eum servum sempiternum numquid includes ei quasi avi aut ligabis illum ancillis
tuis concident eum amici divident illum negotiatiores numquid implebis sage-
nas pelle eius et gurgustium piscium capite illius pone super eum manum tuam
memento belli nec ultra addas loqui ecce spes eius frustabitur eum et videntibus
cunctis praecipitabitur non quasi crudelis suscitabo eum quis enim resistere potest
vultui meo quis ante dedit mihi ut reddam ei omnia quae sub caelo sunt mea sunt.31
(Canst thou draw out the Leviathan with a hook, or canst thou tie his tongue with
a cord? Canst thou put a ring in his nose, or bore through his jaw with a buckle?
Will he make many supplications to thee, or speak soft words to thee? Will he
make a covenant to thee, and wilt thou take him to be a servant for ever? Shalt
thou play with him as with a bird, or tie him up for thy handmaids? Shall friends
cut him in pieces, shall merchants divide him? Wilt thou fill nets with his skin, and
the cabins of fishes with his head? Lay thy hand upon him: remember the battle,
and speak no more. Behold this hope shall fall him, and in the sight of all, he shall
be cast down. I will not stir him up, like one that is cruel: for who can resist my
countenance? Who hath given me before that I should repay him? All things that
are under Heaven are mine.)
A second theory has considered the interpolation as native narrative material
derived from the mythological fishing for the Miðgarðsormr (the World
Serpent of Norse mythology), related most extensively in the poem Hymiskviða
of the Elder Edda, and subsequently treated by Snorri Sturluson (†1241) in the
Snorra Edda, in which Þórr, on his fishing expedition, attempts to catch the
78 Niðrstigningar saga
Miðgarðsormr but eventually fails.32 James W. Marchand has subsequently
discarded this theory and has instead drawn attention to a homily by Pope
Gregory the Great on the Resurrection of Christ, in which Job 41 is quoted and
commented upon; this homily made its way into the Icelandic Homily Book
(Stockholm, Kb Holm. Perg. 15 4to), in which the name “Leviathan” is glossed
above the line with “Miðgarðsormr.”
oc ſté h aɴ þa yv er eɴ forna fiánda eſ h aɴ lét ofriþar m eɴ b er iaſc i gegn ſér.
þ at ſýnde d ró tteɴ þa eſ h aɴ m æ lte viþ eɴ ſǽla iób. ᴍoɴ e i g e þu d ra ga leviaþan miþgarþ ar ormr a ǫngle eþa bora kiþr h anſ meþ báuge. Sia gléypande hvalr
m er k er gróþgan aɴſkota þaɴ eſ ſvelga vill ałt maɴkyn idauþa. Agn eſ lagt a
ǫngol en hvas broddr léyneſc. þeɴa orm tók almáttegr g oþ a ǫngle. þa eſ h aɴ
ſende ſon ſiɴ til dáuþa ſýnelegan at líka m en oſýnelegan at g oþdóme. Diaboluſ
ſa agn lika mſ h anſ þ at eſ h aɴ beit oc viłde fyrfara. En g oþdo mſ b ro ddr ſtangaþe h aɴ ſvaſe m ǫngoł. A ǫngle varþ h aɴ tekeɴ. þ uia t h aɴ beideſc at g ri pa líca mſ
agn þ at eſ h aɴ ſa. en vas g oþdó mſ b ro dr ſa eſ léyndr vaſ ſǽrþe h aɴ. A ongle
varþ h aɴ tekeɴ. þ uia t h aɴ fek ſcaþa afþui eſ h aɴ béit. oc glataþe h aɴ þei m eſ
h aɴ hafþe áþr vełde yv er. þ uia t ⸌h aɴ⸍ tréyſteſc at g ri pa þaɴ eſ h aɴ hafþe etke
vełde igegn.33
(And then He [Christ] overcame the Old Enemy, who had let hostile people go
against Him. This was shown by the Lord when He spoke to the blessed Job: You
cannot drag out the Leviathan ⸌the Miðgarðsormr⸍ on a fishhook, or pierce its jaw
with a ring [Job 41:1–3(40:20–1)]. This devouring whale symbolizes the greedy
enemy that wants to swallow mankind into Death. The bait is lain on the fish-
hook, and its sharp point remains hidden. That serpent was taken on a fishhook
by the Almighty Lord when He sent His Son to death with a visible body but an
invisible divinity. The Devil saw the bait of his body, which he bit and wanted to
destroy, but the divinity picked him like a fishhook. He was taken on a fishhook
because he was impelled to seize the bait of the body, which he could see, but the
sharp point of the divinity, which was hidden, injured him. He was taken on the
fishhook because he was hurt by what he had bitten and he lost what previously
was under his power because he trusted himself in seizing the One upon whom
he had no power.)
