The Epic of Christ

'Oh why, supreme Father, are you deserting me in my ultimate peril? Where now is your care for your son?'

Marco Girolamo Vida's Christias, or The Epic of Christ, is one of the supreme achievements of sixteenth-century literature. It offers a vivid, energetic retelling of the life of Christ, steeped in the classical tradition of epic poetry as represented chiefly by Virgil's Aeneid. The familiar Bible stories are recast in the heroic idiom of Latin epic, representing Christ's mission on earth as a quest for the redemption of humanity. Vida deploys the full resources of classical rhetoric to lend power and pathos to Christian theology, while subtle and intricate allusions to classical texts and other earlier literature deepen the implications of his narrative and the characterisation of major figures from the biblical tradition. The result is a rich, imaginative amalgam of classical, Christian, and early modern elements which was to inspire later authors such as John Milton and Torquato Tasso, and would be imitated and translated in numerous European languages over the following centuries.

This new translation by L. B. T. Houghton captures the drama, majesty, and humanity of Vida's epic and identifies the poet's most important literary models, setting this hugely influential work within its historical, intellectual, and artistic contexts.

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