6 Sylwan, Petri Comestoris, 47/37–9. See also PL 198/1075B–1075C.
7 On the circulation and reception of the Historia scholastica in medieval France
and England, see Morey, “Peter Commestor, Biblical Paraphrase,” 6–35.
8 On the composition of Stjórn I, see Kirby, Bible Translation in Old Norse, 52–6.
9 On the employment of Historia scholastica and Speculum historiale in Stjórn I,
see Astås, Et bibelverk fra middelalderen, 140–6 and 146–8, respectively.
10 Astås, ed., Stjórn, 60/20–61/6.
11 Such as “princeps et dux mortis” in K XX.1 38/1 (“Prince and ruler of Death”)
or phrases that emphasize his low position in cosmogonical order as a consequence
of his disastrous fall, such as “sputio iustorum, derisio angelorum Dei” in K XXIII
43/4–5 (“spittle of the just and scorn of the angels of God”).
12 K XXIII.1 43/2–3.
13 T 101v/30.
14 A 52v/17–19.
15 Revelation 12:3.
122 Notes to pages 74–6
16 Turville-Petre, Origins of Icelandic Literature, 126–8; Aho, “Niðrstigningarsaga,”
150–9; Magnús Már Lárusson, “Um Niðrstigningarsögu,” 159–68; Gschwantler,
“Christus, Thor und die Midgardschlange,” 152–3; Marchand, “Leviathan and
the Mousetrap,” 328; Haugen, “Soga om nedstiginga i dødsriket,” 99; K. Wolf,
“The Influence of the Evangelium Nicodemi,” 269.
17 A 53r/16–18.
18 “Tollites portas principes vestras et elevamini porte eternales et introibit Rex
Glorie.” (“Lift up your gates, O princes, and lift up your eternal gates, so that the
King of Glory may come in.”)
19 In K XXI.1/3–4.
20 In K XXI.2/2–3 and K XXI.3/4–5.
21 See Dubois, “La représentation de la Passion,” 77–89.
22 A 53v/7–8.
23 T 110v/7–8 and T 101r/17–18. The Icelandic compiler might have associated
the sentences preceding and following the Tollite portas, verses 24(23):7 and
24(23):10, which describe God as “strong and mighty in battle” (“Dominus fortis
et potens, Dominus potens in proelio”) and as a “Lord of hosts” (“Dominus vir-
tutum”) with the images of Revelation 19:11–21, which portray the returning and
avenging Christ as a victorious Roman emperor riding a white horse and wear-
ing a scarlet robe. For a detailed historical, mythological, and literary analysis of
Revelation 19, see Thomas, Revelation 19. Christ is depicted as riding a horse into
Hell in the Descent into Hell poem of the Exeter Book (Exeter, Cathedral Library,
3501) from the second half of the tenth century. It has been suggested that this
imagery in the Old English poem may have been inspired by the hymn Gloria,
laus et honor. The hymn, first composed by Theodulf of Orléans (†821) and subse-
quently included in the Roman Missal, played a key role in the Palm Sunday ritual.
See Ruggerini, “A Just and Riding God,” 206–24.
24 For a discussion on the literary genre of Revelation, see Mazzaferri, The Genre
of the Book of Revelation. On its imagery and reception in the Middle Ages,
see Matter, “The Apocalypse in Early Medieval Exegesis,” 38–50.
25 A 53r/18–20.
26 A 53r/20–7.
27 Revelation 19:11–17.
28 “et de ore ipsius procedit gladius acutus ut in ipso percutiat gentes et ipse reget eos
in virga ferrea et ipse calcat torcular vini furoris irae Dei omnipotentis.” (“And out
of His mouth procedeth a sharp [two edged] sword; that with it He may strike the
nations. And He shall rule them with a rod of iron; and He treadeth the winepress
of the fierceness of the wrath of God the Almighty.”)
29 A 53v/12–19.
Notes to pages 77–9 123
30 Turville-Petre, Origins of Icelandic Literature, 126–8, and Magnús Már Lárusson,
“Um Niðrstigningarsögu,” 159–68. On the interpretation of Job 41, see Pelham,
Contested Creations, 134–7.
31 Job 41:1–9(40:20–8).
32 Aho, “Niðrstigningarsaga,” 151–9. The myth is addressed in Meulengracht
Sørensen, “Thor’s fishing expedition,” 257–78. Snorri’s treatment of the poem
is discussed in A. Wolf, “Sehweisen und Darstellungsfragen,” 1–27.
