In one of his poems, the Fourth Eclogue, the great Roman poet Virgil (70–19 BC) had spoken of the return of the virgo (virgin), the dawning of a new age, and a newborn son sent down from the heavens. In the late fourth century, a Christian writer named Jerome claimed that this passage referred to the birth of Christ, even though Virgil was a pagan. The African theologian Augustine accepted this assertion, and in the Middle Ages it was largely taken for granted. This notion was not unusual; recall that the
