Eclogue 4, also known as the Fourth Eclogue, is the name of a Latin poem by the Roman poet Virgil. Part of his first major work, the Eclogues, the piece was written around 40 BC, during a time of brief stability following the Treaty of Brundisium; it was later published in and around the years 39–38 BC. The work describes the birth of a boy, a supposed savior, who once of age will become divine and eventually rule over the world. During late antiquity and the Middle Ages, a desire emerged to view Virgil as a virtuous pagan, and as such, early Christians, such as Roman Emperor Constantine, early Christian theologian Lactantius, and St. Augustineto varying degreesreinterpreted the poem to be about the birth of Jesus Christ. This belief persisted into the Medieval era, with many scholars arguing that Virgil not only prophesied Christ prior to his birth but also that he was a pre-Christian prophet. Dante Alighieri included Virgil as a main character in his Divine Comedy, and Michelangelo included the Cumaean Sibyl on the ceiling painting of the Sistine Chapel (a reference to the widespread belief that the Sibyl herself prophesied the birth of Christ, and Virgil used her prophecies to craft his poem). Modern scholars, such as Robin Nisbet, tend to eschew this interpretation, arguing that seemingly Judeo-Christian elements of the poem can be explained through means other than divine prophecy. Background The scholarly consensus is that Virgil began the hexameter Eclogues (or Bucolics) in 42 BC and it is thought that the collection was published around 39–8 BC (although this assertion is not without its detractors). The Eclogues (from the Greek word for "selections") are a group of ten poems roughly modeled on the bucolic hexameter poetry ("pastoral poetry") of the Hellenistic poet Theocritus. The fourth of these Eclogues can be dated to around 40 BC, during a time when the Roman Civil war seemed to be coming to an end. Eclogue 4 largely concerns the birth of a child (puer) who will become divine and eventually rule over the world. Classicist H. J. Rose notes that the poem "is in a sense Messianic, since it contains a prophecy (whether meant seriously or not) of the birth of a wonder-child of more than mortal virtue and power, who shall restore the Golden Age". By the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries AD, Virgil had gained a reputation as