The Heliand and Christological Orthodoxy

Abstract

The ninth-century Heliand, a nearly 6,000-line versification of the life of Christ, is the major surviving monument of Old Saxon literature. The theological viewpoints expressed in the work are of great importance to the study of the ninth-century Saxon mission and of the beliefs of the newly-converted Saxons themselves. In the past century, several scholars who have studied the theology of the Heliand have attributed to the poet various heretical or heterodox beliefs concerning Christ’s nature and will, including Docetism, Monothelitism, and Monophysitism. While some of this scholarship is by now outdated, the tendency to resort to suggestions of Christological heresies in order to explain the poet’s more curious turns of phrase is still apparent in the most important English-language study of the Heliand and in its major English translation. No scholar has stepped forward in recent years to critically examine claims of heresy made against the Heliand, but their implications for the study of the poet and his audience make it important that they be addressed.

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