HELIAND. The 9th-century poem on the Gospel history, to which its first editor, J. A. Schmeller, gave the appropriate name of Heliand (the word used in the text for "Saviour"), is, with the fragments of a version of the story of Genesis believed to be by the same author, all that remains of the poetical liter ature of the Old Saxons, i.e., the Saxons who continued in their original home. It contained when entire about 6,000 lines, and portions of it are preserved in four mss. The poem is based on the pseudo-Tatian's harmony of the Gospels, and shows acquaint ance with the commentaries of Alcuin, Baeda and Rabanus Maurus (whose commentary on the gospel of Matthew was fin ished about 82o).
A part of the Genesis poem, as is mentioned in the article CAEDMON, is extant only in an Old English translation, but portions have been preserved in the original language in the same Vatican ms. that includes a fragment of the Heliand. In the one language or the other, there are in existence the following three fragments : (I) The passage which appears as 'He wrote his name Heliae or Eliae.
lines 35-851 in the so-called "Caedmon's Genesis," on the revolt of the angels and the temptation and fall of Adam and Eve. Of this the part corresponding to lines 790-820 exists also in the original Old Saxon. (2) The story of Cain and Abel, in 124 lines. (3) The account of the destruction of Sodom, in 187 lines. The main source of the Genesis is the Bible, but considerable use was made of two Latin poems by Alcimus Avitus, De initio mundi and De peccato originali.
The two poems give evidence of genius and trained skill. Within the limits imposed by the nature of his task, the poet's treatment of his sources is remarkably free, the details unsuited for poetic handling being passed over, or, in some instances, boldly altered. In the Heliand the Saviour and His Apostles are conceived as a king and his faithful warriors, and the use of the traditional epic phrases appears to be the spontaneous mode of expression of one accustomed to sing of heroic themes. The Genesis fragments have less of the heroic tone, except in the splendid passage describing the rebellion of Satan and his host. It is noteworthy that the poet, like Milton, sees in Satan no mere personification of evil, but the fallen archangel, whose guilt could not obliterate all traces of his native majesty.
Such external evidence as exists bearing on the origin of the Heliand and the companion poem is contained in a Latin docu ment printed by Flacius Illyricus in 1562. This is in two parts; the one in prose, entitled (perhaps only by Flacius himself) "Praefatio ad librum antiquum in lingua Saxonica conscriptum"; the other in verse, headed "Versus de poeta et Interpreta liujus codicis." The Praefatio begins by stating that the emperor, Lud wig the Pious, commanded a certain Saxon, who was esteemed as an eminent poet, to translate the Old and New Testaments. The poet rendered into verse all the most important parts of the Bible with admirable skill, dividing his work into vitteas, a term which, the writer says, may be rendered by "lectiones" or "sen tentias." The Praefatio goes on to say that it was reported that the poet, till then knowing nothing of the art of poetry, had been admonished in a dream to turn into verse the precepts of the divine law, which he did with so much skill that his work Sur passes in beauty all other German poetry. The Versus practically reproduces in outline Baeda's account of Caedmon's dream, with out mentioning the dream, but describing the poet as a herds man, and adding that his poems, beginning with the creation, relate the history of the five ages of the world down to the coming of Christ.
As the Praefatio speaks of the emperor Ludwig in the present tense, the former part of it at least was probably written in his reign, i.e., not later than A.D. 840. The general opinion of scholars is that the latter part, which represents the poet as having received his vocation in a dream, is by a later hand, and that the sentences in the earlier part which refer to the dream are interpolations. The date of these additions, and of the Versus, is of no impor tance, as their statements are incredible. That the author of the Heliand was, so to speak, another Caedmon—an unlearned man who turned into poetry what was read to him from the sacred writings—is impossible, because in many passages the text of the sources is so closely followed that it is clear that the poet wrote with the Latin books before him. On the other hand, there is no reason for rejecting the almost contemporary testimony of the first part of the Praefatio that the author of the Heliand had won renown as a poet before he undertook his great task at the emperor's command.