It should nevertheless be noted that the first line of the interpolation makes
no explicit reference to the Leviathan itself; instead it describes the terrifying
This description seems to be typologically and formally more suitable to the
literary context of Revelation, Satan’s rejection from Hell being reminiscent
The Textual Interpolations of Niðrstigningar saga 79
of his other epic expulsion, his fall from Paradise. In Revelation 12:9, when he
is expelled from Heaven and cast down to earth, Satan is powerfully described
as having the shape of a great dragon (“draco magnus” / “dreki mikill”), threat-
ening or lying around (“sedurre” / “liggia umb”) the entire world (“orbem uni-
versum” / “allan heima”): “Et proiectus est draco ille magnus, serpens antiquus,
qui uocatur diabolus, et Satanas, qui seducit universum orbem et proiectus est
in terram et angelis eius cum illi missi sunt” (“And that great dragon was
cast out, that old serpent, who is called the devil and Satan, who seduceth the
whole world; and he was cast unto the earth, and his angels were thrown down
with him”).
As I will show below, the second section concerning the defeat of Satan is
not derived from the Bible itself, and the homily of Gregory the Great in the
Icelandic Homily Book, albeit thematically and theologically suitable, cannot
be considered the ultimate source of this passage, since it lacks the other two
images: those of a mousetrap and a snare.
The analogy between the cross and a fishhook, subsequently adopted by
Gregory the Great at the end of the sixth century, was first employed in the
fourth century by Gregory of Nyssa (†ca. 395) in one of his sermons to illus-
trate the meaning and consequence of the death of Christ.34 Gregory of Nyssa
suggested that the death of Christ was a necessary ransom paid to the Devil by
God himself, who sacrificed his only Son to deliver humanity from original sin.
Satan accepted God’s bargain, but he was eventually defeated as he failed to
recognize the duality of Christ’s nature: both human and divine. Gregory tells
that when the Devil, hungry for death and blinded by his greed, saw Christ in
his earthly body on the cross, he rushed to gulp down Christ’s body but was
instead entrapped on the Cross like a “ravenous fish” on a “fishhook.”35 This
view of Redemption, which would later be labelled as the “ransom theory of
atonement,” would become the most widely disseminated theory of Redemption
throughout Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages.36
In the fifth century, Augustine drew extensively on this theory and further
developed it, suggesting that God consciously decided not to defeat the Devil
by exercising his absolute power over him but instead preferred to conquer
him through justice in order to provide a good example to humanity.37 Accord-
ingly, Gregory’s fishhook metaphor seems to have at least partially inspired
Augustine to adopt the image of a “muscipula” (“a mousetrap”) for the captur-
ing of Satan on the cross, a gloomy image that was normally reserved for the
temptations of Satan.38
On two occasions, Augustine employs the two images – that is, “hamus”
(“fishhook”) and “muscipula” (“mousetrap”) – together to symbolize the cross.