33 de Leeuw van Weenen, The Icelandic Homily Book, 35v/9–20. The Latin text
was edited under the name Homilia XXV in Evangelia. See Gregory the Great,
Homiliae in evangelia, CCSL 213/226 and PL vol. 76, cols. 1188–96, at col. 1194.
See also Marchand, “Leviathan and the Mousetrap,” 329.
34 Gregory of Nyssa, Oratio Catechetica magna, PG vol. 45, col. 65.
35 “For since, as has been said before it was not in the nature of the opposing power
to come in contact with the undiluted presence of God and to undergo His en-
clouded manifestation, therefore, in order to secure that the ransom in our behalf
might be easily accepted by him who required it, the Deity was hidden under the
veil of our nature, so that, as with ravenous fish, the hook of the Deity might be
gulped down along with the bait of flesh, and thus life being introduced into the
house of death and light shining in darkness that which is diametrically opposed
to light and life must vanish; for it is not in the nature of darkness to remain
when light is present, or of death to exist when life is active.” Schaff and Wallace,
Gregory of Nyssa, 927–73. On Gregory of Nyssa’s employment of the fishhook
metaphor, see Satran, “Deceiving the Deceiver,” 357–64.
36 For a historical overview of the different theories of atonement, see Rashdall,
The Idea of Atonement, and Aulén, Christus Victor.
37 It is implicit then that Christ’s victory over the Devil was the result of the Devil’s
own abuse of power: he tried to exercise over Christ the power that he pos-
sessed over earthly sinners only. The Devil’s rights of possession are exposed
in Augustine’s De Trinitate, book 13, chapter 12, Propter Adae peccatum iusto
Dei iudicio in potestatem diaboli est genus humanum, in PL vol. 42, col. 1026.
38 David Scott-Macnab has recently advanced that in his writings, Augustine might
have intended “muscipula” simply as a synonym to the more common “laqueus”
(“snare/trap for animals and birds”) and not as a specific “mousetrap”; cf. Scott-
Macnab “St Augustine and the Devil’s ‘Mousetrap,’” However, throughout the
Middle Ages and modern times, “muscipula” has been consistently interpreted
as a specific “mousetrap.” For a survey of the mousetrap metaphor in the writings
of Augustine, see Berchtold, Des rats et des ratières, 21–52. On this interpolation
of the Icelandic text, see Bullitta, “Crux Christi muscipula fuit diabolo,” especially
141–8.
124 Notes to pages 80–2
39 In Sermo 265D, edited in PLS, 2:707, and in his Enarrationes in Psalmos LI- C,
edited by Dekkers and Fraipont, 1414.
40 See, for instance, the discussion in BeDuhn, Augustine’ s Manichaean Dilemma,
vol. 2, Making a “Catholic” Self, 129–37.
41 “cum autem mortale hoc induerit inmortalitatem tunc fiet sermo qui scriptus est
absorta est mors in victoria.” (“And when this mortal hath put on immortality, then
shall come to pass the saying that is written: Death is swallow
ed up in victory.”)
42 For a review of the imageries associated with the Devil in the New Testament, see
Russell, The Devil, 221–49.
43 The text was first discovered and edited by Morin, “Un sermon,” 134–43, and later
included in PLS, 2:707. The edition followed here is MiAg, 1:662/8–19.
44 The entrance to Hell was held to be on Golgotha, which besides being the place of
Christ’s murder was also held to be the very place where Adam was born and died.
Moreover, the tree used to make Christ’s cross was believed to have grown from
a seed taken from Eden and later planted on Adam’s grave on the Golgotha; see
Lima, “The Mouth of Hell,” 36n2 and references there. See also details in Figure 5
in chapter 4.
45 The referent for “lion,” the dangerous wild beast trapped in a snare, which in
the New Testament (and in commentaries deriving from it) represents Satan, has
in this instance been replaced with its Icelandic equivalent, a “melrakki” (“arctic
fox”). One of the most prominent passages showing Satan in the shape of a lion
is 1 Peter 5:8: “sobrii estote et vigilate quia adversarius vester diabolus tamquam
leo rugiens circuit quaerens quem devoret” (“Be sober and watch: because our
adversary the Devil, as a roaring lion, goeth about seeking whom he may devour”).
