What does "Christ was born across the sea" mean in Julia Ward Howe's The Battle Hymn of the Republic? The fifth verse of Julia Ward Howe's The Battle Hymn of the Republic, as published in 1862, goes like this:


  In the beauty of the lilies Christ was born across the sea,
  With a glory in His bosom that transfigures you and me;
  As He died to make men holy, let us die to make men free,
  While God is marching on. (source)


What does the phrase "Christ was born across the sea" mean? Another question provides a tremendous explanation of the first part, regarding the lilies, so I'm hoping you can help me with the last part of this line.
First, just to be clear, this line is about Christ's birth, not about his being carried somewhere.

As explained at Grammarist.com here:


"Borne is the past tense and past participle of bear in all senses not related to birth," while
"Born is also a past tense and past participle of bear, but it’s reserved mainly for use as the passive verb in contexts relating to birth."


(The non-bold italics are added in both cases.)

If the author and the various editors of the lyrics to the song had wanted to say that Christ was "carried across the sea," they would have written "borne," not "born." Their consistent use of the form "born" indicates that the line is about Christ's birth.

Having established that:

Julia Ward Howe (1819-1910) was an American. Therefore the simplest explanation for the line "Christ was born across the sea" in The Battle Hymn of the Republic is that the Holy Land, where Jesus was born, is across the "sea," or ocean, from North America, where the lyrics for the song were written, and where the song achieved great popularity both as a hymn and as a patriotic song.

Whatever metaphorical meanings the line may carry (and for Americans of previous centuries, living "across the sea" from their origins in the Old World continents did have a quasi-religious symbolism as they established a new nation on one of the continents of the New World), the most likely basic meaning is that the song is picturing Christ's wondrous birth ("in the beauty of the lilies") as having taken place across the ocean from the land where the song was set, in Civil War America.

This wondrous birth is then set in apposition to the power of his death "to make men holy," invoking enduring themes and metaphors of birth and death.