Born into a pagan family and classically educated, Hilary of Poitiers embraced Christianity as an adult; his study of Scripture—especially the Gospel of John—moved him to faith and baptism. In his own telling, Hilary’s conversion was the outcome of a serious pursuit of God: wrestling with the limits of pagan philosophy, he “chanced upon” the Hebrew Scriptures, was struck by God’s self-revelation (“I Am that I Am”), and was led onward to the Gospel’s proclamation of the Word who “was God.” Often called the “Athanasius of the West,” he was a fourth-century bishop who became one of the West’s most important defenders of the Nicene confession that the Son is fully God, equal with the Father—a stand that cost him exile under the Arian-leaning emperor Constantius II. Exile did not blunt Hilary’s pastoral focus; it sharpened it. In his exegesis and doctrinal writings, he returns again and again to the sufficiency of God’s saving mercy in Christ, insisting that the sinner’s standing before God rests not on personal merit or moral achievement but on faith. Indeed, in one of his most cited lines he says with startling directness that “faith alone justifies”—not as a slogan, but as a way of excluding boasting and locating righteousness in God’s gracious act. And all of it—conversion, controversy, exile, and counsel—serves one end: that the Church might know and worship the Father through the Son in the Holy Spirit with greater clarity and joy.