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# 'On the Savior' by Claudian
- URL: https://mereorthodoxy.com/on-the-savior-by-claudian/
- Published: 2025-03-28T11:00:00.000Z
- Updated: 2026-05-18T14:50:49.000Z
- Description: a translation of Claudian's poem 'De Salvatore', a poem that has not previously been translated into English
- Author: Mere Orthodoxy
- Tags: E. J. Hutchinson, Poetry, Journal 6, Journal

*This article was published in the Winter 2025 edition of our print Journal. To read for free online, please* [*Subscribe*](https://mereorthodoxy.com/subscribe/free%5Freader)*. If you would like to receive future editions of the print Journal, become a* [*Basic*](https://mereorthodoxy.com/subscribe/member) *or* [*Solidarity Member*](https://mereorthodoxy.com/subscribe/solidarity/) *today.*

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.