On the hunting of arctic foxes in the Icelandic Middle Ages, see, for instance,
Durrenberger and Gísli Pálsson, The Anthropology of Iceland, 39.
46 A 53v/19–20.
47 645 54v/1–2 “Þa toc Dominus Rex Glorie at troþa niþr hofðingi⟨a⟩ dauþans
oc batt hann meþ elldligom bondom.” (“Then the Lord, the King of Glory, began
to trample down the Prince of Death and bound him with blazing bonds.”)
48 On Worcester F 93, see for instance Floyer and Hamilton, Catalogue of
Manuscripts, 46–7.
49 None of the 221 sermons is from Bede or Gregory the Great; only fifty-seven
of them are connected to Paul the Deacon’s reconstructed homiliary, while in
the Roman homiliaries, seventy-eight are from Alan of Farfa and fifteen from
Agimundus. See the discussion in Richards, Texts and Their Traditions, 112–20.
50 On the medieval Vulgate tradition at the Rochester Cathedral Library, see ibid.,
61–84.
51 The most extensive study on Peter Lombard is Colish, Peter Lombard. A transla-
tion of all four books of the Sententiae is available in Lombard, The Sentences.
Notes to pages 82–6 125
52 The familiarity of the author of Niðrstigningar saga with this passage of
Lombard’s Sententiae and the mousetrap metaphor was postulated by Otto
Gschwantler, who suggested that the translation must therefore have been compiled
in the second half of the twelfth century. See Gschwantler, “Christus, Thor,” 155.
53 See the discussions in Wawrykow, “Peter Lombard,” 650, and Edward, The
Foundations of Modern Science, 48.
54 Augustine’s Sermo 130 (a) is available in Sermones ad populum, De verbis
Evangelii Joannis, ubi narratur miraculum de quinque panibus et duobus piscibus,
PL vol. 38: cols. 725–8.
55 Lombard, Sententiae, par. 5/1–15. See also PL vol. 192, cols. 795–6.
56 The sermon has previously been wrongly attributed to Hildebert of Lavardin,
archbishop of Tours (†1133). See Hildebert of Lavardin, Sermones de tempore, IX
in Nativitate Domini, Sermo primus, De Nativitate Domini, in PL vol. 171: cols.
381–8, at 385A–385B. On Peter Lombard’s sermons being mistakenly attributed
to Hildebert, see Rosemann, Peter Lombard, 353.
57 Lombard, Collectaneorum in Paulum continuatio in PL, vol. 192: cols. 421B–421D.
Hebrews 2:14: “quia ergo pueri communicaverunt sanguini et carni et ispe similiter
participavit hisdem ut per mortem destrueret eum qui habeat mortis imperium id est
diabolum.” (“Therefore, because the children are partakers of flesh and blood, He
also Himself in like manner hath been partaker of the same: that, through Death,
He might destroy him who had the Empire of Death, that is to say, the Devil.”)
58 The mousetrap simile occurs in Nicholas of Lyra’s version of the Glossa ordina-
ria; see Nicholas of Lyra, Textus Biblie cum glossa ordinaria, f. 138r. The same
topos, in a similar cautionary tale describing a mouse blinded by its greed and
consequently caught in a mortal trap, would become extremely popular in the early
modern times through Emblem 95 of Andrea Alciato’s Emblematum liber, first
published in 1531. The poem, entitled Captivus ob gulam (“Caught by Gluttony”),
has been inspired by Antiphilus of Byzantium’s epigram 86 in book 9 of the
Anthologia graeca. See, for instance, Marsh, Renaissance Fables, 311. Alciato’s
Emblem 95 is available in Figure 6.
59 Magnús Már Lárusson gives no reasonable evidence for his suggestion other than
Jón Ögmundarson’s well-known erudition and his stature as one of the first trans-
lators of hagiographical literature into Icelandic. See Magnús Már Lárusson, “Um
Niðrstigningarsögu,” 167. He is later followed by Gschwantler, “Christus, Thor,”
152, and Kirby, Bible Translation in Old Norse, 35.
6 The Theological Context of Niðrstigningar saga
1 Andersen, Katalog over AM Accessoria 7. The parchment fragments were al-
ready severely damaged when they were collected in Iceland and transferred to
126 Notes to pages 86–9
Copenhagen by Árni Magnússon (†1730) in the early eighteenth century. It was on
account of their apparently irreversible state of despair that they were subsequently
used by him and his team to bind together scattered leaves or quires of mostly
paper manuscripts transmitting secular literature. See discussion in Andersen,
xviii–xix.
