Son of God, who shall resurrect the body of Adam, and with him the bodies of the
dead, and heal all the sickness. And He shall be baptized in the Jordan, and when
He shall come out of the waters of the Jordan, He shall anoint with the Oil of His
Mercy all of those who believed in Him, and the Oil of Mercy shall be among
the generation of those who are born from the water and the spirit in eternal life.
Amen. Then shall descend upon earth the most beloved Christ, the Son of God.)
The pseudo-Augustinian Sermo CLX De Pascha II, which along with the
Evangelium Nicodemi represents the other great medieval source relating to
Christ’s Descent and Harrowing of Hell, supplies the Majority Text with a se-
ries of dramatic rhetorical questions addressed to both Christ and Satan and
voiced with fear by the infernal legions once they realize that Christ is about to
overcome them.21 These utterances are scattered in paragraphs XXII.1, XXIII.1,
and XXIV.1.
Unde es tu, Iesu, tam fortis homo et splendidus maiestate, tam preclarus sine
macula et mundus a crimine? Ille enim mundus terrenus qui nobis subiectus fuit
semper usque nunc, qui nostris usibus tributa persoluebat, numuquam nobis talem
mortuum hominem transmisit, numquam talia munera Inferis destinauit. Quis
ergo es tu qui sic intrepidus nostros fines ingressus es? Non solum nostra supplicia
8 Niðrstigningar saga
nos uereris, insuper et omnes de nostris uinculis auferre conaris. Forsitan tu es ille
Iesus, de quo princeps noster Satan dicebat quod per tuam mortem crucis totius
mundi potestatem accepturus esses.22
(Whence are you, Jesus, so strong a man and splendid in majesty, so clear without
stain and clean from crime? For that earthly world, which has always been subject
to us until now, and paid the tribute to our use, has never sent us a dead man, never
sent such a gift to Hell. Who are you who enters dauntlessly our borders? Not only
do you not fear our tortures but you also try to take away all men from our bonds.
Perhaps you are the same Jesus of whom our Prince Satan said that, through your
death on the Cross, he would acquire power over the whole world?)
Ecce iam iste Iesus diuinitatis suae fulgore fugat omnes tenebras mortis, et firmum
carcerem confregit, et eicit captious, soluit uinctos. Et omnes qui sub nostris sole-
bant suspirare tormentis insulant nobis, et deprecationibus eorum expugnantur
imperia nostra et regna nostra uincuntur et nullum iam nos reueretur genus homi-
num. Insuper et fortiter nobis comminantur qui numquam nobis superbi fuerunt
mortui, nec aliquando potuerunt laeti esse captiui. O princeps Satan, omnium mal-
orum impiorum et refugarum pater, quid haec facere uoluisti? Quia qui a principio
usque nunc fuerunt disperati salutem et uitam, modo nullus eorum hinc iam solito
mugitus auditur, nec ullus eorum personat gemitus, nec in alicuius eorum facie
lacrimarum uestigium inuenitur. O princeps Satan, possessor clauium inferorum,
illas tuas diuitias, quas adquisieras per lignum preuaricationis et paradysi amis-
sionem, nunc per lignum crucis perdidisti et periit omnis laetitia tua. Dum istum
Christum Regem Gloriae suspendisti, aduersus te et aduersum me egisti. Amodo
cognosce quanta tormenta aeterna et suplicia infinita passurus eris in mea custodia
sempiterna. O princeps Satan, auctor mortis et origo superbiae, debueras primum
istius Iesu causam malam requirere. Et in quo nullam culpam congouisti quare
sine ratione iniuste eum crucifigere ausus fuisti et ad nostram regionem innocen-
tem et iustum perduxisti, et totius mundi noxios, impios et iniustos perdidisti?23
(For now, this Jesus dispels all the shadows of death by the lightning of His divin-
ity and has broken the strong bonds of the prisons and let out the prisoners and
freed those who were bound. And all of those who used to sigh under our tor-
ments, they now insult us, and at their prayers, our realms and our kingdoms are
overwhelmed and conquered, and no nation reveres us any longer. And moreover,
the dead who were never haughty against us and the prisoners who could never
be happy, they now threaten us strongly. O Prince Satan, father of all the evil and
impious, and the fugitives, what did you want to do? Those who from the begin-
ning until now have been desperate for salvation and life, now none of their usual
The Latin Evangelium Nicodemi in Medieval Europe 9
lowing is heard from this place, none of their groans resound, and no trace of
tears can be found on their faces. O Prince Satan, owner of the keys of Hell, the
wealth you had acquired through the wood of prevarication and the entrance to
Paradise you have now lost through the wood of the Cross, and all your gladness
has died. When you hung that King of Glory, you acted against yourself and me.
