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The late Roman poet Claudian (c. AD 370-c. 404) has traditionally been thought to have been a pagan, including by his contemporary, St. Augustine, who calls him “a stranger to the name of Christ” (City of God 5.26). There are, however, good grounds to doubt this description, even from so venerable a source as the Bishop of Hippo.
The chief piece of evidence that one should think twice before yielding Claudian to the heathen is the hymn translated below, now more or less universally acknowledged to be an authentic poem of Claudian. Originally written in Latin in dactylic hexameters, the poem treats Christ’s generation in eternity and in time, and does so in, I would argue--insisting that we remember that this is a poem, not a treatise--a thoroughly orthodox way. Indeed, Claudian even revels in the paradoxes of the Incarnation in a manner reminiscent of the selfsame St. Augustine.
One feature calls for special comment, and that is the conclusion addressed to the Emperor Honorius. Claudian was a court poet at a Christian court. As Alan Cameron has remarked, “It is not a genuine hymn, but a pièce d’occasion to wish Honorius a happy Easter. The last line and a half--may he often celebrate the annual fast--is merely a neat way of wishing him a long reign.” Thus the close of the poem is a nod to Claudian’s Christian patron--a fact that should not, I hasten to add, detract from the intrinsic literary and theological interest of what comes before it.
“On the Savior”
A translation of “De Salvatore” by the 5th century poet Claudian
Christ, Creator of the first and second
Age, the Word and Understanding of the
Highest God, whom from his mind unfathomed
The Father issued forth, and granted union
In possession of his boundless realm:
You have brought our wicked lives to heel,
Breaking sin by suffering to wear the
Vesture of the corporeal world
And to openly profess yourself a
Man in speaking face to face with mankind.
Mary’s womb enclosed you; soon, when she had
Felt the God within, the Virgin’s belly
Feared. Your mother, though as yet unbrided,
Trembled now in dumbstruck silence at the
Secret birth that filled her lowly body:
She would bear her maker. Mortal flesh
Covered heaven’s architect; the author
Of the world became part of the human
Race, and hidden inside one material
Frame was he who holds together all the
Universe. Yes, he who by the measured
Spaces of the earth, by waters of the
Sea, or by the very heaven cannot
Be contained, embodied in a baby’s
Tiny limbs. Not stopping there, you suffered
To endure the name and noxious debt of
Punishment we owe, to rescue us from
Ruin and to rout our mortal woes by
Your mortality. Soon after you were
Carried on celestial breezes, having
Cleansed the earth, returning to your joyous
Father.
Favor our Augustus, so that
He on festal days may celebrate the
Seasons of the holy year again and
Yet again, abstaining from the ancient
Leaven, eating in sincerity our
Born and crucified Passover Lamb.
E. J. Hutchinson
E.J. Hutchinson is Associate Professor of Classics at Hillsdale College, where he also directs the Collegiate Scholars Program. He is the editor and translator of Niels Hemmingsen’s On the Law of Nature: A Demonstrative Method.
