freedom in giving. It is not a general obligation to seem happy, and anyone told otherwise by a Christian has been badly served.

May what we give be given freely or not at all.

May we be good-humoured in the old sense, which has more to do with steadiness than with jokes.

And may we argue, when we must, for something worth the exile.

Is Hilary a biblical name?

Not as a name. But the Greek hilaron in 2 Corinthians 9:7 — “God loves a cheerful giver” — is the same root that gives Hilary its meaning.

What does Hilary mean?

Cheerful or glad, from the Latin hilaris. The English “hilarious” comes from the same root but has moved a long way from it.

Who was Hilary of Poitiers?

A fourth-century bishop exiled for defending the Nicene position that the Son is of the same substance as the Father. He used the exile to read the Greek theologians and wrote a major work on the Trinity.

Does the Bible require cheerfulness?

No. 2 Corinthians 9:7 is specifically about giving freely rather than under pressure. Roughly a third of the Psalms are complaints.

• Joyce Is Not in the Bible — and It Did Not Originally Mean Joy
• Is Your Name in the Bible? A Directory of 231 Names

More from this seriesNames and Their Biblical MeaningsSee all 223 articles