In both contexts, a third hunting trap, a “laqueus” (“snare or trap for lions”), is
80 Niðrstigningar saga
also involved to further emphasize the beastly nature of the Devil and the dan-
ger of leaving him unbound.39 Of particular interest to this discussion is Sermo
265D, De Quadragesima Ascensione Domini, a sermon delivered against the
Manicheans and their heresies, which contemplated Christ as a pure emanation
of the deity and neglected his human substance.40 A section of the text com-
menting upon 1 Corinthians 15:54,41 entitled Crux Christi muscipula fuit diab-
olo, displays important verbal and thematic affinities to the interpolated text of
Niðrstigningar saga:42
quid ergo miraris? certe uita est christus: quare mortua est uita? nec anima
mortua est, nec uerbum mortuum est: caro mortua est, ut in ea mors moreretur.
mortem passus, mortem occidit: ad leonem escam in laqueo posuit. piscis si
nihil uellet deuorare, in hamo non caperetur. mortis auidus diabolus fuit, mortis
auarus diabolus fuit. crux christi muscipula fuit: mors christi, immo caro mor-
talis christi tamquam esca in muscipula fuit. uenit, hausit et captus est. ecce
resurrexit christus: mors ubi est? iam in illius carne dicitur, quod in nostra in fine
dicetur: absorta est mors in uictoriam. caro erat, sed corruptio non erat. manente
natura qualitas immutatur: ipsa substantia, sed nullus ibi iam defectus, nulla tar-
ditas, nulla corruptio, nulla indigentia, nihil mortale, nihil quale solemus nosse
terrenum. tangebatur, tractabatur, palpabatur, sed non occidebatur.43
(The Cross of Christ was a mousetrap for the Devil. So why be surprised? Surely,
Christ is life: so why did life die? The soul did not die, the Word did not die, but the
flesh died, so that Death would die in it. Having suffered Death, He slew Death; He
put the bait for the lion in the snare. If the fish did not want to devour anything, he
would not be caught on the fishhook. The Devil was greedy for Death, the Devil
coveted Death. The Cross of Christ was a mousetrap: the death of Christ, or rather
the mortal flesh of Christ, was like a bait in the mousetrap. He came, he swal-
lowed it, and was caught. And Behold, Christ rose up again. Where is Death now?
Already for His flesh can be said what will be said for ours in the end: Death is
swallowed up in victory [1 Corinthians 15:54]. It was flesh, but it was not corrupt-
ible. Its nature remains the same, its quality changes. The substance is the same,
but there is no deficiency there, no tardiness, no corruption, no neediness, nothing
mortal, nothing which we know to be earthly. He was touched, He was patted, but
He was not slain.)
In the Icelandic text, these narrative elements are presented in a different
order due to the necessary reformulation and adaptation of the sermon to the
plot of the pseudo gospel. Nevertheless, the Icelandic compiler seems to be at-
tentive by partly translating and partly accommodating all the above-mentioned
The Textual Interpolations of Niðrstigningar saga 81
similes. Accordingly, the interpolated passage states that upon the death of
Christ in Jerusalem (i.e., before his cross at Golgotha, right above the entrance
to Hell), Satan wanted to tear away the soul of Christ (“slita ondina”), which,
as Augustine asserts, would never die (“nec anima mortua est”).44 The Old
Enemy craved to swallow it (“gløpa” / “devorare”), but being unable to recog-
nize the true nature of Christ – that is, his hidden divinity (“verbum” / “godo-
mens”) – he was instead captured (“veiddr” / “captus”) on the Cross (“Crux
Christi” / “crossmarkit”) like a fish (“piscis” / “fiscr”) on a fishhook (“hamo” /
“øngullinn”), like a mouse in a mousetrap (“musicpula” / “treketti”), or even
caught in a snare (“laqueo” / “gilldro”) like an artic fox (“melracki”) – a neces-
sary adaptation of an African lion (“leo”) into a suitable Nordic equivalent – the
prey most commonly caught in traps in medieval Iceland.45
The sentence describing Satan being physically bound by Christ – “Þa for til
Dominus Noster oc batt hann enn qvade til engla sina at varþveita hann”46
(“Then Our Lord went to him and bound him and ordered his angels to guard
him”) – is a repetition and an anticipation of his final binding before the deliv-
erance of Adam to Paradise47 and should therefore not be considered part of the
interpolation.
