Eclogue 4

Eclogue 4, also known as the Fourth Eclogue, is a Latin poem by the Roman poet Virgil. The poem is dated to 40 BC by its mention of the consulship of Virgil's patron Gaius Asinius Pollio.

The work predicts the birth of a boy, a supposed savior, who—once he is of age—will become divine and eventually rule over the world. The exact meaning of the poem is still debated. Earlier interpretations argued that the child was the hoped-for offspring of Mark Antony and Octavia the Younger. Some commentators shy away from imagining the child as a specific person. Edwin Floyd, for example, argued that the child could be seen metaphorically as Virgil's poetry. Another possibility, argued by Francis Cairns, is that the child is the expected offspring of Virgil's patron Gaius Asinius Pollio, to whom the poem is dedicated.^[1]

In late antiquity and the Middle Ages, the poem was reinterpreted by Christians to be about the birth of Jesus Christ. Medieval scholars thus claimed that Virgil had predicted Christ prior to his birth, and therefore must have been a pre-Christian prophet. Notable individuals such as Constantine the Great, St. Augustine, Dante Alighieri, and Alexander Pope believed in this interpretation of the eclogue. Modern scholars by and large shy away from this interpretation, although Floyd does note that the poem contains elements of religious and mythological themes, and R. G. M. Nisbet concluded that it is likely that Virgil was indirectly inspired by the Hebrew Scriptures via Eastern oracles.