2 A leaf from a gradual (Andersen, Katalog over AM Accessoria 7, item 27), a leaf
of a sacramentary (item 72), a leaf of a missal (item 78), and two psalters (items
108 and 113).
3 Ibid., item 103. Five manuscripts of the Eulogium are known today. Curley, “John
of Cornwall,” 1038.
4 Its text has been edited by Häring, ed., “The Eulogium ad Alexandrum Papam,”
253–300. On the criticism advanced against Peter Lombard’s Sententiae, see,
most recently, Monagle, Christological Nihilism.
5 On Boethius’s hypostasis, see Bradshaw, “The Opuscula Sacra,” 123–4.
6 Andersen, Katalog over AM Accessoria 7, item 122.
7 See ibid., item 122. Guy Lobrichon rejects Gilbert of Poitiers’s authorship of the
prologue. See Lobrichon, “Une nouveauté,” 113.
8 For an overview of the great exegetical work around the Glossa ordinaria, see van
Liere, “Biblical Exegesis,” 167–70.
9 Revelation 1–4:2 and 10:10–16:16 (ff. 69r–70v).
10 Several Scandinavian clerics are known to have studied at the influential Abbey
of Saint Victor in Paris during the last decades of the twelfth century. These
include the Danish Archbishops Eskil (†1181) and Absalon (†1201) of Lund.
Norwegian Archbishops Eysteinn Erlendsson (†1188), Erik Ivarsson (†1213), and
Þórir Gudmunsson (†1214) of Niðaróss, and Bishop Þórir (†1196) of Hamar, all
believed to have studied theology in Paris. See Bekker-Nielsen, “The Victorines
and Their Influenc
e,” 32–3.
11 The first to suggest that Þorlákr studied at Saint Victor Abbey was Paasche, Norges
og Islands, 281. See also K. Wolf, “Pride and Politics,” 244.
12 Jarteinabók Þorláks byskups in forna, 135/1–3.
13 See “The Prologue” section in chapter 4.
14 A 55v/20–23 “Enn morgom mannzøll⟨drom⟩ siþar comsc at boc þeire Theodosius
keisere sonr Archadii. Hann hafði meþ sér i Miclagarþ oc let þar uppraþa oc varþ
þar monnom alldat umb.” (“And many generations later their book came to the
Emperor Theodosius, son of Arcadius. He had it with him in Constantinople and
had it read aloud and people were very impressed by it.”)
15 Even within the manuscripts of Niðrstigningar saga, the reading “uppráða” is
unstable. B 14v/23 reads “uppráða,” while C 28v/43 and D 10r/5 both transmit
“upplesa.” The only manuscript of Sverris saga transmitting the reading “uppráða”
is the so-called Skálholtsbók yngsta (AM 81 A fol.), dated to the years 1450–75.
Notes to pages 89–93 127
AM 324 4to, possibly written in Norway by an Icelandic scribe around 1300 (on
which the edition is based), transmits the synonym “upplesa.” See Karl Jónsson,
Saga Sverris konungs, 293. This piece of evidence may corroborate Anne
Holtsmark’s hypothesis that AM 645 4to was indeed written at Skálholt.
16 Jarteinabók Þorláks byskups ǫnnur, ci. The Jarteinabók Þórlaks byskups ǫnnur
is appended to recension C of Þórlaks saga byskups. The text is transmitted along
with Hungrvaka in AM 379 4to, copied in 1645. The Jarteinabœkr Þorláks bysk-
ups are extensively surveyed in Kuhn, “The Emergence of a Saint’s Cult,” 240–54.
17 Jarteinabók Þorláks byskups ǫnnur, 249/6–19.
18 Ásdís Egilsdóttir, “St. Þorlákr in Iceland,” 130.
19 Matthew 10:8 “infirmos curate mortuos sucitate leprosos mundate daemones eicite
gratis accepistis gratis date” (“Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse the lepers, cast
out devils: freely you have received, freely give”); Matthew 11:5 “caeci vident
claudi ambulant leprosi mundatur surdi audiunt mortui resurgunt pauperes evan-
gelizantur” (“The blind see, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear,
the dead rise again, the poor have the gospel preached to them”).
20 A 52v/23–25 “oc marga menn er ec hafða blinda gørva ⟨oc hallta⟩ oc biuga
Niorstigningar Saga Page 21