Augustine’s Sermo 265D seems to have enjoyed limited circulation in Europe
and is today extant in only two twelfth-century codices: Vatican City, BAV,
4951, copied in Rochester in the first decade of the twelfth century, and
Worcester, Cathedral Library, F 93.48 Although BAV 4951 was copied in
England, the collection it contains shows greater similarity with Roman than
Carolingian homiliaries, it resembles English collections even less, as it gives
much space to the texts of Augustine, pseudo-Augustine, and Caesarius of
Arles. Furthermore, the excellent state of the texts might be proof that it is a
copy of a continental collection of sermons only recently acquired by the
Rochester Cathedral Library.49 Like the two great twelfth-century Rochester
Bibles, sharing both textual and paleographic features with the northern French
Bibles revised at Saint-Germain-des-Prés, the Rochester homiliary may have
been brought to Rochester from Paris (or a nearby region) via Canterbury, which
maintained strong ties with northern France throughout the twelfth century.50
At this point, the question arises as to whether the Icelandic compiler had
access to Sermo 265D at length or whether he had acquaintance with the fish-
hook/mousetrap/snare metaphors through intermediate sources such as com-
mentaries reporting Augustine’s similes, explicit quotations, or scattered or
continuous glosses.
It appears that, after a long absence from theological sources, the metaphor
of the mousetrap for the Cross of Christ surfaces again in the theological and
exegetical writings of Peter Lombard (†1160), Bishop of Paris and one of the
82 Niðrstigningar saga
greatest exponents of the Paris school of theology.51 Perhaps prompted by re-
newed interest in the theological writings of Augustine, the metaphor is used in
the Sententiae in IV libris distinctae, a comprehensive collection of theological
texts extracted from the Bible and from the relevant patristic commentaries
composed by Lombard at Saint Victor Abbey between 1157 and 1158.52 The
excerpts were systematically collected in the form of a continuous gloss di-
vided into four main books, partitioned according to the main theological
themes summarized in the articles of the Creed: the Trinity, the Creation, the
Inca
rnation, and the Sacraments.
The Sententiae enjoyed extensive circulation and, towards the end of the
twelfth century, the completion of individual scholarly commentaries on it be-
came a fundamental requirement for the successful completion of a bachelor’s
degree in theology, the so-called baccalarii Sententiarii, which normally last-
ed two years and later led to the full degree known as “baccalarius formatus.”53
In book 3, distinction 19, chapter 1, which draws extensively on Augustine’s
Sermo 130 (a) – in which Christ is described as the Good Merchant who ran-
somed humanity from the Devil – Lombard illustrates how the Cross func-
tioned as a mousetrap, and Christ’s blood as bait for the devil.54
Per illum ergo redempti sumus, in quo princeps mundi nihil inuenit. Unde au-
gustinus, causam et modum nostrae redemptionis insinuans, ait: Nihil inuenit di-
abolus in christo ut moreretur, sed pro uoluntate patris mori christus uoluit; non
habens mortis causam de peccato, sed de obedientia et iustitia mortem gustauit;
per quam nos redemit a seruitute diaboli. Incideramus enim in principem huius
saeculi, qui seduxit adam et seruum fecit, coepit que nos quasi uernaculos pos-
sidere. Sed uenit redemptor, et uictus est deceptor. Et quid fecit redemptor cap-
tiuatori nostro? Tetendit ei muscipulam, crucem suam; posuit ibi quasi escam,
sanguinem suum. Ille autem sanguinem fudit non debitoris, per quod recessit a
debitoribus. Ille quippe ad hoc sanguinem suum fudit, ut peccata nostra deleret.
Unde ergo diabolus nos tenebat, deletum est sanguine redemptoris: Non enim
tenebat nos nisi uinculis peccatorum nostrorum. Istae erant catenae captiuorum.
Venit ille, alligauit fortem uinculis passionis suae; intrauit in domum eius, id est
in corda eorum ubi ipse habitabat, et uasa eius, scilicet nos, eripuit; quae ille
impleuerat amaritudine sua. Deus autem noster, uasa eius eripiens et sua faciens,
fudit amaritudinem et impleuit dulcedine, per mortem suam a peccatis redimens
et adoptionem gloriae filiorum largiens.55
(Then through Him we have been redeemed, as in Him the Prince of the World
[Satan] has found nothing. Hence, Augustine, alluding to the reason and manner
of our Redemption, said: The Devil found nothing in Christ for which He should