Henceforth, recognize how many eternal torments and infinite tortures you are go-
ing to suffer in my everlasting custody. O Prince Satan, author of death and origin
of pride, you had to seek for a cause of sin in this Jesus. And when you recognized
no fault in Him, why did you dare to crucify Him without a reason and bring Him,
innocent and just, to our regions, and why have you lost the guilty, the criminal,
the godless, and the unjust of the whole world?)
Aduenisti redemptor mundi; sicut per legem et prophetas tuos predixisti, factis
adimplesti.24
(O Redeemer of the world, you have come just as you have predicted through the
law and your prophets, you have [now] fulfilled with facts.)
The terminus ante quem date for the merging of the Acta Pilati with the
Descensus Christi ad inferos is represented by the transcription and comple-
tion of the first nine Carolingian manuscripts transmitting a text of the Majority
type in the ninth century. Among them, the five witnesses of French origin
seem to have played a fundamental role in the course of the early dissemination
and circulation of the text throughout western Europe.
Laon, BM Suzanne Martinet, 265 (ff. 2r–35r) is a miscellaneous codex pre-
serving mostly sermons and saints’ lives and was one of the numerous manu-
scripts consulted by the Irish scholar Martianus Hibernensis (†875), as noted
in some marginalia of the codex.25 Martianus was director the Cathedral School
of Laon during the third quarter of the ninth century, where, among other sub-
jects, he also taught Greek.26
Saint-Omer, Bibliothèque d’agglomération de Saint-Omer, 202 (ff. 1r–13r)
is a voluminous homilary written in the Benedictine Abbey of Saint Bertin in
the French province of Saint-Omer during the third quarter of the ninth centu-
ry. James E. Cross has recognized it as being the very source text underlying
the first Old English translation of the Latin Evangelium Nicodemi, which
dates back to the eleventh century.27 A paleographical survey of the several Old
English marginal glosses transmitted in the homilary has sought to prove that
the manuscript was in Exeter during the episcopacy of Leofric (†1072).28
London, BL, Royal 5 E. XIII (ff. 82r–100r) is a collection of theological
texts containing works by Cyprian and Bede and extracts from the apocryphal
10 Niðrstigningar saga
Book of Enoch. It was written in Brittany du
ring the ninth century and, as
some corrections and annotations in Old English indicate, was already ex-
ported to England by the tenth century, where it was preserved at Worcester
Cathedral Priory.29
Paris, BnF, nuov. acq. lat. 1605 (ff. 4r–16v) is a manuscript written at Fleury
Abbey towards the end of the ninth century. It preserves various hagiographical
and homiletic texts, most notably the Passio sancti Christophori, the Gospel of
Pseudo-Matthew, and sermons by Augustine, and it was written at Fleury Abbey
towards the end of the ninth century. A note (f. 110r) places the manuscript in
England at Ramsey Abbey in Huntingdonshire during the second decade of the
eleventh century, where it was owned by Abbot Whitman (†ca. 1047).30 The
codex may have been subsequently taken back to its place of origin by Abbot
Whitman himself during his travel to Jerusalem in 1020, as it is was once part of
the manuscript collection of the BM of Orléans (now Médiathèque).31
A fifth fragment, consisting of four leaves transmitting sections of Evange-
lium Nicodemi – today Munich, BStB, Clm 29275 (olim Clm 29163) – was,
according to Bernhard Bischoff, written in France. It has, however, been part
of the manuscript collection of Weihenstephan Abbey, in the Freising district
of Bavaria, since the early Middle Ages.32 Clm 29275 may, within reason, rep-
resent one of the first exemplars of the Majority Text, which by the end of the
ninth century was imported to Bavaria, where there must have been consider-
able subsequent copying.
