Claudius was the son of Mat­thi­as Clau­di­us, Lu­ther­an pas­tor at Rein­feld. An an­ces­tor, a Lu­ther­an pas­tor in who died in 1586, had La­tin­ized his name, Claus Paul­sen, to Clau­di­us Paul­i, and his de­scend­ants adopt­ed Clau­di­us as their sur­name. Mat­thi­as en­tered the Un­i­ver­si­ty of Je­na in 1759 as a the­o­lo­gy stu­dent, but bei­ng in ill health, and find­ing lit­tle in­ter­est in his stu­dies, he turned in­stead to law and lan­guag­es. Af­ter a short vi­sit to Co­pen­hagen, he joined in 1768 the Ham­burg News Agen­cy (Adress-Comp­toir­nach­richt­en). Mov­ing to Wands­beck, near Ham­burg, he be­came in 1771 ed­it­or of the lit­er­ary por­tion of the Wands­bec­ker Bote, and con­trib­ut­ed a num­ber of his po­ems to the Gött­ing­en Mus­en-Al­ma­nach. In 1776, he was ap­point­ed a Com­miss­ion­er of Ag­ri­cul­ture and Man­ufac­tures in Hes­sen-Darm­stadt; in 1777 ed­it­or of the of­fi­cial Hess­en-Darm­stadt news­pa­per; and in 1788 the Crown Prince of Den­mark made him aud­it­or of the Schles­wig-Hol­stein Bank at Al­to­na.

Hymns

1. Das Grab ist leer
2. Der Mond ist aufgegangen
3. Im Anfang war’s auf Erden (Wir pflügen und wir streuen)
   • We Plow the Fields