Providing testimony of this high appreciation of the Evangelium Nicodemi
in Bavaria are two more Carolingian witnesses that transmit a text of the
Majority type, also written in the diocese of Freising before the year 900: a
voluminous palimpsest, Berlin, SPK, Theol. lat. oct. 157 from Tegernsee (the
Evangelium Nicodemi is on pp. 205–73 of the scriptio superior), containing
writings of Augustine and Alcuin, and two leaves in twelve strips, Munich,
Universitätsbibliothek, 2° Cod. ms. 87a, transmitting Augustine’s De civitate
Dei along with small sections of Evangelium Nicodemi, possibly compiled in
the Benedictine Abbey of St Blasien in the Black Forest.33 A ninth voluminous
manuscript, Bern, Burgerbibliothek, 582 (ff. 46r–75v), containing Adamnán of
Iona’s De locis sanctis and an Itinerarium Antonini Placentini, was copied in
the St Gallen scriptorium towards the end of the ninth century.34
To judge from the combined evidence of the very first surviving witnesses of
the Evangelium Nicodemi, the centre of composition and dissemination of the
Majority Text (in the form it has been transmitted up to the present) can be
identified with the prestigious ninth century Carolingian scriptoria of northern
France. The fervid intellectual activities of these centres of learning represented
the cultural excellence of the Carolingian Renaissance; it is consequently
The Latin Evangelium Nicodemi in Medieval Europe 11
understandable that already by the end of the same century, some French codi-
ces transmitting the Majority Text were exported to Bavaria and Switzerland
and that a considerable number of them were acquired and consulted by English
scribes throughout the tenth and the very beginning of the eleventh centuries,
where the Latin text was both copied and transported into the vernacular.
Moreover, the fact that two of these French exemplars were simply borrowed by
the English scriptoria and were subsequently returned to their respective conti-
nental ateliers of provenance may corroborate the hypothesis that the demand
for these French exemplars in those decades was considerably high.
The cathedral schools of northern France during the middle of the ninth
century may have been the ideal place for the assemblage and composition of
the Latin Evangelium Nicodemi in the form we know it today. As a matter of
fact, the translation of the original Greek text into Latin required a good knowl-
edge of the Greek language and a considerable availability of Latin and Greek
apocryphal and homiletic material, including the Latin Acta Pilati, the Greek
Descensus Christi ad inferos, the Latin Vita Adae et Evae, and the pseudo-
Augustinian Sermo CLX De Pascha II. Such requirements were easily fulfilled
by the late Carolingian libraries, and the task of translating such texts from
Greek to Latin may well have been undertaken by some of the Irish monks,
who, around the middle of the ninth century, were active in the Irish monastic
colonies of northern France. Besides the Frankish Hilduin at the Abbey of
Saint Denis (†855) near Paris, a considerable number of these Irish scholars
and masters were active on the Continent, most notably Johannes Scotus
Eriugena (†877) at the palace school of Aachen, Sedulius Scotus (†850) at the
cathedral school of Liège, and the aforementioned Martianus Hiberniensis
(†875) at the cathedral school of Laon. All well-read in Greek, they were al-
ready in those decades successfully teaching Greek to the new generations of
young clerics in their respective cathedral schools and abbeys – not least with
the production of some of the first pedagogical material for the study of Greek
language, such as Greek-Latin glossaries – and were themselves transcribing
and translating Greek biblical, patristic, and homiletic literature into Latin.35
It should also be noted that the two writings with which the Latin Majority
Text was interpolated earlier in its history, the Latin Vita Adae et Evae and the
pseudo-Augustinian Sermo CLX De Pascha II, which subsequently became
two of its most evident and distinguishing features, were integral parts of the
insular apocryphal and homiletic repertoire. They were already circulating
abundantly in Ireland and the British Isles in the eighth century where they
were employed for the composition of new devotional texts.36
The eight surviving exemplars dating to the tenth century further testify to
the great availability of the Majority Text in northern France in the following
12 Niðrstigningar saga
decades. In fact, five of them are without doubt of French provenance, and
virtually all are from the northern regions. Copenhagen, DKB, GkS 1335 4to
(ff. 1r–20rb) was, according to Bernhard Bischoff, written between the eighth
and the ninth century in an unknown scriptorium of eastern France;37 Orléans,
Médiathèque, 341 (olim 289) (pp. 415–44) was written at Fleury Abbey; Paris,
BnF, lat. 5327 (ff. 35v–55r) was written in France, although its exact place of
composition is yet unknown. Two more manuscripts transmit only the incipit
of the text on their final leaves – Paris, BnF, lat. 2825 (f. 137v), from the
Benedictine Abbey of Saint-Amand-les-Eaux; and Chartres, Médiathèque
l’Apostrophe, 34 (olim 109) (f. 118v), probably written at the Abbey of Saint-
Père-en-Valleé in Chartres, was destroyed in the 1944 bombing.38 Besides the
five French witnesses, three more codices from the tenth century survive: the
above-mentioned Codex Einsidlensis (Einsiedeln, Stiftsbibliothek, 326, ff.
11r–29v), written at Fulda Abbey; a manuscript written between northern Italy
and Einsied
eln Abbey, Einsiedeln, Stiftsbibliothek, 169 (olim 468) (pp. 69–
102); and again another voluminous manuscript from Tegernsee in Bavaria,
today Munich, BStB, Clm 19105 (ff. 51v–95v).39
Latin B
A secondary, considerably different, recension of the Latin Evangelium
Nicodemi has been referred to in previous studies as Latin B.40 Its main char-
acteristic is the inclusion of a prologue of the first type, as the one transmitted
in the Vienna palimpsest, attributing the discovery of the apocryphon to the
otherwise unknown Aeneas, which in some codices is introduced by a homi-
letic prologue reading: “Audistis, fratres karissimi, quae acta sunt sub Pontio
Pilato preside temporibus Tiberii caesaris” (“You have heard, O dearest broth-
ers, what has happened under Pontius Pilate, ruler in the times of the Emperor
Tiberius”). The Acta Pilati text is considerably abridged in comparison to a
typical text of the Majority type. Within the Descensus Christi ad inferos, the
redactor often intervenes to mould the original plot to his taste, by adding for
instance the otherwise unattested arrival of the Good Thief in Hell and omitting
altogether the encounter of the patriarchs with Enoch and Elijah in Paradise.41
Its text seems to have originated and circulated in northern Italy, as eleven of
its twenty-five surviving manuscripts indicate. The first two witnesses date to
the eleventh century: one – Padua, Biblioteca Antoniana, 473 Scaff. XXI (ff.
138v–147v) – was written in an unknown location of northern Italy, and an-
other – Munich, BStB, Clm 17181 (ff. 103r–112r) – in Schäfltarn Abbey in
The Latin Evangelium Nicodemi in Medieval Europe 13
Bavaria. Six manuscripts date from the twelfth century: three of them were
compiled in Italy, one in Spain, one at the Abbey of Saint Victor in Paris, and
one in either Austria or Bavaria.42 Only two manuscripts survive from the thir-
teenth century, both transcribed in the British Isles;43 whereas from the four-
teenth century, four manuscripts written in Italy, two in England, and one in
Spain survive.44 The pattern is similar among the eight surviving manuscripts
from the fifteenth century, as three of them, representing the majority, are from
Italy, two from England, and the two from Czech Republic, whereas only a
Niorstigningar Saga Page 3